We’ve rated Datil as GOOD ★★

13 Rue des Gravilliers, 75003
Open Wednesday-Friday for lunch & dinner
Open Monday & Tuesday for dinner only
Closed Saturday & Sunday
Reservations online or at +33 1 80 05 74 98

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

In the autumn of 2023, I texted a friend from the middle of a meal to tell them I was eating something outstanding. That happens a few times a year, out of more than a hundred restaurants. It happened then at Datil.

Datil opened that year on rue des Gravilliers, in the northern Marais, in a long atelier with a glass roof over the middle of it. It is the first restaurant from Manon Fleury, who runs the kitchen with her co-chef Laurène Barjhoux. The food is plant-forward with fish and meat used as condiment rather than centerpiece — and the whole project is built on short supply chains, small producers, and a zero-waste ethic that feels real rather than decorative.

In 2023, my five-course menu felt like a steal. It opened with a suite of four small things all made from corn, including a broth infused from the parts of the cob that usually get thrown away, and it was smart and delicious at once. There was one dish I didn’t love. It didn’t matter. At 65€, a bargain absorbs a misstep. I rated Datil GREAT and put it on our 50 Favorites, where it stayed until our most recent update.

I returned in June to check on Datil, as we do for every restaurant that’s on our list of 50 favorites. The most important change I noted is that the price has risen since Datil was awarded a Michelin star. Lunch is now 95€, a 46% increase for the same five courses.

THE FOOD

The meal opens exactly as it did in 2023 — a four-part overture built from a single vegetable, with the discarded parts of that vegetable infused into a drink. This June it was asparagus: a consommé of asparagus skins, a cracking tuile, a small pot of sliced asparagus concealing a cold-confited egg yolk, and a tremendous herb fritter.

The fritter was the best thing on the table: a whole fistful of herbs, fried, salty and light and fun to eat with your fingers. It was also the only part of this overture with no asparagus in it.

When the next course arrived, the asparagus reappeared. White spears stood upright, draped in a foam flavored with capers, parmesan, anchovy, parsley and lemon. A Caesar salad, essentially, and a good one. I liked it.

I liked it and I was still annoyed, because it was the fourth asparagus dish at a time when Paris markets were full of so many other delicious things — broad beans, artichokes, courgettes, radishes and cherries. The restaurant has since explained on Instagram that this was deliberate — for the first time, two dishes built together with asparagus as the through-line. Which means nobody in the kitchen was troubled by the repetition. I thought it was a spear too far.

The kohlrabi course was lovely, and the best-conceived plate of the day: raw shaved courgette and kohlrabi sharpened with preserved lemon and cornichon, over a pumpkin seed pesto, with a saffron sauce poured on top. It looked beautiful and it ate beautifully.

The fourth course, “salads, apricot and tuna,” is two plates, and they could not have been further apart.

The tuna was a ssam, after the Korean dish — tuna and roast apricot on butter lettuce, to be folded and eaten by hand. It was genuinely good, and if I’d been served it on its own I’d have been happy.

The other plate was a mistake. It’s described as a millefeuille of different salad leaves: layers of potato, a filling of almond praline with fresh apricot and nasturtium leaves on top, and a butternut-almond-miso condiment on the side. Individually, none of those things is wrong. Together they tasted like two or three different vegan dishes from a food co-op, mixed in a takeout box on the way home. I ate very little of it.

Dessert was a fraisier, deconstructed — sponge, whole strawberries, a tarragon-infused cream, and an olive sorbet for depth. The restaurant describes it as a childhood birthday memory rebuilt with pastry chef Ysaline Guibertin.

Mignardises followed, closing with a tea infused from plum stones, the same gesture as in 2023.

THE DRINKS

The wine list is beautiful, heavily weighted toward female producers, and it climbs steeply — reds open around 50€ and reach 350€. Pairings are 65€ at lunch and 85€ at dinner, and on my previous visit I put myself in the sommelier’s hands and she really delivered.

But beyond the wine list, Datil is an outstanding place for non-alcoholic drinks. There’s a house pétillant alternatif called Oma Frida, made with verjus, linden, rosemary and elderflower (12€). There’s a cold-brewed Milky Oolong served iced, four juices from Nos jardins imparfaits in the Franche-Comté at 11€ each, and kombuchas from Archipel in Paris. And there are full 75cl bottles, properly made, at 40–45€.

We drank the Oma Frida to start and then a bottle of Elsa Steullet’s “Christine,” a fermented pear with meadowsweet and citron, for 40€. It was the same sommelier who steered us there, and she was as good on this list as she is on the wine.

THE VIBE

The feeling is unchanged, and still lovely. The room is calm and full of light. Service is warm, unhurried, and entirely free of the stiffness that a star often brings.

And it’s still very earnest: you are handed a printed card before you eat: nineteen staff named, eight producers thanked by first name, an invitation to listen to their recorded voices in the bathroom, a promise of generosity and joy and attention to human and environmental issues.

I believe all of it. The zero-waste ethic is genuinely on the plate — the asparagus skins in the consommé, the plum stones in the closing tea. The producers are real. The kindness is real.

THE VERDICT

Following this return visit, Datil moves from ★★★ GREAT to ★★ GOOD, and comes off our list of 50 Favorites. Nothing here is broken. The kitchen can plainly cook: the tuna ssam, the kohlrabi and the herb fritter were all excellent, and the asparagus Caesar was a delight despite the repetition. The room is one of the nicest in the Marais. The sommelier is a pleasure.

What’s missing is someone saying no. No to a fourth asparagus. No to the salad millefeuille. In 2023 those calls barely mattered, because lunch was 65€ and a bargain forgives a dud. At 95€ I need the dishes to hit differently. I need to not feel repetition. I need a little more excitement alongside my kitchen scrap recycling.

Still go if you want one of the most thoughtful non-alcoholic drinks programs in Paris — this is a restaurant where a non-drinker eats and drinks properly, not apologetically.

Still go if you’re vegetarian — the tasting menu as printed is not vegetarian, but the kitchen will make it so if you ask when you book. I confirmed this with the staff. Given how good this kitchen is with vegetables, that’s a real offer.

Think twice if you are counting the cost. When I think of the other tasting menu lunches I’ve recently loved (Ebène, Cypsèle, Bittikesu), Datil isn’t delivering at the same level. Datil is still good, but there’s a gap now between the plate and the price.

DATIL

13 Rue des Gravilliers, 75003
Open Wednesday-Friday for lunch & dinner
Open Monday & Tuesday for dinner only
Closed Saturday & Sunday
Reservations online or at +33 1 80 05 74 98

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Le Christine sits on the rue Christine in a pocket of the 6th where galleries, antique shops, and small bookstores outnumber every other kind of commerce. The Beaux-Arts is a stone’s throw away. These quiet streets are the Saint-Germain that travelers dream about, including the many readers and tour guests who have recommended Le Christine to me. I finally followed your advice and made it into this restaurant with a giant fork mounted over its green facade.

Chef Rodolphe Despagne, whose training runs through Garance and Le Grand Véfour, developed a passion for fermentation and smoking during a stint in Copenhagen, and both threads run visibly through his cooking. This is his first menu as head chef, and it’s a confident one. But I have strong thoughts on how to order here.

I first came in April with three of our wonderful tour guides. We ordered à la carte that night, and the experience left me frustrated. I loved the food, but the prices were high for portions that felt shockingly small. In June, I returned to try a different format — the six-course tasting menu with the wine pairing, and it was one of the most exciting meals I’ve had in Saint-Germain. Good enough, in fact, to land Le Christine on our list of 50 Favorite Restaurants in Paris.

THE FOOD

The June tasting began the way both meals here begin: with a parade of amuse-bouches. A miniature olive tree arrives hung with edible “olives” that snap open into gilda flavors of anchovy and pepper.

My favorite was “roasted chicken in one bite” — chicken breast mixed with wine, dehydrated, and layered with lettuce. It sounds strange, and it tasted uncannily like a bite of Sunday roast chicken with salad. I also loved the puff pastry filled with Isigny cream and Parmesan, topped with briny bottarga.

From there, the six courses (105€). The white asparagus arrives over a thin tart with a sauce of vin jaune and 30-month Comté, finished with a drizzle of fir tree oil.

The grilled sardine is the chef’s signature dish: draped with smoky lardo di Colonnata over a beurre blanc with toasted kombu oil, with small fried croutons beneath for crunch. It comes with the house-made brioche feuilletée, fermented for three days before baking.

The amberjack comes in two parts. First, some luxurious slices of amberjack belly smoked on the barbecue, served over a tempura bite with horseradish. Next: filet of amberjack that’s been matured for a week, swimming in a sauce of kombu infused with rhubarb and elderflower.

The quail is a highlight — marinated in krung, a Cambodian aromatic paste built on lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, garlic, and turmeric, then grilled over binchotan alongside charred sucrine lettuce. The cold white sauce is spiked with Kampot pepper. The Cambodian thread is personal: the chef’s wife comes from Cambodia, and her influence runs through the menu alongside Despagne’s fermentation work.

The cheese course, inspired by the work of Anne-Sophie Pic, is extra-old Mimolette with honey and lemon: familiar flavors that are hard to imagine together, and very successful.

Dessert is a chocolate soufflé crêpe with buckwheat praline, sobacha custard, and puffed buckwheat on top.

Mignardises close the meal: a rice pudding cake, a mini Saint-Honoré, and melon pâte de fruit.

The portions and pacing all made sense with this tasting menu format (105€). By the end of that dinner in June, our table was unanimous: Le Christine is a surprisingly wonderful restaurant. I don’t think any of us expected to eat this well surrounded by travelers in the heart of Saint-Germain.

Our verdict was different in April. That night we ordered à la carte, and I need to warn you against doing the same. The cooking was delicious — I wanted more of everything at every turn — but the à la carte portions were confusingly smaller than tasting-menu portions.

