Best Paris Restaurants and Hotels

The names that move are world-class for food, wine and service.    These are top-quality French restaurants, top value---but NOT top price.

Of course, Paris was a major gastronomic capital.    But, quality of meals has declined rapidly in the past 10 years, especially in tourist areas.    Just reading a traditional phrase on a menu is no guarantee-- you need more information about the management and the chefs.   Many of the family-run quality restaurants have closed--- 60 percent of our choice ones closed between 1993 and 1998.    Increasingly, Parisians are choosing to eat heavily-marketed fast-food, or take-aways--- Tex-Mex, pittas, burgers, panini, Belgian, Chinese, Thai, etc.   This page is about real French food.   They are all extremely good value for money, especially compared with London or Vienna.

Click for seafood, Breton pancakes, cafés,, hôtels, or scroll to the next line for bistrôts.

  Prices in green are Euros for a table d'hôte menu (three courses, unless stated); di = drink included.    Prices in yellow are for a typical, three-course, à la carte meal including half-bottle of wine and service.

Price Euro

Opening Hours

Location (M=nearest Métro station)

Phone

Small family-run bistrôt (26 seats), good ambience, calm.    Very good value menu, excellent quality and service.    Everything is cooked here --- pâtés, rabbit stew with pasta and mustard, fillet of beef, fish stew with baby vegetables, etc.    Desserts superb (especially the warm dark-chocolate tart served with redcurrants).   Wines from small vineyards in the south (12 Eu).

13 two course 15 three course, simpler

1200- 2300, but can linger to midnight, talking to Valérie

Closed Sunday

(very near Bd du Montparnasse/ Bd Raspail corner) (M: Vavin)

Bright, warm ambience, lots of pictures.   Excellent menu, concentrating on SW France in the winter, Provence and Corsica in the summer.    Lot of fish, vegetables, fruit.   Blinis d'aile de raie, pipérade de rougets et son bavarois tomates-basilic are examples.   Wonderful desserts including several based on seasonal fruit, such as figs.   Extensive wine list.   Very good, friendly service.

25-35

Closed all Sunday + Monday lunch

(very near Bd du Montparnasse/ Bd Raspail corner) (M: Vavin)

Larger bistrôt, particularly attractive ambience.    Been run by the Gellé family for decades --- maintained top quality.    Home-cooked terrines (poultry, and a lovely fish one with thick, real mayonnaise containing lots of herbs), meat, fish, game, oysters, escargots, daube de lapin, tête de veau sauce Gribiche, fruit tarts, excellent cheese board.    Large portions.   Very good wines from small vineyards in the south (eg Château de la Bégude), reds served cool.   Excellent service.

24 or 30 di

25- 40 à la carte

Closed mid- July to mid- August--- and all Mondays

(M: Ecole Militaire, La Tour Maubourg)

fax: 44 18 94 69

Particularly good value, beautiful ambience, food and service.   Always superb, whatever you choose.    Décor includes a lot of wood, mirrors, pictures in frosted glass, old photographs and drinks posters, patterned marble floor, lot of pink/red.    Dark red chairs, yellow table cloths.   The Bastille one is 100 metres from la Place de la Bastille (Opera House, column, marina).    Excellent menus, mainly fish and meat, with dishes like tatin de tomates tiède au chèvre rôti, duck liver terrine, steak tartare, quenelles de brochet, minute de thon aux fèves et légumes et un capeaux de parmesan.   Wonderful desserts, like poached peach with raspberry sorbet and blackcurrant sauce, poached pears in red wine with orange sauce, tulipe mirabelles aux marc de Gewürztraminer.    Good carafe wines.   Air-con.

16 di 2-course lunch

à la carte 30- 45

1200- 1500

1900- 0000

The large brasserie that owns the above bistrôts, and is opposite to the Bastille one.    Décor Belle Époque-- lovely wood, mirrors, panelling, chandeliers, stained glass windows giving the foundation date of 1864.    Lovely linen, crockery.   Excellent service.     Wide-ranging menu, seafood and meat.    Range of oysters, shellfish platters, choucroûtes, grills, meats.   Superb sweets, including very rich mousse au chocolat.    Good carafe wines as well as a good wine list.   Air-con.

18 di 2-course lunch

30- 45 à la carte

1200- 0100 weekends

(M: Bastille)

fax: 42 72 97 68

Seafood

Two sites---one a few metres from Bofinger at Bastille, one in Montparnasse, very near the parent restaurant (le Dôme-- equally good, but much more expensive).    Yellow walls partly overlaid with darker, orange-y yellow.   Vine leaves hanging from ceiling, tiles on wall with pictures of fish in blue.   Menus on lovely blackboards on artists' easels which they move round to you.   Superb seafood (plus one meat dish).    Menu changes daily, depending on the catch.    Examples are tartare de saumon, friture de céteaux, solettes meunières,  lotte à la crème de l'ail, langoustines au curry.   Beautiful desserts, such as crème brulée, soupe aux fraises, meringues Chantilly.   Good wines, all at same price (18 Eu).   Air-con.

