Friday 22 August 2025 8:37 am
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Friday 22 August 2025 8:47 am
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Photo by Kiran Ridley/Getty Images
It’s easy to eat badly in Paris. Of course it’s easy to eat badly in every major city, but instead of the chain restaurants that stitch together London and temper expectations, Paris eating often involves a sprawling brasserie with tiny tables and an average steak haché at far from average price. Paris Syndrome is real. When I spent a couple of months in the French capital aged 18, my go to meal was baguette and taramasalata from the Carrefour next to my flat. I was broke, but also deterred by Parisian dining’s veil of impenetrability, which oscillates between the tourist traps and the impossibly high-end.
But there’s an undeniable allure to Parisian dining. Right now we’re seeing a wave of Lyonnaise and Parisian bistros popping up across London, from Farringdon to Leytonstone. Mayonnaise and fat and guts and cassoulet are back in a big way. So here’s my guide to the best places to gorge in Paris, from pho to foie gras. Note, the list is ordered (roughly) by price, from cheapest to most expensive.
Urfa Durum, Rue du Faubourg Saint Denis
Tiny Kurdish spot in the 10th arrondissement for excellent durum filled with fresh salad and skewers of grilled lamb, smokey chicken and liver. Most of the wraps are less than €10, and the lahmacun is €4. Popular as a cheap snack or a post-drinks saviour. Take a seat on the chairs outside, sip a frothy ayran and watch as night turns fat-stained sepia.
Urfa Durum
Pho Tai, Rue Philibert Lucot
It would be a massive oversight to visit Paris without seeking out Vietnamese food. The 13th arrondissement is known for some of the best spots, and Pho Tai is a cult favourite. It’s a no-frills restaurant that turns out big bowls of the noodle soup – adorned with meatballs, pink slithers of beef and a tangle of white onion. Flecks of fat skitter across the golden broth that is carefully simmered from bones and aromatics for hours. This place has a devoted following, from the stars of Asian cinema whose pictures line the walls, to Michelin-starred maestro Alain Ducasse.
Pho Tai
Bouillon Chartier, Various Locations
A ‘bouillon’ (stock) restaurant in France has its origins in the 19th century. The idea behind it was a restaurant with a single dish, such as soup or meat simmered in stock, that would be a cheap way to fill up hungry workers. Influenced by Art Nouveau mania that swept Europe towards the end of the century, the restaurants developed a distinctive spacious style of ornate wood panelling, huge mirrors and coloured glass. These cavernous bouillons are aesthetically as French as it gets, and Paris’ three Chartier branches are much loved by Parisians and tourists alike for cheap French staples in a great setting.
Bouillon Chartier
Photo by Kiran Ridley/Getty Images
Le Bar Fleuri, Rue du Plateau
This corner cafe, with gingham tablecloths and wine-laden walls, is known for its €6.86 chicken and chips. A simple serving of roast chicken (what cut you get is a lottery), golden frites and a meaty jus. With a beer and a slice of lemon meringue pie for pudding, this meal won’t set you back more than €15. The service is French (fast and short), but it’s become one of the most affordable lunches in the city and a true Parisian poulet institution.
Le Bar Fleuri
Majouja, Rue Lafitte
This Algerian restaurant near Opera is only open for lunch. It’s canteen style and popular with local office workers, but it’s well worth a visit to try some delicious, homely Algerian cooking. Mhajeb (meat-filled flatbreads), amekfoul (couscous layered with vegetables) and tikourbabine (richly spiced stew with dumplings and chickpeas) are some of the dishes on offer. The staff are really friendly and the food is full of love.
Majouja
EchizenSOBA TOGO, Rue Saint-Roche
This Japanese soba restaurant is conveniently located in the tourist Bermuda Triangle between Place de la Concorde, the Louvre and Opera – so it’s a perfect remedy when another bistro just won’t cut it. Cold, refreshing noodles in sticky summer and steaming-hot noodles in winter. The quality of the soba is as good, and often better, than what you’d eat in Japan. Bouncy noodles, crystalline broth and light tempura. Seating is on one communal table and it doesn’t take reservations, so be prepared to queue (aka an authentic Japanese experience).
