Ian

Food Matters: Paris

One of the pleasures of travel is finding good, local food. And one of my favorite cities for eating is Paris, thanks to an exploding culture of creative cooking that offers more than the sauce-heavy dishes that have long characterized French cuisine. You can spend a fortune dining there, but you don’t have to mortgage your home to enjoy a good meal. The places I love range from inexpensive to slightly-more-than-I’d-probably-spend-at-home, but every one is a good value.
  • La Table d’Aki is where Beth and I had one of our most memorable meals. Every dish–and they only serve seafood–is extraordinarily creative, and the wine list is simple and excellent. Two people, Chef Akihiro and an assistant, do everything from prep to cooking to wiping down the tables. Seating is very limited and reservations are essential. (7th arrondissement)
  • La Mascotte is a Montmartre fixture. Housed in a former hotel where Edith Piaf once lived, they serve a dizzying array of seafood. Here’s my advice: Start with a very good glass of champagne then go straight to les huitres (oysters), which are available from multiple regions and are presented by source and size. Reservations are strongly recommended. (18th)
  • Holybelly has the perfect breakfast, the Savoury Stack: Pancakes and bacon, topped with eggs over easy, served with home made Bourbon syrup. Oh, and their coffee…. (10th)
  • Le Severo is a serious steakhouse owned by a former butcher who has a keen eye for quality beef. We don’t spend a lot of time in the 14th arrondissement, but the trip to this small monument to steak is worth the trip. Trust the owner’s wine recommendations–they have an excellent list at reasonable prices. (14th)
  • Seb’on has an incredible reputation, and it’s only a matter of time before a Michelin star is bestowed on it. The creative menu changes nightly. The food is stellar and a good value to boot. Reserve a table well in advance. (18th)
  • Who travels to Paris to eat fried chicken? Me, that’s who. Ellsworth serves a typical Parisian lunch (entrée, plat, dessert–pick two or three) or you can dine on small plates in the evening. Their out-of-this-world fried chicken is available at either meal. If you skip the chicken (and you shouldn’t), there are plenty of other creative dishes on offer. (1st)
  • You’d never expect to find Babalou tucked away near one of Paris’s biggest tourist attractions, yet there it is around the corner from Sacre Coeur. They serve pasta, but the main draw is pizza with perfectly charred crust. Yes, it’s a pizza joint, but make reservations if you don’t want to be turned away at dinner. (18th)
  • Cave La Bourgogne offers French comfort food in a friendly setting. If you’re up for steak tartare, escargots, sardines in butter or a cassoulet, you can’t go wrong here. Bonus: It’s located on the wonderful Rue Mouffetard, which is perfect for people-watching. (5th)
  • Soul Kitchen is our first choice for a simple breakfast, though the vegetarian lunch menu always looks good. It’s a crowded spot that always seems to be full of moms who have just dropped their kids at school. I always get the same thing: A croissant with jam, fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, and a latté. I never tire of this combination. (18th)
  • On a warm, sunny day find your way to Paname Brewing Company, on the Quai de la Loire, order a beer and some street food, and find a table on the deck overlooking the water. “Fine Parisian beers” used to be an oxymoron, but no more. This is a fun, friendly spot that serves excellent beer and food. (19th)

Pro tip for Paris dining: Reservations are the rule, and it’s good manners to make them and show up exactly on time. That said, many restaurants will do their best to create space for you if you show up and politely request a table. Starting with “Bonjour” or “Bonsoir” will go a long way toward breaking the ice.

Go when you want, see what you like

Whenever I run across the question, “What should I see when I visit [blank]?” I can guess most of the answers. Helpful folks will respond with a list of the usual landmarks, often with tips about avoiding crowds.

There are a lot of people who want nothing more than to shoot a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower. There’s not anything necessarily wrong with that. But Greatest Hits tours of places, particularly major cities, can lead travelers to miss a lot. A lot.
Fiat 500
So here’s a tip: Throw out the guidebooks and steer clear of TripAdvisor, travel when you want and see what you like.

Years ago, my wife Beth and I traveled to Ireland in early October. We booked flights to Shannon and had a rental car waiting. We had a map, but no plans. We had a rough idea of places we wanted to visit, but no hard and fast itinerary for the ten days we would be there. The best experiences we had weren’t in a guidebook–they came from asking a lot of questions and turning down a lot of two track trails. We picked up student hitchhikers, bought drinks for locals in pubs and always asked, “Where should we go next?”

That led us to castles that perhaps one to two people a week visited. We stood five feet away from Chieftain’s flautist Matt Molloy while he played a set with friends in his pub in Westport. We had an impromptu meet up at dinner with acquaintances from the trip including some innkeepers, a Welsh couple and a retired CIA agent. And, we had tea at a house where Charles de Gaulle spent part of his retirement.

Since then, we’ve traveled mostly during the fall and winter. We miss the crowds (well, we don’t really miss them), and we have opportunities to experience things that don’t take place in the crush of summer. Like Nuit Blanche in Paris, where we traveled around the city at night, playing in the fog sculpture at Place de République and running into marching bands that took over city streets.

In the same way, we focus on what we want to see. Like the morning I hung out at Cycles Alex Singer, talking shop in a place that shaped bicycle culture in France since 1938. It’s not in the guidebooks, but to me it’s a bucket list item. There’s a connection, however small, between that shop and my life around bicycles. I can’t say that many of the monuments make the same connection.

In the same way, our visit to Italy this year was guided by one thing: To see as many of Bernini’s works as possible. That’s been Beth’s longtime dream, and though it didn’t rule out visiting the major landmarks–and in fact, many Bernini sculptures are in famous monuments–it took precedence over them.

Everyone’s list of places that matter is different. What stokes your imagination?

Thanks for reading, and if you’re interested in architecture or automobiles look at this album of my photos from the Museo dell’Automobile di Torino. Cars and car culture are interests of mine, and if they’re yours this is a must-see place. Beth, who is more into Bernini than cars, admitted that it was far more interesting than she expected.