The Most Memorable Meals I've Had in Paris
Table pour deux, s'il vous plaît.
I’ve been to Paris 5 times (every trip, a gift), and each time I’m struck by the food. From the bustling cafe culture to the reverence of quality ingredients to the institutions that have served time-worn recipes for hundreds of years. So many of the best meals of my life have been served to me there. Below, my most memorable.
Allard - Since 1932, Allard has been serving elevated, classic French cuisine in the heart of Saint Germain des Près. If it's not broke (and at Allard.. it's certainly not), don't fix it. In Paris for our 1 year wedding anniversary last Fall, we split a roast chicken, a bottle of wine and had the profiteroles for dessert. A slow meal unfolding over the happy din of conversation from our own and nearby tables. We reveled in the fact that in ten years we can likely come back and relive that exact same meal, with equal enjoyment.
Le Colimaçon - A tiny, two story restaurant, all wood beams and rough-hewn charm, eating here feels a bit like you’re at a dinner party in someone’s country home in Provence. All the more so if you’re lucky enough to score the window seat upstairs, that looks out open shutters onto the streets of the Marais below (request it on your reservation - but fair warning, we’ve still not snagged it). Our first visit was on our honeymoon and it was immediately added to our list of mainstays each time we return. We’ve tried a range of things from the menu, all of them 10/10. And it should go without saying - order dessert too.
Café Charlot - The food isn't necessarily the thing here (although my go-to order of a warm goat cheese salad, fries, and Diet Coke single handedly revives me from red eye flights). It's the atmosphere. Bustling with a crowd of chic but not pretentious Parisians and visitors alike, waiters moving with the finesse of figure skaters, cold bottles chilling tableside, partition walls flung wide open so that the whole place feels a bit like it's spilling out into the streets of the Marais. This is the essence of why you come to Paris. To sit in a place like Café Charlot in late afternoon with your only consideration being when you'll switch to wine.
Le Petit Marché - Our first dinner of every trip (even if we have to wait until 10PM for a table). In a bustling bistro in the Marais with a neighborhood vibe that's lively yet romantic, Le Petite Marche serves up French food with an inventive twist. Think roast duck served with caramelized bananas. Or figs in a cinnamon soaked glaze. We've never walked away not happy with the meal we just had.
Maxim's - La belle époque, in all its infinite grandeur. A legendary restaurant since the turn of the century, everyone has made their way through Maxim’s doors over the years. Finally reopened last year - but remaining true to its Art Nouveau glamour - you can still picture the place with Josephine Baker or Yves Saint Laurent in its midst. And while the food and drinks were solid - I think you come here to dine with the ghosts of Coco Chanel and Brigitte Bardot over live jazz. And that, for me, was enough.
Café Des Marronniers - On paper.. this shouldn’t make the list. It’s a no frills outdoor café nestled in the Tuileries Gardens with a straightforward lunch menu. But picture eating in the shade of the trees on a sun-soaked spring afternoon, or a crisp fall day. A perfect caesar salad for me, a burger for him, fries to share. Perfect. Made even better if afterwards you grab a few pâtisseries at Angelina across the park and eat it by one of the fountains.
Café de Flore - 130 some odd years later and if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that the tables are going to be full at Café de Flore. That the waiters are going to be in crisp aprons, expertly carrying full trays loaded with fresh croissants, coffee and tea, jam and juice. That you can wait for a table, just maybe grab a street facing one in a slice of sunshine and hear the echoes of a centuries worth of artists and locals and tourists alike sitting in the same spot. Hemingway at a table nearby. I love it there.