The roasted saddle of lamb (44€) was a single two-inch medallion that was smaller than the accompanying leaf. Two bites, max.

The scallop main (42€) appeared to be one fat scallop, sliced in half and fanned into several segments. The portions were so unusually small that I genuinely wondered if the kitchen had made a mistake.

There were many bright spots, including the asparagus tart that we tasted again in June, but we left the table hungry. My guests felt ripped off on my behalf. The return visit in June was a redemption for this kitchen, but I have to underline that Le Christine works best when you order the tasting menu.

THE DRINKS

The wine list runs past 500 references, with serious depth in Burgundy and a really excellent selection of champagnes — which we made use of in April, when I learned an hour before dinner that one of our guides had received her French citizenship that very day. A friend in the wine industry studied the list online and steered us to R. Pouillon's "Les Chataigniers" (139€), a single-vineyard Pinot Meunier that made the toast feel properly celebratory. Le Christine also offers wine pairings with both tasting menus (55€ with the five-course, 75€ with the six). We went this route in June and were very happy. The sommelier was very chatty and glad to share detail about every selection. For non-drinkers, there are house fermentations — a honey ginger beer and a red fruit kombucha (9€) — along with juices from L'Arbre à Jus.

THE VIBE

The dining room mixes exposed stone and terra cotta walls, old dark beams overhead, and herringbone parquet with softer touches: pleated string pendant lamps, velvet banquettes, a wainscot of scalloped green tile, tabletops traced in raised web-like patterns. A window at the back opens onto the kitchen. Nothing about the room is chasing a trend — this is not the young, natural-wine-fueled energy of the 11th. Le Christine is built for a well-heeled Saint-Germain crowd that wants to be cared for, in comfortable banquettes, with service that moves seamlessly into English when necessary.

THE VERDICT

If you order the tasting menu — 80€ for five courses (with a vegetarian option available) or 105€ for six — Le Christine is an easy recommendation. It’s ambitious, personal cooking in the prettiest corner of Saint-Germain, with warm English-friendly service. They are open every day. There's also a three-course lunch at 45€ on weekdays, which may be the gentlest introduction of all. Just don't order à la carte.

LE CHRISTINE

1 Rue Christine, 75006
Open every day for lunch & dinner
Reservations online or at +33 1 40 51 71 64

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Our food tours have been praised by The New York Times, Food & Wine magazine, the BBC, the Washington Post, Rick Steves, and the LA Times. We’ve been the #1 food tour on TripAdvisor for more than a decade.

Calcifer is rated GOOD ★ ★

41 Rue Notre Dame de Nazareth, 75003
Open Wednesday-Sunday for lunch & dinner
Closed Monday & Tuesday
Reservations online or at +33 1 86 04 90 83

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

Live-fire restaurants usually announce themselves with smoke and swagger. Calcifer is quieter than that. The flame here isn’t the point so much as the method — it turns up the flavor of whatever it touches and then gets out of the way. When it works, as it does with a duck breast I’m still thinking about, the results are as good as anything I’ve eaten this year.

The restaurant opened this spring in the old Istr space near République. It’s the first solo venture for Antoine Rollin, who ran dining rooms at Le Gabriel, Le Bistrot Flaubert, and Hémicycle. In the kitchen is Gaétano Carpinelli, a young Italian chef who trained at Passerini and Maison Troisgros. The cooking is Basque and Spanish at heart, with flashes of Asian spice.

THE FOOD

The menu moves fast. I ate here twice in seventeen days and nearly everything had changed from one carte to the next. But one constant — for very good reason — is the magret de canard. The duck breast arrives sliced over green beans, the skin crusted dark in licorice, the meat beneath rosy and yielding, fresh-herb condiments cutting the sweetness. It’s one of the best things I’ve eaten this year.

The kitchen is just as good on beef. The picanha of Jersey beef came properly charred and evenly rare, sliced onto a silver platter in its own jus — the sort of thing that looks simple and almost never is.

And if you’re dining with seafood lovers, order the whole Brill in pil pil. A whole fish arrives bronzed and glistening in a collagen-enriched sauce slicked with sliced garlic and a scatter of guindilla chilies — a classic Basque preparation, executed beautifully.

The suckling pig is the one thing I’d pass on. The skin blisters and lacquers as it should and it’s beautifully cooked. But an animal this size ought to be somebody’s favorite dish, and it wasn’t anyone’s.

These big dishes come without sides, but you should order some - we were crazy about the roasted potatoes and charred padron peppers (8€ each). We loved the smoked sucrine lettuce so much that we ordered a second plate (5€).

The beginning of the menu — the “mets” section — contains some notable treasures.

One of the best things I ate here barely met the fire at all: three fingers of grilled bread under a slick of herbed butter and a glossy Basque anchovy.

The morcilla with eggplant and salsa roja won’t be for everyone — blood sausage rarely is. But the vinegary red pepper sauce slices straight through the richness, the spicing is precise, and I ate most of it while the rest of the table hesitated.

The langoustines were lovely — sweet, smoky, barely touched by the flame. So were the wild clams in a mild green curry that I enjoyed on my first visit. There were advertised in the mets section alongside genuinely shareable things like the anchovy toasts, but neither dish is really shareable. A single slim langoustine split between friends is a tease rather than a course, and the clams were too few to divide. I wanted more of both.

White asparagus, charred over the coals and laid in a frothy cream flecked with lovage and acacia blossom, is stunning — smoke, cream and a floral lift, precisely balanced. But it’s another small plate, and it’s the only thing here a vegetarian could really eat, aside from the sides. Sized up and dressed up a little, it could be a genuine vegetarian main. As it stands, there isn’t one.

It’s odd to question the generosity of a restaurant whose big plates are frequently too much to finish. But it’s hard to know from the menu whether you’re ordering a bite or a platter. I’m a fan of the food, but the menu would benefit from a little more clarity about which dishes are bites and which are meant to be shared.

If you ordered big, you might want to finish with a light and refreshing lemon sorbet. But if you have room, I recommend tarta de queso, a burnt Basque cheesecake, barely set in the middle, with a roasted apricot alongside. And a friend of mine raved about their sticky toffee pudding.

THE DRINKS

The wine list runs to a dozen pages and it’s a serious document, balancing natural and low-intervention bottles against classified Bordeaux and grand cru Burgundy. Bottles start at 30€ and there’s a real working list in the 40–65€ range.

The Jura is unusually deep for a restaurant this size. Against smoke and animal fat, this is the smartest corner of the list; the Fumey-Chatelain Arbois chardonnay (54€) is what I’d pour with almost everything here. The Loire is nearly as good, with Chidaine and Huet in Montlouis and Vouvray, a run of Sancerre that climbs to three different François Cotat bottlings, and reds from Amirault and Alliet. Elsewhere the list shows its southern personality: Gauby and Roc d’Anglade from the Languedoc, Léon Barral, Commando G and Alberto Orte from Spain, Giudicelli from Corsica. There’s a prestige tier if you want it — Château Latour, Château-Grillet, a Meursault 1er cru at 272€ — but it isn’t the point, and nobody will push you toward it.

Cocktails are simple and well made — a negroni or a margarita at 12€, a tinto de verano at 7€ that is exactly right in a heat wave. The non-alcoholic list includes a Tanqueray 0.0 gin and tonic (11€), Peroni 0.0 (7€), and house apple juice (8€).

THE VIBE

The room is appealing. The front is a proper old-Paris brasserie — mosaic floor in russet and olive, white globe lights, deep tan leather booths, a dark wood bar. Walk through and it turns theatrical: oxblood walls draped in fabric, silk lanterns, and a glowing open kitchen. Ask for the back if you want atmosphere, the front if you want to see your food.

Service was excellent on both nights, though I should say that neither night was especially busy and that Rollin recognized me. I’ll add this: I remember him from Le Bistrot Flaubert and from Hémicycle, where he was a force of hospitality long before he had any idea what I did for a living. Here, in his own dining room, that tendency is magnified. You feel less like a customer than like someone being welcomed into a (smoky delicious) home.

THE VERDICT

Antoine Rollin and Gaétano Carpinelli have built something genuinely likeable here — cooking that’s precise without being precious, a room that’s warm and a little theatrical, and service that makes you want to stay. Come with meat and fish lovers who like to share. Vegetarians will want to skip this one.

A few practical notes: Calcifer is a few steps from République, which makes it easy to reach from almost anywhere in the city. It’s open Wednesday through Sunday for both lunch and dinner, which makes it one of the better Sunday-night options in Paris — a night when much of the city goes dark. It is staying open all summer, with no August closure. And the air conditioning is powerful enough to counter a Paris heat wave.

Calcifer is GOOD and gets ★ ★. We’ve added it to our list of 50 favorites.

CALCIFER

41 Rue Notre Dame de Nazareth, 75003
Open Wednesday-Sunday for lunch & dinner
Closed Monday & Tuesday
Reservations online or at +33 1 86 04 90 83

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Our food tours have been praised by The New York Times, Food & Wine magazine, the BBC, the Washington Post, Rick Steves, and the LA Times. We’ve been the #1 food tour on TripAdvisor for more than a decade.

Juveniles is rated GREAT ★★★

47 Rue de Richelieu, 75001
Open Monday-Friday for lunch & dinner
Closed Saturday & Sunday
Reservations online or at +33 1 42 97 46 49

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

Juveniles, a family-run bistro near the Louvre, is the restaurant I recommend more than any other in Paris. It’s been on our list of favorites for years, and I always worry that someday I’ll return to find the quality has slid. That’s not unusual in the Paris restaurant scene, so I always approach a return visit with some trepidation.

I needn’t have worried. A recent lunch at Juveniles was the best one yet, and a great illustration of why this is such a special place.

WHAT HAS CHANGED

Almost nothing, and that’s a good thing. The lunch menu is still 21€. It still buys a main course, a glass of wine, and a coffee. Romain Roudeau is still cooking in the tiny kitchen. Margaux Johnston is still running the room. The one thing that has changed since 2023: they now take online reservations.

