Bon Appetit!

The best restaurants, food tours, cooking classes, and dishes in the world culinary capital of Paris

Favorite restaurants in Paris
*** Taillevent [€€€€€]
*** Au Bascou [€€–€€€]
** L'Epi Dupin [€–€€€]
** Auberge Etchegorry [€–€€€]
* Les Bouquinistes [€€-€€€]
* Perraudin [€–€€]
* Chantairelle [€€–€€€]
* Brasserie Bofinger [€–€€]
* La Taverne du Sergent Recruteur [€€]
Restaurant du Palais Royal [€€€]
Brasserie Balzar [€–€€]
Auberge de Jarente [€€]
Brasserie Lipp [€–€€]Paris is perhaps the world capital of dining.

For the French, food is close to a religion, and they gladly worship at the altars of their award-winning celebrity chefs.

The costs of dining in Paris

Dinner in Paris is also easier on your wallet than it used to be—though still not cheap.

A full meal will run you €25–€50 per person in most bistros and moderately priced restaurants.

The sky's the limit on the bill in fancy joints run by celebrity chefs. If you insist on a meal liberally sprinkled with Michelin stars, try going at lunch when prices are marginally lower (for example, an a la carte dinner at Taillevent will run you €120–€140; the lunch menu is a "bargain" €82).

You can shave a bit off Parisian dining costs by seeking out:

  1. Prix-fixe menus, a fixed-price meal where you often get a limited choice for each course—starter, main, dessert—but spend far less than ordering from the full a la carte menu (usually €20 to €35). Again, the best bargains in this department are on menu déjuener (lunch menus).
  2. Brasseries, somewhere between a cafe and a restaurants where it's OK to order just a simple, one-plate meal. (I'm partial to choucroute, a platter of sauerkraut and meats, often with cheese.) A few classic Parisian brasseries: Bofinger, Balzar, Lipp.

France's economic crisis in the 1990s forced many restaurants to lower their traditionally astronomical prices (followed by another welcome lowering correction caused by the Euro slump and worldwide economic crises of 2008–11).

Also, in the 1990s many top chefs opened up annexes dubbed "baby bistros," (like Les Bouquinistes) where they serve up ther name-brand culinary creations at (relatively) low prices.

French haute cuisine

Traditional haute cuisine—a delicate balance of flavors, sauces, and ingredients blended with a studied technique—includes such classics as:

And, of course, French cheese is justifiably famous, with softies Brie and Camembert and blue-veined Roquefort topping the list.

French nouvelle cuisine

But when people started thinking healthy a few decades back, buttery, creamy, saucy French cuisine quickly found itself on the "out" list of fatty, cholesterol-heightening foods.

So the French invented nouvelle cuisine, which gave chefs an excuse to concoct new dishes—still French, mind you, but less fattening because they used fewer heavy creams and less butter and served only itty-bitty portions.

When the nouvelle trend lost steam, people began spinning off more healthful (cuisine minceur) and/or more creative (cuisine moderne) cooking styles.

French regional cuisines & glorious peasant dishes

Add to these styles the capital's mix of French regional restaurants (Alsatian, Provençal, Basque, and others), great "peasant" dishes like cassoulet (a glorious and hearty stew of sausages, pressed duck confit, sometimes other meat, white beans, and tomatoes; I'll go way out of my way for a good cassoulet), and the many ethnic restaurants, and you'll never want for dining variety in Paris.

French wines

There's no way I can go fully into French wines here, but your waiter or the restaurant's sommelier (wine steward) should be able to pair your meal with an appropriate vintage.

But be careful—ordering wine by the bottle can jack up the cost of your meal in no time. Table wine by the liter carafe or demi (half a liter) is always cheaper and tastes almost as good as any fancy estate label.

France's top red wines are produced in Bordeaux, Burgundy, Beaujolais, and the Loire and Rhone valleys.

Great French white wines hail from Alsace, the Loire, Burgundy, and Bordeaux.

And don't forget that sparkling white wine from the vineyards east of Paris called Champagne.

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This article was last updated in March 2012. All information was accurate at the time.

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