EchizenSOBA TOGO
Le Petit Vendôme, Rue des Capucines
This classic French bistro serves up all the Gallic hits: snails, onion soup, andouillette etc. But it’s on this list for the jambon beurre, which, from a queuing perspective, has had the misfortune of being named best sandwich in the world. So if you can stomach the line, your stomach will thank you. A jambon beurre is a perfect sandwich that lives or dies on the ingredients, and Le Petit Vendome gets that. Fat slices of blushing ham, crunchy cornichons, chewy baguette and enough butter to leave teeth marks in.
Le Petit Vendome
P’tit Bon, Rue du Faubourg Poissonnière
Located in the 9th arrondissement and run by a friendly couple, this newish neighbourhood bistro excels at generous, seasonal cooking. The menu is short and changes regularly, but their staple pate en croute is a standout schooling in meaty gelatinous glory. They offer a three course set lunch menu Monday to Friday for €25, which is outrageous value for some really open-handed cooking.
P’tit Bon
Photo by P’tit BonJuveniles, Rue de Richelieu
Another great neighbourhood restaurant, Juveniles veers slightly more towards Mediterranean influences and is a good option for those who want bistro food but are concerned they are developing gout. The wine list is extensive, and they offer a menu du jour (one dish, a glass of wine and a coffee) for €21. Food here is highly seasonal, and it’s one of the best places outside of specialist (read expensive) restaurants to order seafood. Dishes like tuna and green tomatoes, squid and speck tagliatelle, wild turbot and courgette, and razor clams and ginger are cast out when in season.
Juveniles
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Recoin, 60 Rue Saint-Sabin
On a quiet corner of the narrow Rue Saint-Sabin sits Recoin, a wooden fronted bistro with a blue awning which spills higgledy-piggledy onto the street. But the food is anything but haphazard: charred duck hearts on a herb salad, golden potato rosti buried under creme fraiche, beefy croquettes and diaphanous ravioli stuffed with crab. The restaurant has a great wine line that’s not to be missed, and it’s worth coming to Recoin early to sip on pastis in the sun before your meal.
Recoin
Les Arlots, Rue du Faubourg Poissonnière
This lively but intimate bistro is conveniently located a stone’s throw from the underserved Gare du Nord (and just five minutes down from P’tit Bon). The menu is written up daily on a chalk board, and it is excellent classic French bistro cooking, in all its fatty, salty, rich glory. Dishes like saucisse and butter-laden pomme puree with a slick of jus, eggs under a blanket of velvet mayonnaise and salmon roe, and terrine studded with jewels of pistachio and apricot. Save room for the baba au rhum and chocolate mousse, and see off what will be one of your most memorable meals in Paris with a glass or two of eau de vie.
Les Arlots
L’Arpaon, Rue Moncalm
This green shoe-box restaurant near Montmartre is run by three friends and serves small bites with outsized flavour and creativity. The influences are freewheeling, from a vol-au-vent filled with veal tajine, to milk-buns stuffed with tuna and harissa. Even that sacred staple of Parisian dining, the steak tartare, is reverently desecrated and laced with kumquat and cashew, before being finished with chilli oil. The cooking is never boring, surprisingly delicate and always delicious.
L’Arpaon
Le Servan, Rue Saint-Maur
Le Servan is run by French-Filipino sisters Tatiana and Katia. They describe their restaurant as a French bistro with an Asian twist, and you’ll find that in dishes like blistered boudin noir wontons, white asparagus dressed with a Thai green curry sabayon and sweetbreads with chilli chutney. The snacks here are delicious, and make sure to order the thick slice of golden-sweet brioche draped with marinated sardines and smoked butter. ~
Le Servan
Parcelles, Rue Chapon
This restaurant in the 3rd arrondissement is a real looker, all white table cloths, stone walls, sunken, bronzed lighting and with a low-slung cafe-curtain blocking out half the day like a long lunch. The menu is short and elegant, the food unfussy and thoughtful, the bread wholesome and holey. Which is to say, everything they do here is done really well. Specialities include crispy, yielding veal sweetbreads and fat pillows of buttery gnocchi. Parcelles sources some of the most exciting wine in the country, and the excellent team are more than happy to talk you through the list and make recommendations.