THE FOOD

Here’s what we loved (all of it):

The terrine de campagne (9€) is what Roudeau is known for, and it holds up. Soft, coarse, spreadable, with a deep thrum of liver that tastes like France. Two fat slices of grilled bread, and a ramekin of house pickles — bright enough to cut it. Gone are the days when a whole terrine was left on the table for you to hack at, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. We still couldn't finish it. They packed the rest up for us to take home.

The summer carte is lighter and more ambitious than the word "bistro" prepares you for. Breton langoustines (24€) arrived roasted on the plancha with grilled melon, cucumber and herbs, over a bisque with real depth. The ricotta collapses into that bisque and enriches it. Incredibly good.

The gaspacho of watermelon (15€) was the dish for summer weather: cold and bright, with confit peppers and cubes of feta, breaded and fried light as air, and peas, cucumber and peppers scattered through for crunch. I could not get enough of it.

The gigot d'agneau (33€) is the best thing on the menu right now. The lamb comes from the Ferme de Clavisy, a family farm in Burgundy, and Roudeau sends it out leaning North African — semoule with fresh herbs, charred eggplant and onion, marinated tomatoes, a coulis of red peppers, a jus of Taggiasche olives.

That same red pepper coulis reappeared under the suprême de volaille that arrived as the daily menu: chicken cooked properly and still juicy, with fried polenta cubes, squash and green tomatoes. One well-made seasonal base, working across two plates. It is how a kitchen this small cooks this well at this price. And it is the 21€ lunch. It’s also a great example of how Roudeau builds texture, color and brightness into every plate. There’s a lot happening, but nothing feels superfluous or strained. It is remarkably mature cooking for a chef this young. It reminds me of Omar Koreitem's food at Mokonuts, and these two restaurants share a fan base.

Desserts are simple and good, as they have always been here. There is no pastry chef, and you will rarely see a crust. The riz au lait (11€) is another dish Roudeau is known for - vanilla-flecked, loosely set, and served with a side of salted caramel.

Roasted apricots with honey and rosemary (13€), a buttery sablé and whipped cream, were the prettier plate. Combining the two — rice pudding under roasted apricots — was the best decision we made all afternoon.

THE DRINKS

The wine list is not one of those bibles that arrives with a thud. It runs to a few pages. But it is deep in exactly the right places: a vertical of Belargus across the Anjou whites, Clape and Clusel-Roch in the Rhône, a bench of grower Champagne, and Burgundy that climbs far past what a bistro this size has any business carrying. There is plenty under 40€, and a generous by-the-glass and carafe selection. This cellar began with Margaux’s father, Tim Johnston, and it remains one of the great pleasures of eating here.

Juveniles is also a bottle shop. More than one person wandered in to buy wine while we ate, and you can carry home whatever catches your eye off the wall.

For non-drinkers there are now a few bottled options — a basil citronnade from Le Coq Toqué and an apple-elderflower sparkling.

THE VIBE

Juveniles is the casual neighborhood bistro we all dream about, in a location that has no business being either casual or affordable. Small, warm, a little noisy, hung with the paintings that Margaux and her sister made as children.

Margaux, who works the day shift, remains one of the best hosts in Paris. She remembers your last visit and knows what you want to drink. When the table beside us praised the rice pudding, she went and wrote out the recipe — not because anyone asked, but because they had been eating it here for decades and she thought they should have it.

THE VERDICT

Juveniles remains ★★★ GREAT and stays on our list of 50 favorite restaurants in Paris. Roudeau is cooking seasonally and skillfully in a kitchen the size of a hallway, and the wine is a joy at every price. It's a restaurant that's worth crossing town for, but sits in the very heart of Paris. Prices are gentle, and the 21€ lunch is a steal. Go if you want an excellent meal in the center of Paris without a production. Go if you love wine. Go because it's open on Monday. But do book ahead: this wonderful place is not a secret. And note that they’ll be closed for summer holiday from Aug 1-31.

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We’d love to welcome you for a food tour! For more than a decade, we’ve been offering delicious walking tours of Paris’s best artisan food shops. Three hours, led in English by true experts, 8 guests max.

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Our food tours have been praised by The New York Times, Food & Wine magazine, the BBC, the Washington Post, Rick Steves, and the LA Times. We’ve been the #1 food tour on TripAdvisor for more than a decade.

Ébène is rated GREAT ★★★

8 rue Falguière, 75015
Open Tuesday-Saturday for lunch & dinner
Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations online or at +33 1 42 19 98 01

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

One of the best meals I’ve eaten in Paris this year ended with four cold cherries from the Vaucluse and a pair of decadent chocolate truffles. No dessert cart, no parade of petits fours. After two hours of nearly flawless cooking, chef Jihyun Kim closes the meal with fruit and says, in effect: this is enough. It takes enormous confidence to be that simple.

The confidence is well founded. Kim was born in South Korea and took the long road to a Paris kitchen: she moved to Lyon to learn French at university before enrolling at the Institut Paul Bocuse, then cooked at Christian Têtedoie in Lyon and staged at Septime in Paris. In 2018 she joined Alain Passard’s Arpège, where she stayed six years and rose to run the kitchen brigade.

Jihyun Kim in the kitchen, Simon Plantrou in the dining room

It was there she met Simon Plantrou, a Norman from Dieppe who worked in the dining room. Last September the couple opened this sixteen-seat restaurant in the 15th, not far from Montparnasse. I’ve been twice, and my recent lunch was impressive enough to land Ébène on our just-published list of 50 favorite restaurants in Paris.

THE FOOD

The six-course tasting menu (96€) opens with halved radishes sandwiching butter, brightened with lemon and a translucent lamelle of bottarga.

Then comes a chilled pea velouté under a cloud of smoked eel cream, ladled on in one intact spoonful. The velouté changes with the calendar — in winter it was squash — but the cloud, I gather, is forever.

Raw Brittany langoustine arrived draped over yellow carrots in a saffron infusion so saturated it glowed.

Wax beans followed with almonds and Rainier cherries in a fig-leaf cream, the kind of dish that tastes exactly like the week it was prepared.

Then the flex: grilled white asparagus layered with melting slices of foie gras under a black garlic jus. Foie gras demoted to condiment, and all the more luxurious for it.

The fish course, that day a red mullet with grilled sucrine and a sherry-vinegar beurre blanc, was the single best thing I ate at either meal. Crisp skin, and a sauce sharp enough to keep the richness honest. I want that sauce on everything in my life.

A Pyrénées lamb chop came rosy under crackling fat, scattered with peas, salicorne, and tiny onions over a wild garlic sauce. A perfectly seasonal plate, perfectly cooked.

Dessert was a strawberry and rhubarb tartelette with verbena ice cream. Strawberries were everywhere in Paris that week, but nowhere else on a crust this shatteringly thin, or brightened with hibiscus powder. And then those cherries. Add it up and the through line is clear: ingredients at their peak, sauces doing real work, portions calibrated to the length of the meal, and a kitchen confident enough to know when to stop.

My first meal at Ébène was not as strong. I’m not sure I would have returned without the urging of several readers. What was different? For starters, kitchens can grow in confidence and improve over time, and this one clearly has. But I also ordered a very different format — there are three to choose from — and I don’t think it plays to Kim’s strengths. The tasting menu was available in January, but one could also order à la carte, with mains ranging from 52–78€, or choose a three-course menu for 45€. We opted for the latter, which offered a choice at each course. What arrived was a typical, and not particularly memorable, sequence of modern French bistro fare.

Starters in January

There was an œuf meurette with parsnip mousseline, the poached-egg staple of every modern bistro menu. The leeks with marinated anchovies were good.

Mains in January

The scallops fought a black garlic emulsion that leaned bitter. The duck was cooked properly and we left half of it anyway — nothing wrong with it, nothing thrilling about it, and not much else on the plate.

Cheese and dessert in January

The crêpe Suzette was most interesting for its cédrat perfume, and the Quatrehomme cheese was merely fine. The one bite I kept thinking about for months was the simplest: that radish butter amuse.

Over two lunches, I had two totally different food experiences — and only one of them explains the rating at the top of this review.

THE DRINKS

The cellar is growing as fast as the kitchen. Between my two visits the wine list roughly doubled, and deepened in ways that signal long-term ambition: a Jura section that didn’t exist in January, Alsace grands crus reaching back to 1990, mature Bandol, and a sweet-wine page that went from two bottles to seven. Glasses start at 14€, standard for a restaurant with these ambitions, and the better value hides in bottles, which start in the low 40s even as the top of the list now stretches to serious old Burgundy. Non-drinkers get the same care: artisanal sodas and juices from small French producers and, the quiet signature, maesil-cheong, Korean fermented green plum juice (7€). It’s one of the few visible traces of the chef’s heritage on a menu that otherwise speaks fluent French.

THE VIBE

Dining room at Ébène

The name of this restaurant is literal. Simon’s father is an ébéniste, a cabinetmaker, and the room is wrapped in his two-toned wood paneling. You even eat from marquetry chargers, concentric rings of inlaid wood that would look at home in a craft museum. White tablecloths, little stools for your handbag: the register is formal and unmistakably pointed at a Michelin star. On the evidence of my June lunch, they deserve one.

THE VERDICT

The 45€ menu is solid bistro cooking and a nice thing to have in the neighborhood. But Paris is full of that. Their dégustation is a standout in a crowded field of tasting menus. It’s the only format at Ébène that I’d cross town for. So book the tasting menu and put yourself in their hands, especially if you miss the feeling of a proper, dressed-up French lunch that doesn’t cost 300€. I combined mine with a visit to the Musée Bourdelle around the corner, and I recommend the double header. Sixteen seats means reserving ahead, and note the calendar: Ébène closes August 10–29 for summer holidays.

