Paris with a Toddler

Regional Dining Discussions France
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Hi all,

We’re looking for some newish restaurants recs for eating in Paris with a toddler. He’s very capable of sitting through a 2 hour meal (and we’ll have a seat for him that hooks onto the table, so no high chairs are needed). Bistros and 3 course prix fixe is fine, but obviously no tasting menus. We’ve already booked Parcelles.

Pre-baby/covid we used to go to Paris twice a year to eat, and some things we’ve enjoyed in the past that would be appropriate for him include:

Amarante
Tomy and Co
Papillon
Arnaud Nicolas
Gare au Gorille
Le Comptoir
L’Assiette (14th)

What’s new and great that we should check out?

Thank you!

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Monday dinner: Parcelles (I have a backup Wednesday lunch res if I can’t snag dinner when the books open)
Tuesday dinner: Amarante
Wednesday dinner: Jeanne-Aimée (it looks like dinner is currently a la carte? Is lunch a better choice?)
Thursday dinner: ?

Tuesday lunch:
Wednesday lunch:
Thursday lunch:

We will likely do one lunch at Arnaud Nicolas.

Yay or nay on the following?
Pétrelle
Pouliche
Hugo & Co
Eels

What else should I be looking at?

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If you want something more casual you could go to the Marches des Enfants Rouge which is a covered market with lots of dining options. There is a very good place that we’ve eaten in a couple times-Les Enfants Du Marche. Also loved Kubri on our trip last year and we had a good meal at Parcelles. I’m beyond impressed that you have a toddler that will sit for two hours. I’m reliving the toddler years with my grandkids and we have to eat early and go to big casual places where no one will look askance. Luckily in Calif there’s a lot of good noisy casual places…:grin:

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Thank you, the market is a great idea, and we’re staying in the Haut Marais so it’s also convenient.

He loves to eat! At 18 months old he begs for spicy food - loves Sichuan - and likes to munch on raw onions and garlic, and eat pats of butter, while I’m cooking. It’s bizarre, but it makes dining out very easy! He does make a giant mess all over the floor beneath his chair though :grimacing: so we do try to sit outside whenever possible (we also live in California).

I’m more worried about the nap schedule - his normal bedtime is 730ish, so he’s going to have to add a 2nd late nap to make it to dinner in France. I’ve been agonizing over it a little, but my mother just brushed it off with, “Well, if he’s going to be a good traveler he’s going to have to be flexible.” Lololol mom.

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In case you do want to get some Sichuan in Paris - we miss Japanese/Chinese cuisine when we are on long trips. Right on Rue Volta is Maison de Chengdu. It’s a very basic, homey Sichuan, but is good if you need a change of pace. Interestingly, you’ll find a collection of Chinese Restaurant somewhat hidden away there. I did a bit of research and found that the first Chinese immigrants, mostly from Wengzhou first settled in the Arts Et Métiers area in the early 1900’s.

古味成都 Maison De Chengdu
16 Rue Volta, 75003 Paris, France
Paris - The View from Galeries Lafayette Haussmann and Lunch at Maison de Chengdu (Yet Again) - mmm-yoso!!! (typepad.com)

Also, our favorite restaurant in the area is Les Enfants Rouge, on Rue de Beauce right next to Marché Couvert des Enfants Rouges. We’ve visited four times, and getting in during lunch is quite easy.

Les Enfants Rouges
9 Rue de Beauce, 75003 Paris, France

It’s one of those restaurants that was part of the “Japanese Chef” revolution that I believe started around 2020. It might be worthwhile for a weekday lunch?

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The Japanese chef revolution started a lot earlier than 2020. It dates to the first half of the 2010s (when my experience with Japanese chefs here began), at the latest.

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Yes, I meant in the 2010’s. I first recall reading about this in 2016 when Clown Bar was making waves.

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It’s been a while now, but we had no problems taking our well behaved small child to restaurants in France. People seemed charmed that she was interested in the food. Our first night in Paris she was so jet lagged that she fell asleep holding a piece of cheese - didn’t let it go through the whole nap/dinner. I think you will find that it isn’t a problem at all.

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Our experience was similar. One evening we stood in line with our daughter sleeping in a stroller at Relais de Venise. She woke up just as a table opened up. The waiter assumed she would be sampling from our plates, but she insisted on her own order of steak frites and proceeded to charm the waitstaff as she ate nearly a full portion.

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Yes, by 2015 I’d been to Neige d’ete, Alliance, and AT, amongst others.

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I will check it out, thanks!

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Your own selections are so sound that it even looks like you don’t need any recommendations.

