Paris is considered one of the culinary capitals of the world, and deservedly so. In the 2000s, the French capital’s dining scene was criticised for being slow to evolve, unlike other competitors on the international stage. Such concerns have been more or less neutralised by the steady rise of regional and international cuisines, the runaway success of a number of young owner-chefs, often working in tiny or canteen-style premises, and by the local ‘fooding’ trend and global slow food movement.
The Louvre’s elegant Café Marly
Ming Tang-Evans/Apa Publications
The downside is that eating out in Paris is more expensive than ever, and good bargain bistro fare – the sort of thing visitors to Paris used to rave about on their return home – is harder to find. Consult the list of recommendations in this guide and get the lowdown on the latest new openings in the free weekly guide A Nous Paris (www.anous.fr), available on Mondays in Métro stations.
Classic to Contemporary
The great cuisines of the world can be counted on one hand, and French cuisine is one of them. What the term implies is an established, coherent body of ingredients, techniques and dishes, which have all been developed, studied and perfected by masters of the art over many years.
Chez Prune, great for tapas and people-watching
Ming Tang-Evans/Apa Publications
This is not to say that French food isn’t evolving. New flavours are integrated into the cooking all the time, albeit carefully. Curry, lime, peppers, coconut and lemongrass are all fairly common ingredients on gastronomic menus. Most dishes remain French at the core, but exotic nuances are certainly part of the high-end experience. In the middle ground, couscous is eaten almost as often as bœuf bourguignon, and sushi seems to be the city’s favourite fast food.
Even in terms of technique, French cooking has modernised; sauces and pastries, for example, tend to be lighter than they were previously, and vegetables are more prevalent. Menus have been simplified and better aligned to contemporary appetites.
The advantage of this from a visitor’s perspective is that the classic dishes we dream about can still be found in authentic form on French tables. If you want French onion soup, you can find it. If you order steak au poivre, out will come that desired slab of beef in a creamy, peppery sauce that spills across the plate towards your crispy pile of frites.
Another thing that makes French food extraordinary (and the bad French food, on a gracious day, forgivable) is the degree to which it is social. Even with the increased pace of modern life, the French still believe in sitting down and sharing meals in good company over a bottle of wine – so much so, indeed, that one of the most prominent fashions in recent years has been for canteen-style restaurants where diners rub up together on plain wooden benches seated at long communal tables. After all, food in France is much more than just sustenance.
Le Fooding
The term ‘Le Fooding’, coined in 1999 by journalist Alexandre Cammas, joins the two English words ‘food’ and ‘feeling’ to express an attitude towards dining that emphasises emotion, atmosphere, alluring food presentation, imagination, entertainment and time, as much as high-quality food on the plate. Says Cammas, ‘People need a lot more than just good food to feel well fed.’ It’s all about approaching the table with the mind and all the senses, not just an empty belly and a greedy tongue. In a way, this is what France has always been famous for. For restaurants that share these ideals, visit www.lefooding.com.
Where to Eat
Bistros tend to serve simple, traditional dishes. The food quality varies from one to the next, unlike the menus, which are practically carbon copies of each other: potato and herring salad, duck confit, beef daube, chocolate mousse and tarte Tatin are a few of the classic dishes. Brasseries (the louder, brighter, Belle Epoque option) often offer similar fare, but also specialise in seafood – heaps of oysters, mussels, langoustines, lobsters and clams spinning past on waiters’ dexterous palms – and Alsatian dishes such as choucroute.
Standard, everyday cafés usually serve sandwiches, notably the classic croque-monsieur (grilled ham and cheese) and a variety of salads. However, modern cafés – trendy, chic establishments that pack in fashionable crowds – serve full menus, typically of contemporary, cosmopolitan food with a Mediterranean bent, and often at prices to match full-blown restaurants.
Tipping
A service charge of 12 to 15 percent is, by law, included in the price given at restaurants, bars and cafés, so in theory you don’t have to tip. However, it is polite when paying for drinks to round up the total and to leave one to five euros after a meal, depending on the quality of the service and the restaurant concerned.
Fine Dining
At the high end, Michelin-starred restaurants range from being gloriously old-fashioned, with truffle-studded foie gras terrines and venison in grand old sauces, to being acrobatically cutting-edge (at the time of printing Paris has 10 restaurants with three stars). One of the best ways to enjoy such restaurants is to opt for the chef’s tasting menu (dégustation), which gets you a host of dishes in smaller-than-usual portions. Quite a few of the top-notch addresses serve fixed lunch menus that are significantly cheaper than the à la carte options – but their popularity means you’ll need to book weeks in advance. Getting a table at any currently fashionable restaurant, for that matter, can present the same challenge.
Generally speaking, restaurants serve lunch from noon to 2.30 or 3pm and dinner from around 7 or 8 to 10.30 or 11pm, although this may vary, particularly in August, when many places shut for the summer.
Les Cocottes serves its dishes in cast-iron pots, hence its name
Ming Tang-Evans/Apa Publications
Global Cuisine
If you get to the point where you think you might burst if you look at another plate of French food, take a break at one of the city’s international restaurants. Paris is especially good for food from Morocco, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan. The greatest concentration of Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants is in the 5th and 13th arrondissements (roughly speaking, the Latin Quarter and southeast to the new Left Bank), and Japanese restaurants are numerous in parts of the 1st (especially on and around rue Ste-Anne). The best Moroccan restaurants are dotted across the capital, but the area around the Bastille is a good place to start. There is also excellent Lebanese food to be found in the 8th and 16th arrondissements (Madeleine, Grands Boulevards, Champs-Élysées and West).
The iconic Art Deco La Coupole
Ming Tang-Evans/Apa Publications
Eating Out with Children
Taking your children out to a restaurant should not be a problem, although you should check beforehand with the more upmarket places. French children are used to eating out from an early age, and are therefore generally well behaved in restaurants. Many establishments offer a children’s menu. If not, they may split a prix fixe menu between two. With very young children, just request an extra plate and give them food from your own. With the bread that should come automatically to a French table, and ice-cream or fruit to follow, most children will be well fed.