ÉBÈNE

8 rue Falguière, 75015
Open Tuesday-Saturday for lunch & dinner
Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations online or at +33 1 42 19 98 01

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Jones is rated GOOD ★ ★

43 rue Godefroy Cavaignac, 75011
Open Tuesday-Saturday for lunch & dinner
Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations online or at +33 9 80 75 32 08

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

This address has lived a lot of lives. It opened in 2013 as Bones, under Australian chef James Henry. The B eventually departed along with Henry, and B Jones settled into a long second act: a pleasant neighborhood fixture with solid modern Italian cooking, beloved above all by natural wine lovers, who came for the cellar that sommelier Damien Lacour had spent years patiently building. That's the Jones we covered in 2022, under owner Florent Ciccoli with chef Riccardo Ferrante in the kitchen:

That team is gone now. Ciccoli sold, and in May 2026 the keys passed to two friends, both under 30: Juan Pablo Rojas Pineda in the kitchen and Enzo Viola in the dining room — Chico & JP, as the menu introduces them. We returned in July and can confirm that Jones remains very good, for entirely new reasons. So good, in fact, that we included it among our 50 favorite restaurants in Paris.

The new Jones calls its cooking “cuisine de Paname.” Paname is street slang for Paris itself — an affectionate, working-class nickname that’s more than a century old and still completely common today, in French rap and in everyday speech. Rojas Pineda was born in Medellín — where his mother ran a makeshift restaurant out of the family living room to finance their move to France — and has been in Paris since the age of six. His menu draws on far more than his own South American heritage: green beans arrive wrapped in a Sri Lankan pancake, the dukkah is Egyptian, the gomasio is Japanese, the pandan ice cream is Southeast Asian, the bissara at lunch is Moroccan.

The menu comes with an entire vocab page — a full sheet defining hogao, titoté, arroz caldoso, and a dozen more — because this kitchen would rather teach you the words than flatten them into French. Asserting all of this as Paris cuisine is both audacious and entirely accurate.

Side note: I’ve found myself using the category “international” less and less when writing about Paris restaurants, because aside from the most classic French bistros, it’s hard to name a kitchen in this city that isn’t using ingredients and techniques from around the world. Jones just says the quiet part out loud — and puts it on the sign.

THE FOOD

We ordered nearly everything, which at Jones means traveling.

The arancini of arroz caldoso echoes the rice ball that’s been on the menu for years; it’s now a southern Spanish soupy rice fried into a crisp sphere, set on a puddle of herb paste under a snowfall of cheese. Delicious.

We also loved the arepa de queso, the traditional Colombian cheese version stuffed here with molten taleggio and served with Thai basil pistou. It's a mission statement as much as a dish: JP intends to work through all 44 catalogued arepa variations, one menu at a time.

Our favorite small plate was the milk-fed veal tartare — deeply flavorful, jeweled with juniper-infused cherries over smoked beet purée, and genuinely fun to eat, scooped up with fried wonton crisps: a French classic, a Chinese cracker, and a Colombian picadillo on one spoon. Pretty / genius.

The flame-grilled gurnard arrived in what the menu cheerfully calls a “fake bouillabaisse,” a rockfish soup made with only mussels and anise-infused fish stock, brightened with shiso, cooled by stracciatella, and topped with shaved fennel.

The veal chop for two wore a glaze named for Belén Rincón, the Medellín neighborhood JP’s family comes from, known for its citrus-and-garlic roasted chicken. The flavor was tremendous. At that price, it’s a fun thing to order with a larger group that can absorb the 95€; a couple sharing it as their one main course might question the value.

It was served with his version of pommes dauphines made with corn flour — delicious in their own right, but a little stodgy if one is anticipating a classic potato dauphine.

The same goes for the corn flour gnocchi with burned zucchini and salsa macha. Corn in French or Italian clothes runs dense — that's the nature of the flour, not a flaw in the kitchen. I liked the gnocchi as a riff. Just don't come expecting pillows.

The agnolotto filled with ricotta and preserved lime provided a solid vegetarian option. It was, unfortunately, a little too solid: the flavors were great, but the pasta was rolled too thick. They inherited the pasta machine from the previous chef and have admitted on Instagram that they’re still mastering it. I have confidence they will.

Desserts are not the strength here. They're playful and fine, but they operate more as a last spoonful than as a fully realized course. The "Capri-Sun" sorbet (6€) is a childhood-memory citrus blend under puffed buckwheat; the maseca cookie with 70% chocolate and pandan ice cream (11€) arrived wearing salad. The most successful was the affogato (9€): ice cream made from Los Andes coffee grounds, warmed by a green cardamom emulsion — the Colombian thread carried right through to the end of the meal.

THE DRINKS

People have always come to Jones for the wine, and that survives the handover — differently. Enzo Viola, who trained in vineyards and cellars (including Château Siran in Margaux) before becoming a fixture at the Yard, now signs a list of natural wines from growers who, as the menu’s welcome letter puts it, “respect the soil, the vine, and all living things.” The duo took over backed by natural wine distributor Culinaries, whose selection stocks the list — which explains how a two-month-old team is pouring verticals of Cossard and Robinot, a 1998 Cahors, and Cornelissen’s Magma alongside 6–10€ glasses. It’s still a place where wine hounds will find something rare or something new. We drank La Sorga’s Belzebrut!!! (67€), a wild sparkling Colombard from 2018 with a goat-demon on the label.

The non-alcoholic list has some fun stuff: Cascara Fresca (6,50€), a coffee-cherry infusion that extends the Colombian thread; Bang Bang alcohol-free pale ale from Paris brewery BapBap (8€), Archipel kombucha brut (7,50€), Mona ginger beer and fruit sodas (6€), and Symple herbal infusions (7€).

THE VIBE

The space is largely unchanged: scraped walls, white-tile wainscot, bare wood tables, the broken-tile mosaic floor, caged industrial lamps, bar seating up front. New to the stone wall: two football shirts from 1998 — Zidane’s French No. 10 beside Valderrama’s Colombian No. 10, the two halves of the chef’s story, facing the room. The playlists celebrate fifty years of hip-hop, and a QR code on the back of the menu lets you take them home. The menu credits the whole crew by their nicknames, like the sleeve of a rap record, but the small plates arrive on grandmotherly floral china.

We had a great time, surrounded by people who were also clearly there to have a great time. The staffing, it must be said, is bare bones: on the night of our visit it was really only Chico working the full room, hustling nonstop with a smile. Usually when someone is that busy, you don’t want to ask for more water, or another glass, or float a question about a dish — you can sense they’re stretched too thin. That wasn’t the case here. Things may have taken a moment longer than ideal, but we never doubted that they cared and wanted to deliver. JP delivered many of the plates himself, which was charming. As they get busier — and they will — I hope they add another server, so Chico can spend more time doing what is clearly his strength: talking about wine. It held together on this night, but only barely. The welcome letter on the menu hopes Jones will “become (or once again be) your favorite spot,” and they mean the parenthesis: this room knows it has regulars from three different eras.

THE VERDICT

Jones keeps its two stars, but not for any of the old reasons. The Italian menu is gone, the famous cellar has been rebuilt by new hands, and the cooking now argues — dish by dish, vocab word by word — that arepas and dukkah and titoté are Paris cooking, too. Not everything lands, but the flavors are already there, the welcome is exceptional, and this is a kitchen that publishes its own growing pains and changes its menu constantly. Jones feels alive, and very much like Paris today. Bring a vegetarian, bring a natural wine hound, bring a group with appetite. It's built for a fun night out.

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Finding a good restaurant in Paris has never been harder. Not because there are fewer good ones — there are more than ever — but because the signal has collapsed into noise. Everyone has a list. Influencers eat for free, algorithms surface whatever photographs well, and last year’s rankings sit online as if nothing has changed since.

This list is different. Every restaurant I visit — anonymously, paying full price, funded entirely by your subscriptions — is being tested for one thing: is it good enough to hang with the fifty names below? I’m not chasing the hottest openings, though some are here, or focusing on Michelin stars. I’m trying to find the tables that are worth your time and money in Paris, whether that means a 21€ lunch or a once-a-year splurge.

This list is alive. I publish a fresh edition three times a year, and no restaurant keeps its place on reputation alone — everything here eventually faces a revisit. Restaurants change. Chefs leave, kitchens coast, prices creep past what the cooking justifies. When that happens, they leave the list, no matter how beloved.

Below you’ll find our fifty favorite restaurants in Paris, ordered by my most recent visit. And because fifty is still a lot to choose from, the end of this post sorts them by what you actually need: open Sunday, open Monday, good for vegetarians, air conditioning, the right arrondissement.

Somewhere below is your next great meal in Paris.

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Mokonuts is rated GREAT ★ ★ ★

5 Rue Saint-Bernard, 75011
Open Monday-Friday for lunch only
Closed Saturday & Sunday
Reservations online or at +33 9 80 81 82 85

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

Mokonuts has held a spot on our list of 50 Favorites since the beginning of this list, one of only a handful of Paris restaurants with that sort of staying power. We reviewed it in 2020 before this newsletter existed, and I wanted to return to more fully explain why it has never left the list. I also just wanted to return.

Mokonuts is the work of one married couple: Omar Koreitem cooks the savory side, Moko Hirayama the sweet, and the restaurant carries the “Moko” in her name. Neither came up the conventional way — before food, he coordinated events at Yankee Stadium and she practiced law; they met in New York, taught themselves to cook through restaurant kitchens in London and Paris, and opened this tiny room in December 2015.

Koreitem changes the menu every day and rarely cooks the same dish twice. Hirayama’s desserts are rustic, homey, and deliberately unfussy. The food moves fluidly between France, Koreitem’s Lebanon and Hirayama’s Japan without ever announcing itself as fusion. It is outstanding, and widely praised. I haven’t met a person or media outlet who doesn’t rave about Mokonuts.