I am inclined to validate all of them, with a nay on Pouliche, a place with high potential which has been completely blurred by the propaganda of a Versailles-like court when it opened and, regrettably, didn’t deliver. (They even put our dear John Talbott’s life in jeopardy by not filling a hole in the floor which almost made him stumble, and never apologized.) Please take the nay with a grain of salt, since Pouliche may have reajusted itself since then, but I think there are more interesting addresses to discover before that one.

Hugo & Co = good, also one of the few worthy places in that part of the 5th (but beware, now there is Bacav’ by Gilles Choukroun, a true gem; and Dame Augustine, which incidentally I stayed away from although it was in my neighborhood, but discovered two weeks ago thanks to a press lunch, and really wasn’t bad at all.

Pétrelle, Eels, Amarante, Papillon, Arnaud Nicolas, L’Assiette, and the very overlooked Gare au Gorille: all restaurants that I would heartily recommend.

Le Comptoir : do you mean Le Comptoir du Relais, at Odéon?

There is really nothing to say against Parcelles, everybody seems to love it, but for some reason it leaves me a bit on the cool side. There is something a bit too “clean” about it, too cute perhaps, and I’m not sure the place is really worth all the reservation trouble when there are so many more places to discover.

Like, for instance, Bacav’ (already mentioned), Caché, Automne, Neige d’été, Quinsou, or Flocon.

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A few years ago my wife and I ate at Hugo & Co. The food was good, but there was a problem. We had a reservation for 21:15, but the table wasn’t free yet. So we had to stand outside for over 10 minutes before we could get in.

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Having just been to Pouliche for our 3rd (and likely last, at least for a long while) time last week, I agree with Carm on that one. While the intro shared appetizers were pretty good, the rest of the savory food was mostly just ok, the monkfish served to me and to my uncle was poor quality and overcooked, and the service was really sloooow, with very long breaks after the beginning, and where they took forever to bring us our bill, even after we asked for it, twice, at the end.

They are open Mondays, which is one thing they’ve still got going for them in my book. The desserts were pretty good, and the prices are very reasonable. But you can likely do better.

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Thanks for the vote of confidence @Carmenere !

I’ll get rid of Pouliche on your and others recommendations, and sadly, I think I also need to nix Petrelle - it looks wonderful, but it seems they only offer a 4 course menu, which I think would be pushing it with a toddler.

We will probably do Parcelles because it’s less than 10 minutes walk from our Airbnb (and we will have just gotten off the TGV from Bordeaux), and is open on a Monday.

I think Papillon closed, no? That was a place we went to for lunch every time we were in town, and I loved it, But I can’t seem to figure out where the chef has gone, he seems totally under the radar on social media and elsewhere. Another place I really liked for lunch was Alleno’s Terroir Parisien - is he doing anything else like that these days? (We had one absolutely fabulous meal at Ledoyen when he was gunning for 3 stars, and then a very mediocre meal on a return visit). And yes, Le Comptoir du Relais - I haven’t been in probably a decade, but had several good meals there when it was a hot table.

I will look up your recommendations - Neige d’ete I’ve been to but is out this trip because of the tasting menu, Flocon is a spot I had bookmarked previously and would like to check out. Right now we have one lunch and one dinner to fill. Is there any chance you have a good lunch rec in the 8th or 16th - I have a note to myself about Bistrot Flaubert? And any thoughts on Le Mazenay for dinner?

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This sounds like every restaurant in NY these days! But I’m surprised the concept of turning tables like that has come to Paris…I can’t ever remember multiple seatings in a restaurant aside from maybe Paul Bert.

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Hasn’t there always been two seatings in Paris restaurants? We went for many years and since my husband was working I always signed up for first seating which was usually 7 or 7:30pm.

Another casual spot in the Marais is Breizh cafe and very family friendly. We also checked out Bistro des Tournelles last year and weren’t super impressed but maybe ordered unwisely. A place we wanted to go but it didn’t work out was Chocho and we’ve gotten small plates at Le Mary Celeste for years.

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I think so? But I can’t ever remember having to either wait for a table or being kicked out which is par for the course in a lot of other big cities (including Tokyo!.. we once stood outside a very high end sushi-ya for 20 minutes waiting for the first seating to finish).

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Do you, by chance, have any Bordeaux recommendations? I’m having trouble finding anything trustworthy online. A friend booked lunch for us at Zepherine, and everyone seems to push La Tupina and Au Bistrot.

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It’s been 5 years, but I had a wonderful meal at Bouchon Bordelaise. Most places I ate in Bordeaux were very good.

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