Parcelles
Bistrot Des Tournelles, Rue des Tournelles
This bistro has only been open since 2022, but everything about it (bar, perhaps, the price) is designed to make it feel like it’s been around for decades. From the brooding claret exterior to the organised chaos within, Tournelles has become a mainstay on the Parisian dining scene. It’s received a huge amount of accolades and is frequently named Paris’ best bistro. It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that Bouchon Racine – London’s best French restaurant – opened in the same year. The new bistro masquerading as old is back in a big way, and Tournelles is the benchmark. People tend to hark on about the cordon bleu, but their crème brûlée is perfectly executed workhorse pudding that epitomises just how good this place is. If you can’t get a table here, try Bistrot Paul Bert, which Tournelles is undoubtedly indebted to.
Bistrot Des Tournelles
Le Rigamarole, Rue du Grand Prieuré
This tiny Franco-Japanese spot is run by husband and wife duo Robert and Jessica. This restaurant is serving some of the most interesting food in Paris right now. It is also coincidentally serving the best pizza in Paris right now. Lunches here are slow, bordering on ritualistic, and bring together two dining cultures that take eating seriously. If you can’t get a table here, then check out the couple’s second location down the road, Folderol, an ice cream wine bar. People spill into the street sipping pet nat and spooning rich, chewy, ice creams.
Le Rigamarole
19 Saint-Roch, Rue Saint-Roch
This stylish restaurant in the 1st arrondissement is run by chef Pierre Touitou. The food is rooted in French cooking, but with ingredients and techniques often popping up from Japan or North Africa. It’s playful, precise cooking in impossibly chic surroundings. Touitou serves up dishes like ‘KFC’ deep-fried monkfish and tonkatsu schnitzel. The ile flottante sits in a sea of creme anglaise awash with chilli pepper. It’s dazzling cooking.
19 Saint-Roch
Aldehyde, Rue du Pont Louis-Philippe
This small, Michelin-starred restaurant overseen by Tunisian-born chef Youssef Marzouk, recently turned one-year old, but has already made a splash on the Parisian fine dining scene. The four-course tasting menu at lunch is a very reasonable €75 (dinner is 5 courses for €110). The service and food is full of charm and creativity, with Tunisia ever present in the fragrant snatches of orange blossom and olive oil and ras el hanout that appear throughout the meal. The team is small and ambitious, and it feels like this place is only poised to go from strength to strength.
Aldehyde
AT, Rue du Cardinal Lemoine
Atsushi Tanaka has been dubbed “the Picasso of the kitchen” by his mentor, and chef royalty, Pierre Gagnaire. And there is the sense Tanaka is Paris’ new Dauphin. His restaurant AT – a Nordic-Japanese-French tour de force – is very beautiful and very serious. It has one Michelin star and has tasting menus at €85 (short) and €190 (full) – which would cost a good deal more if AT was in London. Tanaka is an aesthete to the extreme, but the food is also exquisitely tasty. It’s thoughtful and occasionally provocative cooking, but it’s never pointless.
AT
Le Clarence, Av. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
An icon, an institution, une beauté, and head and shoulders more expensive than anywhere on this list. But, and it’s a couched ‘but’, if you go for the €150 set lunch menu, then you can sample chef Christophe Pelé’s cooking without totally bankrupting yourself. Le Clarence boasts one of the most opulent dining rooms in Paris, where starch and silver rule supreme; heavy rugs and drapes muffle the clatter and chatter of within, and the occasional scream when the bill arrives. Paris is a city hardly lacking in fine dining – it sees itself as both benchmark and progenitor – but if you only go for one blow out meal, my money would be on Le Clarence.
Le Clarence
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