Ten years in, the couple could have turned Mokonuts into something bigger — and pointedly haven’t. They still close in the afternoon to collect their daughters, still turn away all but a handful of private evenings, still fit about twenty covers into one bright, blue-fronted room. They’ve built plenty around it — a celebrated cookbook, and two spinoffs in Locomal, a Mexican joint that recently replaced their launch pad Mokoloco, and the all-day café Mokochaya — but the mothership has stayed the same.

These other projects don’t appear to have hurt the original. Their attention doesn’t feel divided, and my most recent lunch at Mokonuts was as great as any I’ve had in the past decade.

THE FOOD

The menu at Mokonuts is short, with just 2-3 starters, a pair of mains, and a handful of desserts.

We skipped the labné (9€) this last time because I’ve had it so often — Koreitem’s Greek-yogurt-and-olive-oil version is always there, always topped with crunchy veg, always delicious.

For this lunch, we dove directly into the prettiest plate of œuf, mousserons, asperges sauvages (16€): a soft, barely-set egg over a tangle of mousserons in a light, brothy sauce, spears of wild asparagus laid across the top, the whole thing dusted with sumac.

Alongside it, a crudo of sériole (16€), the raw fish dressed with purslane, a squeeze of lemon, and the sumac that turns up all over Koreitem’s cooking.

The confit salmon (28€) was beautifully silky — this is the kind of cooking that looks simple and isn't. I've now had it twice from Koreitem's kitchen, and discovered that the recipe is in their new cookbook. I fully intend to fail at making it at home, and to enjoy trying.

The filet de cochon (28€) arrived rosy-pink, sliced over snap peas, green beans and a wedge of grilled sucrine (little gem), all lacquered in a delicious jus. There’s almost always a perfectly juicy cut of pork, lamb, or veal on the menu, served with whatever the season is giving. Koreitem’s cooking has never once been off. This is the most consistent kitchen I’ve encountered.

For dessert, an apricot crostata (11€) with macerated lemon on a flaky, sugar-crusted pastry, and a strawberry, chocolate and buckwheat cake (11€), dark and dense under a quenelle of cream and a scatter of toasted sarrasin — both from Hirayama's rustic hand.

And speaking of that rustic hand: it was still coated in dough as she checked guests in at the start of service — the epitome of hustle hospitality.

THE DRINKS

Wine is a short, natural-leaning list by the glass (11–13€) — the reason to book a table here isn't the cellar, but you can drink well with lunch. Alongside it, a rotating soft du jour (5€) — the day we went, a lemony house seltzer, bright and refreshing and just right for a warm afternoon.

THE VIBE

The room is small and bright: whitewashed brick hung with shelves of natural-wine bottles, mismatched schoolhouse chairs in green and yellow, small raw-wood tables pushed close along a banquette, and a crazy-paved terrazzo floor in ochre and pale blue that catches the window light. Everything you eat arrives on handmade stoneware, earth-toned and a little irregular, no two plates alike. Moko greets everyone; the service is warm rather than quick. In all my visits, I’ve never made it out in under two hours.

As for the neighborhood, Mokonuts sits in a pocket of the southern 11th near Septime and Osteria Ferrara. A decade ago, this area was often described as “far-flung.” Today it’s the epicenter of Paris dining.

THE VERDICT

Ten years and half a dozen visits in, Mokonuts is still one of the most quietly special lunches in Paris — a place for anyone who wants seasonal, daily-changing cooking without a shred of ceremony. Book 4-6 weeks ahead and remember that lunch (their only service) is a leisurely affair. Vegetarians might want to head elsewhere — vegetables shine at Mokonuts, but they don’t always have a vegetarian main. Open Monday!

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Bittikesu is rated GREAT ★ ★ ★

4 Rue de Brissac, 75004
Open Wednesday-Sunday for dinner
Open Friday-Sunday for lunch
Closed Monday & Tuesday
Reservations online or at +33 (0)7 44 79 42 96

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

The door at Bittikesu opened at 1pm, sharp. I arrived too early and found it locked. Paris that day was noisy, and brutally hot. I scurried to a patch of shade and found others lingering there. We withered together until the appointed hour.

A distant bell tolled, the door opened wide, and we entered. Crossing the threshold felt like shedding urban reality for a quiet, calm world — though not a solemn one. The floor is broad pale stone, the walls are thick and bare, and the light comes down soft through a papered wooden ceiling. Sheer linen curtains hang the length of the windows and hold the street at a distance — you can see the parked cars through them, but only as shapes. There is no host stand, no bar, no second table; the entrance is left deliberately empty, so that the room reveals itself slowly.

The welcome was immediate and easy. We were shown to our seats — comfortable chairs around an L-shaped oak table wide enough to double as a kitchen counter. Gentle air flowed through the room, which was magically cool without air conditioning. Rolled cloths, icy from the freezer, were distributed to each guest. We dabbed our necks and sipped cold water, waiting for everyone to arrive.

“Everyone” — the ten guests served simultaneously — came from everywhere else. Expats from England, Spain, Japan, and America. The same was true about the cooks on the other side of the table (which was built by one of the guests). The chef, Jules St-Cyr, is from Montreal, and his entire team is Canadian.

There’s something quietly fascinating about a room like this. Every one of us had lived elsewhere and chosen France. So had the cooks. What they make isn’t French cuisine — the techniques come from everywhere St-Cyr has been — but the ingredients are: fish from French waters, herbs foraged in the Auvergne, vegetables from a garden just outside Paris. On that particular day, at least, it was food drawn entirely from France, cooked by people who aren’t French, for people who aren’t French.

St-Cyr is self-taught, and cooked his way through the new-Nordic circuit — Noma and 108 in Copenhagen, Ernst in Berlin — with a later stretch in China before opening here this spring. When we asked why Paris, the answer was refreshingly practical: he already knew the French producers, having worked with their ingredients in Denmark and Germany, and he spoke the language. The restaurant is named for his Sardinian grandfather, Bittichesu, in whose vegetable garden St-Cyr first learned what things were supposed to taste like.

There’s a single set menu, served to all ten guests at once, with no à la carte and nothing to choose. The format changes by day: fifteen courses (85€) at dinner and at Sunday lunch, and a shorter six-course lunch (55€) on Fridays and Saturdays. We went on a Sunday, which meant the full fifteen — two hours, served with relaxed efficiency, on a table that’s also the pass. Every plate at Bittikesu is built an arm’s length from where you’re sitting. Plenty of kitchens are open these days, but few bring you this far inside the work.

THE FOOD

A fifteen-course lunch in a heat wave is not, on paper, an appealing proposition — but the portions were judged almost perfectly, and so was the pacing: enough on each plate to register, never so much that the next one felt like a chore. Two hours later, I left feeling exactly right. It was one of my favorite meals of the year.

It opened with cucumber and an oyster, the oyster’s own liquor turned into a pale sauce over the top — briny, cool, and bracing.

Next, finely chopped cockles in their shell, dressed with rose vinegar, verbena, and raspberry — tart and floral, set on a bed of salt.

Then whelks with apricot, ponzu, and arugula, the sweetness of the stone fruit playing against the snap of the shellfish.

A round of squash, wrapped in a fig leaf and softened in a bamboo steamer near the fire, came topped with mussels and a light foam, carrying the first trace of smoke.

Grilled skate was spooned over shaved cucumber marinated in mugwort, with a sauce thickened by collagen — delicate but not timid.

Midway came the meal’s neatest trick: a “cold salad” served in a bowl set over a second bowl of ice, holding dehydrated strawberries, tomato gelée, fresh-sliced almonds, and fava beans. On a hot day, it was almost shocking in its chill. Then a tempura of mugwort, fried light and dusted with sancho pepper — pleasantly bitter, the herb left to speak for itself.

A set egg custard, or tamago, built on crab stock arrived next, finished with a sauce made from the crab heads, almonds, fava beans, and more sancho.

Dehydrated, lightly blackened tomatoes turned sweet and concentrated, topped with round nasturtium leaves and a citrusy ponzu made from the seeds of hogweed.

Monkfish, grilled on the bone, came sliced over seaweed in a sauce of sea parsley — the most substantial of the seafood courses.

The lamb arrived in two parts. First, a braised shoulder, falling apart and ladled family-style from an earthenware crock with diced ramps. We were told the lamb comes from a farmer a couple of hours out who sends three animals a week — a relationship that began over his dairy and cheese.

Then the leaner cuts, grilled and served simply with bay leaf and ramps, finished with a sauce made by curing lamb liver with juniper, almost like charcuterie, then infusing it into a sauce — deep, but never overpowering.

Dessert began with a granita of fig-leaf stems and sliced apricot, cold and green-tasting.

A rolled crepe, grilled until caramelized, was spread with a lightly algae-infused cream and topped with macerated strawberries.

And it closed with milk ice cream under concentrated elderflower syrup — plain, clean, and just sweet enough.

THE DRINKS

The wine list is compact — around thirty bottles on a single page, natural-leaning and built around Burgundy, the Loire, and the Jura, with a handful from Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. It follows the same instinct as the kitchen: mostly France, with an eye on everywhere else. Most bottles fall between 50€ and 85€, topping out at 140€, which is restrained for a restaurant of this ambition. The printed list is bottles only, but the sommelier was also pouring options by the glass. You can also do a five-glass pairing that’s built to span the fifteen courses.

On a day this hot, we opted instead for the sommelier’s own non-alcoholic syrups: strawberry, rhubarb, and fig leaf, lengthened with sparkling water and poured over copious ice in a wine glass. We worked through all three over the course of the meal. They were a highlight in their own right — bright, barely sweet, and clearly built to sit beside the food rather than stand in for wine. Four of them, plus water, came to 55€.

THE VIBE

A room this spare can go wrong in a particular way: strip a dining room back to stone and bare walls and a single table, and it can start to feel like a place where you’re expected to be quiet.

Other writers have looked at this space and seen a monastery. That isn’t what it’s like to sit in it. The cooks talk easily with you across the table, the mood loosens as the afternoon goes on, and nobody is whispering. Bittikesu has pulled off something remarkable: a room that feels genuinely removed from the city, as comfortable as being in someone’s home.

