Was recommended to post here after also posting on FODORs…
My partner and I are about two weeks away from being in Paris, having not been back since 2019 (Italy & Austria have stolen us away in the years since). Sadly, many of the restaurants we went to back then are now closed, and despite having restaurant picking in Italy down to a well-oiled machine, I feel hopelessly lost in Paris.
We are staying on the border of the 7th at Hôtel Montalembert, and for dinner we are looking to stay with a ~30ish minute walking radius from the hotel. However, we may be willing to uber if there’s a restaurant that’s really worth it that’s further away. Presently, we have the following places picked out (have to narrow down to 4):
Le Bon Saint Pourçain
La Pie Noir
Rosemarie
La Grivoiserie
L’Atelier Rouliere
Restaurant Chez Lionel Paris 6
Chez Marcel
Bistrot Chez France
Hestia
Pertinence
Le Florimond
L’Ami Jean
As every tourist says, we are of course looking to avoid “tourist traps”, with an eye toward traditional French cuisine.
So, if you’re reading this and have tried any of these restaurants, which, if any, would you recommend, and which, if any, would you avoid? Also, if you have any recommendations based off this type of food we’re looking at, please feel free to mention!
L’Ami Jean - which has been written up extensively - look it up on HO if it fits your interest. Great rice pudding. L’Ami Jean felt great in 2010-2011-ish, but less impressive in 2014-ish for us (definitely was very touristy in 2014).
While not traditional, I would suggest Hémicycle and one of the Japanese/French options Pertinence, Montee or ES.
Although L’Ami Jean always has its share of tourists present (us included), it has been a favorite of ours for years. The Chef is excellent and the menu is extensive enough to provide variation. Every time we spend a month in Paris (3 times over the past 6 or so years, most recently this past May) we go here at least twice and are always satisfied. As are any friends we bring.
You’re listing lots of restaurants that I’ve not been to or that I have not even heard of, so we may be looking for different things. Of the ones you list, I would say:
Hestia – very good
Le Bon Saint Pourçain – good
Pertinence – was great until they got the Michelin star and then, as too frequently happens, they seemed to give up trying.
Thanks for saying that so frankly; I was starting to get the sense that this list of restaurants is “out of left field” based off the responses here and on FODORs… basically, no one seems to know anything about them. But, until you said it, it was still a hunch. Now I’m wondering if I’m picking a bunch of tourist trap places or something
I’m really just looking for good classic French foods (excl. seafood); while I can afford to go up to 1 Michelin star restaurant prices, I think for this trip I’m looking for less formal environments. I’ve just been starting on Google, minimum 4.5 stars, and scrolling through reviews to see if 1) I like the food options, 2) if the bulk of the reviews are in French or not, 3) Make sure the open/close hours follow the 12-2pm lunch and then 7-10/11 dinner times; open all day usually means touristy, and 4) Website only offered in French and at most, English). I’ll typically cross-reference reviews with TripAdvisor and TheFork (if the restaurant is on there) to make sure there’s no big disparity. This has served me pretty well all throughout Italy, but Paris seems to be a more complicated beast. Or, I’m just overthinking it as it’s been a while since I’ve been back.
Appreciate your feedback on the trio of restaurants. That was my concern with Pertinence so I’ll probably bin that option. Did you find Hestia to be very touristy? I know the street it’s on is infamous as a tourist trap place, but the vibe of the restaurant doesn’t seem so.
Points 3 & 4 in the second paragraph added after my original posting.
Thank you! I see you also enjoyed Oktobre. I was itching to go there but it appears they are closed the entire time I’m in Paris (Apr 29-May 3) which was quite disappointing.
I am really enjoying going through your reviews on your site, but figured it may be easier to ask you directly: any recommendations in the area like Oktobre that you’d recommend?
For some reason, I’ve never been to Ze Kitchen Gallerie that beam refers to, but I’ve heard only positive things about it. Le Christine and Colvert are both quality places with modern French cuisine and good wien lists, but do not have the inventiveness of Oktobre.
Thank you for the recommendation! I’m torn between here and Ambos; have you dined at the latter before?
I also stumbled upon Cafe des Ministeres which is to the T what we have been looking for. Figured I’d see if the hotel concierge could pull a miracle and get us in for dinner; they are Clefs d’Or so worth a shot…
For our L’Ami Jean night our prime motivator was being somewhere close to the Eiffel Tower so we could walk there after. Basically east of the champ-de-mars, west of Les invalides and north of the cavalerie. Any recommendations in that area you would consider swapping L’Ami Jean for or stick with it? Our curiosity is more than peaked with the reviews here so we’ll probably stay with it but figured I’d ask
Funnily enough we initially booked Le Christine and Colvert both, after the bummer of Oktobre being closed for our dates. Then we read more reviews and found people saying they ask for American size tips and pushed hard for meal upgrades. That didn’t sit well with us so we bailed. And please know, nothing to do with not wanting to compensate workers, it just set off red flags of being primarily tourist catered clientele.
The asking for American size tips seems to have begun with the Olympics last year to prey upon tourists who didn’t know that by law service of 15% is included in the bill. As far as I can tell, it is part of the program for processing credit cards and the restaurant has no choice. Just press ignore or zero ; no one will hold it against you.
I think it is worthwhile going to Ami Jean. Be sure to sample ritz au lait. Perhaps my initial lack of enthusiasm was colored by having been there a bunch of times, and having less enthusiasm to return. In your case, food and vibe a good, location fits your purpose, I would absolutely stick with it.
Glad to see you over here. I was the one who recommended HO. I love Fodors for travel advice but not so much for food advice . We went to Paris every year for 12-15 years ( work conference) and I used Chowhound (rip) for great restaurant advice. This is a good replacement. Also, SFCarole has some great trip reports for Paris on this site.
Thank you! Sadly our concierge was unable to even get us on the wait list for the Cafe. Bummer.
I saw Au Petit Tonneau mentioned a couple times on some threads as a potential alternative to the Cafe; any thoughts on that? The thought of a good beef chateaubriand has me salivating.
Thank you so much for the recommendation! I think every spare second I’ve had I’ve been devouring as much information here as possible. My husband is quite annoyed with me but I just tell him we’ll be well educated if we ever get a place in Paris
Every year before we went to Europe my favorite part was researching restaurants and interesting sites to see. I miss it but have lots of great food in California I’m concentrating on these days…Have a wonderful time. We stayed on the right bank for most of the years we went to Paris, so my favorite restaurants are in the third and 11th. Kubri was excellent on our last trip.
Another good list of restaurants and he’s written some great books about moving to Paris. DavidL was Alice waters first pastry chef at Chez Panisse…
Re: Pertinence, if you are interested in French-by-a-Japanese-chef type place, my recommendations would be:
Alliance (but go for lunch)
Perception (go for dinner, and the chef is actually Korean, but the style is very similar, with some slight Korean touches)
Akabeko in the 6e, where I’ve only been for lunch; you can read some about it here.
Most on this board seem to agree on Alliance. Many but not all agree on Perception. Akabeko is much newer and gets fewer comments either way
. We went to Paris every year for 12-15 years ( work conference) and I used Chowhound (rip) for great restaurant advice. This is a good replacement. Also, SFCarole has some great trip reports for Paris on this site.