30- 40 à la carte

Closed August

11 rue Delambre, 14 (M: Vavin)

43 35 32 00

fax: 48 04 00 59

Excellent seafood cooked in fairly traditional ways, eg superb sole meunière.    Some less traditional dishes, such as aiolli de morue fraiche.   Petite friture du jour is an excellent starter.   They also have one meat dish, usually rump steak.   Very good wine list.    Many tables on terrace.   A few doors away is the parent restaurant, Marius et Janette, which is equally good, but much more expensive.

(M: Alma Marceau)

The top seafood restaurant.    Superb, fresh seafood, wonderful recipes, beautifully presented (one hesitates to disturb the dish), top quality service.    Tastes, textures, appearance of food always marvellous.    Very good wines (including carafes).    Tiled walls, blue upholstery, tables tiled with fishing pictures, lovely decorated crockery.    An example of a recipe is creamy risotto with chopped green parts of courgettes and lots of small, succulent de-shelled langoustines, whose heads have contributed their flavour to a tomato/herb sauce.    Quite a small place, best to book.  A few tables on pavement.   Air-con.

(M: rue du Bac)

fax: 45 44 73 73

The first Gaya, been excellent for years.    Now does a smaller seafood menu plus an equal-sized meat menu.    Beautiful ambience, with old, decorated Spanish wall tiles.

35-55 à la carte

(M: Madeleine)

Breton Pancakes

The top of the many Breton pancake restaurants in this area, which is the only area to eat pancakes.    Watch the cook make them.    The pancakes are huge, but expertly and symmetrically folded over (sometimes into squares).    Menu has 42 galettes (buckwheat, with savoury fillings), 42 crêpes (ordinary flour, with sweet fillings).    Each ranges from 'simple' (one filling, 2 Eu), through combinations, to specials (amazingly complex, 7.5 Eu).    Some of the ingredients are egg, ham, cheese, salmon, meat, sausage; chocolate, jam, honey, apple, cream, icecream (7 varieties).    Also salads.    Breton cider in proper bowls, plus beer and wine.    Very clean and neat (unlike some competitors), prompt, attentive service, some tables on pavement.

lunch and dinner, but closed afternoon

(M: Edgar Quinet, Montparnasse- Bienvenüe)

A typical Paris brasserie/café.   Good drinks, wine, food, service.   Very good value.   Large terrace.   Very near le Musée d'Orsay and l'Assemblée Nationale.    About 150 metres from la Seine.

A typical, traditional Paris café.    Opened in 1913 and preserves the beautiful décor of that period.   Between the Palais Royal and St Eustache/les Halles.    Good drinks, wine, food, service.    Good value.

(M: les Halles, Palais Royal)

Hôtels

Quiet, comfortable, excellent bathrooms.   A charming, typically Parisian, building.   Very good buffet breakfast (7 Eu), eat as much as you like.   Very helpful staff.   At the end of a 19^th century shopping Passage, next to le Musée Grévin (some rooms look out over the museum's glass roof).   Easy walk to Galéries Lafayette, Au Printemps, Fauchon, Madeleine, Opéra.   Two Métro lines and several buses very nearby can take you to almost any part of Paris (including le Palais Royal, le Louvre, la Place de la Concorde, le Champs Elysées, la Tour Eiffel, Montparnasse, Pigalle, le Bastille, le Quartier Latin, les Jardins de Luxembourg).   No bar or restaurant, but many neighbouring ones, including le Petit Bofinger, which we recommend.   A good Pâtisserie in the Passage.

(M: Grand Magasins/ rue Montmartre, Richelieu- Drouot.   Bus 48 to la Gare du Nord)

fax: 42 47 00 70

Quiet, very comfortable, small rooms, modern, excellent bathrooms.    Good breakfasts (5 Eu), very helpful staff.   Very nice area, quite near les Jardins de Luxembourg, le Panthéon, Montparnasse (it is 100 metres from the Boulevard du Montparnasse).   No bar or restaurant, but there are many nearby.

(RER: Port Royal-- direct line to airports and la Gare du Nord)

fax: 43 54 22 45

We have eaten in these restaurants for years---some for over 30 years.    They have ALWAYS been excellent.    We have a reputation that, if we ever receive poor food, wine or service in any restaurant, we NEVER go back.