It’s also the work of many hands. The table is Burgundy oak, built by the craftsman Antonis Cardew; the stone was cut by a mason in Chartres; Douglas pine runs through the room, a nod to the chef’s Canadian roots. The ceramics are made by potters from around the world, and the little wooden spoons were carried back from Korea by St-Cyr himself. Dried bay laurel hangs by the door, a quiet rhyme with the bay leaf on the lamb.

The same care reaches the washroom, where a handmade ceramic basin sits on a charred-wood stand beside the restaurant’s own eau de parfum.

THE VERDICT

A clear three stars, and a place on our 50 Favorites update that will publish later this week. I should say plainly that I was moved by this meal. Some of it was the room — calm, beautiful, and cool on a punishing day — and some of it was the welcome, which was warm and easy and switched between languages without effort. But most of it was the food. First and foremost, it was delicious. And it was made in front of us in an almost mesmerizing display of coordinated, gentle movement — calm, collaborative, and a real pleasure to watch, with none of the awkwardness that open kitchens tend to invite. Fifteen courses, assembled and handed across the table by cooks who never once made it look like work.

Bittikesu won’t be for everyone, or every occasion. Come alone or with one other person; sitting among strangers is part of the appeal, and a shared table isn’t the place for a group. Come when you’re willing to give a meal your whole attention, and come hungry for whatever arrives — it’s a tasting menu, and there is nothing for you to decide. At 85€ for fifteen courses, it is also, right now, one of the best values in Paris at this level of ambition. Book well ahead: there are ten seats and one seating, and the food is paid for in full when you reserve. Then hand yourself over to it, which is the only way to eat here, and the whole reason to go.

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Our food tours have been praised by The New York Times, Food & Wine magazine, the BBC, the Washington Post, Rick Steves, and the LA Times. We’ve been the #1 food tour on TripAdvisor for more than a decade.

Both are misguided, for different reasons.

Here’s the truth: a lot of restaurants do close for summer holidays — but the closures cluster in just three weeks (roughly August 3 through 23), and even at the quietest point, more than 50 of our favorite places are open and delighted to feed you. The trick is simply knowing which ones, before you go.

So we asked. We asked our favorite restaurants in Paris and heard back from more than 120 of them with their confirmed summer plans. Below you’ll find it two ways: every restaurant’s closing dates, by neighborhood, and who’s open week by week during the three weeks that matter most.

Click any restaurant’s name to read our full review — address, what to order, all the practical details. We’ll keep updating this post as more replies come in.

Summer closing dates, by neighborhood

1st — Louvre, Palais-Royal, Les Halles

• À L’Epi d’Or — Closed Aug 8-24

• Juveniles — Closed Aug 1-31

• La Poule au Pot — Closed Aug 9–Aug 24

• Le Grand Véfour — Open all summer

• La Halle aux Grains — Through Aug 1 and Aug 24–31 open Wednesday-Monday for lunch, afternoon pastry, and dinner; Open Tuesdays for dinner only. From Aug 2–23 they are open for lunch and afternoon pastry only; closed fully on Tuesdays.

• Le Jardin de Cheval Blanc — Open all summer through Sept 13

• Le Tout-Paris — Open all summer

• Loulou — Open all summer

• Maison Ruggieri — Open all summer

• Maslow — Open all summer

• Pantagruel — Open all summer

• Verjus — Closed July 27–Aug 2

2nd — Bourse, Sentier

• Brasserie Dubillot — Open all summer

• Breizh Café — Open all summer

• Chez Carrie — Closed Aug 3–Aug 17

• Chez Georges — Closed Aug 1–Sept 1

• Frenchie — Open all summer

• Frenchie Bar à Vins — Open all summer

• L’Altro Frenchie — Open all summer

• La Bourse et la Vie — Closed Aug 1–Aug 24

• Racines — Open all summer — Aug: Wed–Sat; back to daily Sep 1

• Shabour — Open all summer — August: Tue–Sat (closed Mondays)

3rd — Upper Marais

• Bonnard — Open all summer (but no Monday service during August)

• Breizh Café — Open all summer

• Calcifer — Open all summer

• Datil — Closed Aug 1–Aug 24

• Elmer — Closed Aug 1–Aug 31

• Le Mary Celeste — Open all summer

• Les Enfants du Marché — Open all summer

• Mischief — Open all summer

• Robert et Louise — Closed July 20–Aug 19

4th — Marais, Île Saint-Louis

• Benoît — Closed Aug 3–Aug 31

• Bittikesu — Closed Aug 17–Sept 1

• Cypsèle — Closed Aug 9–Sept 2

• GrandCoeur — Open all summer

• Grande Brasserie — Closed Aug 3–Aug 16

• L’Ambroisie — Closed Aug 2–Aug 25

• Le Petit Célestin — Closed Aug 10–Sept 2

5th — Latin Quarter

• A.T. — Closed Aug 23–Aug 31

• Alliance — Closed Aug 1–Aug 23

• Hugo & Co. — Closed Aug 1–Aug 23

• La Bete Noire — Closed only August 15-16 & 22-23

• La Table de Colette — Open all summer

• La Tour d’Argent — Closed Aug 3–Aug 24

• Maison Cluny — Closed Aug 2–Aug 27

• Tram Café — Closed Aug 9–Aug 24

6th — Saint-Germain

• Ambos — Closed Aug 3–Aug 25

• Augustin Marchand d’Vins — Open all summer — open 7/7 in July; closed Mon & Tue during the first 3 weeks of August; back to 7/7 from Aug 24

• Brasserie des Prés — Open all summer

• Breizh Café — Open all summer

• Chez Dumonet — Open all summer

• Fish la Boissonnerie — Open all summer but with reduced hours (closed Sun/Mon and no weekday lunch) between Aug 2–24; back to normal Aug 25

• Freddy’s — Open all summer but with reduced hours (no lunch on weekdays) between Aug 3–28; back to normal Aug 31

• L’Avant Comptoir(s) — Open all summer

• Le Bon Saint-Pourçain — Closed Aug 2–Aug 24

• Le Christine — Open all summer

• Oktobre — Closed Aug 2–Aug 17

• Orson — Closed Aug 10–Aug 24

• Quinsou — Closed Aug 18–Sep 2

• Semilla — Closed Aug 3–Aug 24

7th — Eiffel Tower, Invalides

• Café des Ministères — Closed Aug 1–Aug 23

• Chez l’Ami Jean — Closed Aug 2–Sept 1

• David Toutain — Closed Aug 1–Aug 23

• La Petite Chaise — Reduced hours (dinner only) from August 1-8, then closed Aug 9–Aug 24

• Tomy & Co. — Closed Aug 1–Aug 23

8th — Champs-Élysées, Madeleine

• Alléno Paris au Pavillon Ledoyen — Closed Aug 1–Aug 22

• Clos d’Astorg — Closed July 31–Aug 23

• Le Grand Café — Open all summer

• Le Mermoz — Closed Aug 1-23

9th — Grands Boulevards, Pigalle

• Argile — Open all summer

• Benjamin Schmitt — Open all summer

• Cuisine — Closed Aug 8–Aug 24

• Le Bon Georges — Open all summer

• Le Pantruche — Closed Aug 14–Aug 23

• Magnolia — Closed Aug 4–Aug 17

• Patsy — Closed Aug 1-23

• Pétrelle — Closed July 27-Aug 19

• Trouble — Closed Aug 10–Aug 16

10th — Canal, Faubourg Saint-Denis

• Brasserie Bellanger — Open all summer

• Breizh Café — Open all summer

• Canard Sauvage — Closed the first two weeks of August, reopening on the 18th

• Fugue — Closed July 30–Aug 24

• Occasion — Closed Aug 9–Sept 1

11th — Oberkampf, Bastille, Charonne

• À la Renaissance — Open all summer

• Amâlia — Closed July 19–Aug 18

• Au Passage — Closed Aug 2–Aug 17

• Aux Bons Crus — Closed Aug 8-24

• Breizh Café — Open all summer

• Clamato — Open all summer — dinner only, lunch closed Aug 10–23

• Erso — Closed Aug 9–Aug 24

• F.I.E.F. — Closed Aug 1–Aug 25

• Gibon — Closed Aug 3–Sept 3

• Jip — Closed Aug 10–Aug 24

• Jones — Closed Aug 2–Aug 17

• Kubri — Open all summer

• Le Chateaubriand — Closed Aug 1–Aug 25

• Le Cornichon — Closed Aug 9–Aug 23

• Le Saint-Sébastien — Closed Aug 9–Aug 17

• Le Tagine — Closed July 27–Sept 1

• Lissit — Closed Aug 8–Aug 24

• Maison — Closed Aug 10–Aug 27

• Masaikuta — Closed Aug 10–Sept 2

• Mokonuts — Closed July 24-Sept 1

• Oobatz — Closed Aug 17–Aug 31

• Osteria Ferrara — Open all summer

• Patine — Closed Aug 2–Aug 17

• Reyna — Open all summer

• Septime — Open all summer

• Trâm 130 — Open all summer

12th — Aligre, Nation

• Le Train Bleu — Open all summer

• Passerini — Closed July 25–Aug 25

• Passerina — Closed July 25–Aug 25

• Rencontres — Closed Aug 1–Aug 23

• Virtus — Closed Aug 1–Aug 27

13th — Gobelins, Butte-aux-Cailles

• Dame Augustine — Closed August 14-15 only

• Marso & Co. — Closed Aug 1–Aug 23

14th — Montparnasse

• Le Duc — Closed Aug 1-25

• Le Petit Sommelier — Open all summer except for a few scattered days (Aug 9–10, 15–17, 23–24)

15th — Javel

• Ébène — Closed Aug 10–Aug 31

• Le Grand Pan — Closed Aug 8–Aug 31

16th — Passy, Trocadéro

• Alt — Open all summer

• Breizh Café — Open all summer

• Comice — Closed Aug 9–Aug 26

• Substance — Closed Aug 1–Aug 23

17th — Near the Arc de Triomphe & Batignolles

• Bolea — Closed Aug 23-Sept 14

• Breizh Café — Open all summer

18th — Montmartre

• Adraba — Open all summer except July 31 & August 1

• Aléa — Closed Aug 24-Sept 15

• Breizh Café — Open all summer

• Double — Closed Aug 10–Aug 24

• Fana — Closed Aug 9–Aug 24 (reopening for dinner on the 25th)

• Le Coq et Fils — Open all summer

• Les Collonges — Closed Aug 2–Aug 24

• Zoutra — Open all summer

19th — Belleville, La Villette

• Le Cheval d’Or — Closed Aug 1–Aug 16

• Quedubon — Open all summer but with a different format in August: serving small plates only on Tue–Sat evenings

• Soces — Open all summer

20th — Ménilmontant, Père-Lachaise

• Amagat — Closed Aug 10–Aug 18

• Dandelion — Closed Aug 8–Aug 24

• Le Grand Bain — Open all summer

• Paulownia — Closed Aug 9–Aug 31

What’s open, week by week

We heard back from 120 of our recommended restaurants about their summer plans. The reassuring headline: through August 3, nearly all are open — if you’re dining in Paris in July, most of our favorites are open.

The picture tightens for three weeks in the heart of August. Below is exactly who’s open during this stretch when a table gets harder to find. By August 24, the vast majority have reopened and the city is essentially back to normal. If you’re here in July or late August, you can browse our full restaurant index and book freely.

If you’re here between August 3-23, this is your guide to what’s open, week by week. We included a restaurant if they were open at least four days during that week.

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Open August 3-9

1st — Louvre / Les Halles — À L’Epi d’Or, La Poule au Pot, Le Grand Véfour, La Halle aux Grains (lunch only), Le Jardin de Cheval Blanc, Le Tout-Paris, Loulou, Maison Ruggieri, Maslow, Pantagruel, Verjus

2nd — Bourse / Sentier — Brasserie Dubillot, Frenchie, Frenchie Bar à Vins, L’Altro Frenchie, Racines, Shabour

3rd — Upper Marais — Bonnard, Calcifer, Le Mary Celeste, Les Enfants du Marché, Mischief

4th — Marais / Île Saint-Louis — Bittikesu, Cypsèle, GrandCoeur, Le Petit Célestin

5th — Latin Quarter — A.T., La Bete Noire, La Table de Colette, Tram Café

6th — Saint-Germain — Augustin Marchand d’Vins, Brasserie des Prés, Chez Dumonet, Fish la Boissonnerie, Freddy’s, L’Avant Comptoir(s), Le Christine, Orson, Quinsou

7th — Eiffel Tower / Invalides — La Petite Chaise

8th — Champs-Élysées / Madeleine — Le Grand Café

9th — Grands Boulevards / Pigalle — Argile, Benjamin Schmitt, Cuisine, Le Bon Georges, Le Pantruche, Trouble

10th — Canal / Faubourg Saint-Denis — Brasserie Bellanger, Occasion

11th — Oberkampf / Bastille / Charonne — À la Renaissance, Aux Bons Crus, Clamato, Erso, Jip, Kubri, Le Cornichon, Le Saint-Sébastien, Lissit, Maison, Masaikuta, Oobatz, Osteria Ferrara, Reyna, Septime, Trâm 130

12th — Aligre / Nation — Le Train Bleu

13th — Gobelins / Butte-aux-Cailles — Dame Augustine

14th — Montparnasse — Le Petit Sommelier

15th — Javel — Le Grand Pan, Ébène

16th — Passy / Trocadéro — Alt, Comice

17th — Near the Arc de Triomphe / Batignolles — Bolea, Breizh Café

18th — Montmartre — Adraba, Aléa, Double, Fana, Le Coq et Fils, Zoutra

19th — Belleville / La Villette — Quedubon, Soces

20th — Ménilmontant / Père-Lachaise — Amagat, Dandelion, Le Grand Bain, Paulownia

Open August 10-16

1st — Louvre / Les Halles — Le Grand Véfour, La Halle aux Grains (lunch only), Le Jardin de Cheval Blanc, Le Tout-Paris, Loulou, Maison Ruggieri, Maslow, Pantagruel, Verjus

2nd — Bourse / Sentier — Brasserie Dubillot, Frenchie, Frenchie Bar à Vins, L’Altro Frenchie, Racines, Shabour

3rd — Upper Marais — Bonnard, Calcifer, Le Mary Celeste, Les Enfants du Marché, Mischief

4th — Marais / Île Saint-Louis — Bittikesu, GrandCoeur

5th — Latin Quarter — A.T., La Bete Noire, La Table de Colette

6th — Saint-Germain — Augustin Marchand d’Vins, Brasserie des Prés, Chez Dumonet, Fish la Boissonnerie, Freddy’s, L’Avant Comptoir(s), Le Christine, Quinsou

8th — Champs-Élysées / Madeleine — Le Grand Café

9th — Grands Boulevards / Pigalle — Argile, Benjamin Schmitt, Le Bon Georges, Le Pantruche

10th — Canal / Faubourg Saint-Denis — Brasserie Bellanger

11th — Oberkampf / Bastille / Charonne — À la Renaissance, Clamato, Kubri, Oobatz, Osteria Ferrara, Reyna, Septime, Trâm 130

12th — Aligre / Nation — Le Train Bleu

13th — Gobelins / Butte-aux-Cailles — Dame Augustine

14th — Montparnasse — Le Petit Sommelier

16th — Passy / Trocadéro — Alt

17th — Near the Arc de Triomphe / Batignolles — Bolea, Breizh Café

18th — Montmartre — Adraba, Aléa, Le Coq et Fils, Zoutra

19th — Belleville / La Villette — Quedubon, Soces

20th — Ménilmontant / Père-Lachaise — Le Grand Bain

Open August 17-23

1st — Louvre / Les Halles — Le Grand Véfour, La Halle aux Grains (lunch only), Le Jardin de Cheval Blanc, Le Tout-Paris, Loulou, Maison Ruggieri, Maslow, Pantagruel, Verjus

2nd — Bourse / Sentier — Brasserie Dubillot, Chez Carrie, Frenchie, Frenchie Bar à Vins, L’Altro Frenchie, Racines, Shabour

3rd — Upper Marais — Bonnard, Calcifer, Le Mary Celeste, Les Enfants du Marché, Mischief, Robert et Louise

4th — Marais / Île Saint-Louis — GrandCoeur, Grande Brasserie

5th — Latin Quarter — A.T., La Bete Noire, La Table de Colette

6th — Saint-Germain — Augustin Marchand d’Vins, Brasserie des Prés, Chez Dumonet, Fish la Boissonnerie, Freddy’s, L’Avant Comptoir(s), Le Christine, Oktobre

8th — Champs-Élysées / Madeleine — Le Grand Café

9th — Grands Boulevards / Pigalle — Argile, Benjamin Schmitt, Le Bon Georges, Magnolia, Pétrelle, Trouble

10th — Canal / Faubourg Saint-Denis — Brasserie Bellanger, Canard Sauvage

11th — Oberkampf / Bastille / Charonne —À la Renaissance, Amâlia, Au Passage, Clamato, Jones, Kubri, Le Saint-Sébastien, Osteria Ferrara, Patine, Reyna, Septime, Trâm 130

12th — Aligre / Nation — Le Train Bleu

13th — Gobelins / Butte-aux-Cailles — Dame Augustine

14th — Montparnasse — Le Petit Sommelier

16th — Passy / Trocadéro — Alt

17th — Near the Arc de Triomphe / Batignolles — Bolea, Breizh Café

18th — Montmartre — Adraba, Aléa, Le Coq et Fils, Zoutra

19th — Belleville / La Villette — Le Cheval d’Or, Quedubon, Soces

20th — Ménilmontant / Père-Lachaise — Amagat, Le Grand Bain

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ALSO OPEN THIS SUMMER: OUR FOOD TOURS

We’d love to welcome you for a food tour! For more than a decade, we’ve been offering delicious walking tours of Paris’s best artisan food shops. Three hours, led in English by true experts, 8 guests max.

Learn more about our tours

Our food tours have been praised by The New York Times, Food & Wine magazine, the BBC, the Washington Post, Rick Steves, and the LA Times. We’ve been the #1 food tour on TripAdvisor for more than a decade.

Learn more about our tours

We’ve rated Alt as GOOD with two stars * *

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

We’ll be publishing our full review of Alt on August 5.

In the meantime, we’re recommending it as GOOD with two stars * * and it will remain open all this summer (not closing for holidays).

ALT

25 Rue le Sueur, 75016
Open Monday-Friday for lunch & dinner
Open Saturday for dinner only
Closed Sunday
Reservations at +33 1 45 00 13 05

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COMING TO PARIS ?

We’d love to welcome you for a food tour! For more than a decade, we’ve been offering delicious walking tours of Paris’s best artisan food shops. Three hours, led in English by true experts, 8 guests max.

Learn more about our tours

Our food tours have been praised by The New York Times, Food & Wine magazine, the BBC, the Washington Post, Rick Steves, and the LA Times. We’ve been the #1 food tour on TripAdvisor for more than a decade.

Le Duc is rated GREAT ★ ★ ★

243 Boulevard Raspail, 75014
Open Monday–Saturday for lunch & dinner
Closed Sunday
Reservations at +33 1 43 20 96 30

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

Read more

We’ve rated La Halle aux Grains as GOOD with two stars * *

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

Read more

We’ve rated Petit Vatel as FINE with one star *

Find all our rankings in the Restaurant Index and don’t miss our 50 Favorite Restaurants in Paris

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So we asked. We contacted some of our favorite restaurants — the ones we’ve reviewed in this newsletter — and asked whether they have air conditioning. We’ve organized their replies by location, beginning with the 1st arrondissement.

These confirmations come directly from our favorite restaurants, but we can’t vouch for how strong the air conditioning actually is. It’s almost never as cold as Americans are used to. But we think these are your best bets for booking a really good restaurant that stays comfortable when the temperature climbs.

Be sure to tell us in the comments if we’ve missed something - we’ll keep updating this list as we discover more good options.

A live-fire newcomer near République from Antoine Rollin (ex-Hémicycle), cooking meat, fish and vegetables over wood flame in a theatrical, diner-meets-brasserie room. Rollin promises it’s very heavily air conditioned — handy, given the open hearth.

41 rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth, 75003
Open Wednesday-Sunday for lunch & dinner
Closed Monday & Tuesday
Reservations online or at +33 1 86 04 90 83

An Italian natural-wine bistrot tucked in the historic passage des Panoramas, where Sardinian chef Simone Tondo cooks comfort classics like vitello tonnato and polpette. The main dining room and the private room are both air conditioned.

8 passage des Panoramas, 75002
Open every day for lunch & dinner
Reservations online or at +33 1 40 13 06 41

Chef Erica Paredes’ wildly creative small plates in a fun, loud Marais room — polenta fries with homemade Cheeto dust, oyster po’boys on bao wrappers.

25 Rue des Gravilliers, 75003 Paris
Open for dinner Tuesday-Saturday
Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations online

A modest, much-loved neighborhood bistro in the Marais where chef Denis Groison cooks classic French food with subtle Vietnamese accents — Phu Quoc pepper in the steak au poivre, Hanoi spices on the duck — while his wife Lan runs the room and a deep, Burgundy-focused wine list.

46 Rue de Montmorency, 75003
Open Monday-Thursday for lunch & dinner
Closed Friday, Saturday & Sunday
Reservations online or at +33 6 42 83 79 52

An intimate, personal new room on the Île Saint-Louis from chef Marcin Król, built around a wood-fired brazier in a beautiful 17th-century space.

11 Rue des Deux Ponts, 75004
Open Wednesday-Saturday for lunch & dinner
Closed Sunday-Tuesday
Reservations online or at +33 6 49 70 49 54

A warm, candlelit bistro near the Place des Vosges serving classic French comfort — very good oeufs mayonnaise, gravlax, a rich beef daube — at fair prices. Open every day, including Sunday and Monday, when much of the neighborhood is dark.

6 Rue des Tournelles, 75004
Open every day for dinner only
Reservations online or at +33 1 57 40 99 96

One of the most personal fine-dining rooms in the city, near Notre-Dame, where chef Toshitaka Omiya’s plates carry a quiet intensity.

5 Rue de Poissy, 75005
Open Monday–Friday for lunch & dinner
Closed Saturday & Sunday
Reservations online or at +33 1 75 51 57 54

A sexy little Saint-Germain wine bar built around well-sourced cheese, charcuterie and cured fish, with a few excellent cooked dishes each night.

26 rue des Grands Augustins, 75006
Open Wednesday-Sunday from 5-10pm
Closed Monday & Tuesday
Reservations online or at +33 9 81 21 76 21

A longtime Saint-Germain favorite on the rue de Seine, with one of the best wine lists in the city (supplied by sister shop La Dernière Goutte) and a kitchen that leans generously vegetable-forward. Good for vegetarians, and open Sunday. Their next door wine bar Freddy’s also has air conditioning.

54 Rue de Seine, 75006
Open for dinner Wednesday-Sunday, plus lunch on weekends
Closed Monday & Tuesday
Reservations online or at +33 (0)1 43 54 34 50

Chef Martin Maumet’s Asian-inflected bistronomy — lemongrass, ginger, exotic citrus — in a gorgeous Saint-Germain room.

25 rue des Grands Augustins, 75006
Open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch & dinner
Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations online or at +33 1 46 33 00 85

Fish La Boissonerie

A welcoming Saint-Germain fixture from the Semilla family, with an outstanding wine list (from sister shop La Dernière Goutte), bread from Cosí across the street, and a bar that's long been a haven for solo diners. Open Monday, when much of the neighborhood is closed. Their wine bar across the street Freddy’s also has air conditioning.

69 Rue de Seine, 75006
Open Monday-Saturday for lunch and dinner
Reservations online or at +33 (0)1 43 54 34 69

A lively luxury bistro with one of the best wine lists in Paris; go gentle with oeufs mayo or all-in on the tournedos Rossini. Air conditioning plus a covered terrasse.

45 Rue Saint-Georges, 75009
Open every day for lunch & dinner
Reservations online or at +33 1 48 78 40 30

One of the most intimate dining rooms in Paris, where a four-course dinner tasting menu (75€) meets a gorgeous wine list and gallant service — a recipe for romance, near Montmartre. They added air conditioning last month.

34 rue Petrelle, 75009
Open Wednesday-Sunday for dinner
Plus lunch on Saturday & Sunday
Closed Monday & Tuesday
Reservations online or at +33 1 42 82 11 02

Chef Adrien Ferrand puts a lot of ideas on the plate, with consistently precise technique and saucing, an impressive wine list, and at least one solid vegetarian option per course — a genuinely good special-occasion choice without the booking anxiety.

27 Rue d'Hauteville, 75010
Open Tuesday-Saturday for lunch & dinner
Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations online or at +33 1 42 28 80 20

A grown-up room near Montmartre — deep blue banquettes, glazed tiles, polished service — where chef Benjamin Schmitt is known for a deeply satisfying cassoulet but cooks an otherwise modern, inventive menu, with a self-assembled wine list full of reasonably-priced treasures.

I ate here on June 19 during the heat wave and it was reasonably cool

41 rue Catherine de la Rochefoucauld, 75009
Open Tuesday-Saturday for lunch & dinner
Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations online or at +33 1 42 81 00 17

A true locals’ spot for natural wine and Claire Grumellon’s excellent small plates until 1am, with a sidewalk terrace under a big awning. They were refreshingly honest with us: the AC isn’t a big one, and when it gets really, really hot, it’s still just hot. Air conditioning plus a shaded terrasse.

48 Rue de la Folie Méricourt, 75011
Open Tuesday-Saturday from 5pm-1am
Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations online or at +33 1 80 87 22 68

Chef Masa Ikuta’s intimate room moves fluidly between French and Japanese, with a deep natural wine list and vinyl spinning all evening. Chef Ikuta replied that they have Japanese A/C, “so it works!”

26 bis rue de la Fontaine au Roi, 75011
Open Wednesday-Saturday for lunch & dinner
Open Tuesday for dinner only
Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations online only

Some of the best pizza in Paris: Dan Pearson’s sourdough pies, a warm welcome, and a natural wine list shared with Le Rigmarole. Good for vegetarians.

4bis Avenue Jean Aicard, 75011
Open Monday – Friday from 6-10pm
Closed Saturday & Sunday
Reservations online or at +33 9 87 41 68 53

Erica Paredes’ buzzy, bargain-priced room in the eastern 11th — Filipino small plates, three kinds of fried chicken, and a natural wine list. (Sister to Mischief in the Marais.)

41 Rue de Montreuil, 75011
Open Tuesday-Saturday for dinner only
Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations online or at +33 1 40 09 06 82

A seafood institution with a wood-paneled, yacht-like dining room — go for the sole meunière, filleted tableside, and oysters among the best in Paris. Pricey, polished, and open Monday.

243 Boulevard Raspail, 75014
Open Monday–Saturday for lunch & dinner
Closed Sunday
Reservations at +33 1 43 22 59 59

A tiny, serene room near Montparnasse — barely sixteen seats — from a pair who met at Alain Passard's Arpège. Chef Jihyun Kim cooks a refined, vegetable- and fish-forward menu, with Simon Plantrou running the dining room.

8 Rue Falguière, 75015
Open Tuesday-Saturday for lunch & dinner
Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations online or at +33 1 42 19 98 01

Confident, beautiful Franco-Italian cooking from Flavio Lucarini and Aurora Storari, with a dedicated vegetarian menu. Air conditioning plus a covered terrasse.

18 Rue de Chaillot, 75116
Open Monday-Friday for lunch & dinner
Closed Saturday & Sunday
Reservations online or at +33 1 47 20 08 90

A husband-and-wife team running one of the best spots for a special occasion in western Paris, with delicious food from chef Noam Gedalof and standout wine pairings from sommelier Etheliya Hananova.

31 Avenue de Versailles, 75016
Open Monday-Friday for dinner only
Closed Saturday & Sunday
Reservations online or at +33 1 42 15 55 70

A lively Levantine spot in Montmartre, open every night and late on weekends, with sharing plates like horta croquettes and blackened Esh bread, cocktails, and a France-meets-Levant wine list. Made for a celebratory night out.

40 Rue Véron, 75018
Open every day for dinner (until 2am on Friday & Saturday)
Reservations online or at +33 7 83 57 38 99

Chef Antoine Westermann’s poultry house in Montmartre, serving heritage-breed birds poached then roasted until golden — best shared whole among a group. A handful of vegetarian starters too, and a great location across the street from the village’s last remaining windmill.

98 Rue Lepic, 75018
Open every day for lunch & dinner
Reservations online or at +33 1 42 59 82 89

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We’ve rated Patsy as GOOD with two stars * *

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

Read more

We’ve rated Rencontres as FINE with one star *

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

Read more

We’ve rated Le Grand Véfour as GOOD with two stars * *

Find all our rankings in the Restaurant Index and don’t miss our 50 Favorite Restaurants in Paris

Read more

We’ve rated Semilla as GREAT with three stars * * *
- an upgrade from the two stars it has held for many years

Find all our rankings in the Restaurant Index and don’t miss our 50 Favorite Restaurants in Paris

Read more

We’ve rated Le Train Bleu as FINE with one star *

Reminder: You can find more than 300 additional restaurants, all anonymously reviewed, rated and organized by location, in our restaurant index here:

Read more