Bistros, Brasseries, and Patisseries: Our Staff’s Guide to Dining Like a Parisian in the City of Light

Paris is on everyone’s travel bucket list for good reason. Whether you’re marching along with the crowds down the grand boulevards and flagship stores of the Eighth Arrondissement or wandering slowly from gallery to gallery along the cozy, tree-shaded streets of Le Marais, you always seem to be caught in a quintessentially Parisian experience.

Sipping a bitter-smelling morning espresso and nibbling on a flaky pain au chocolat in a cafe next to a murderously stylish octogenarian in head-to-toe Hermès as Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin coo at you over the radio…

Taking a break from the satisfying crunch of chalky gravel underfoot by people-watching from a bench under a perfectly geometrically manicured trees—only to hear your stomach whine hungrily at the sight of the couple digging into steaming hot crepes Suzette at the nearby creperie’s sidewalk table…

Spending the evening squeezed between two big bistro tables crowded with local families tucking into plates of steak frites, then breathing in the rich, briny aroma as the waiters usher in a giant, enamel crock of steamed mussels and a giant paper cone of hot, salty fries…

Yep, you could only be in Paris.

There have been more guides written about Paris than there are stops on the Metro, but this is a must-read because it’s the only one that’s fueled by Serious Eats’ most precious resource: the perfectly honed palates and combined decades of collective experience of our staff and recipe developers. It's one of several stops on our tour of the best food cities around the world. 

For the City of Light, we talked to Serious Eats Editorial Director Daniel Gritzer, who worked for years in the kitchen at New York City’s famed Chanterelle, studied charcuterie in the South of France, and was mentored in modern French cooking fundamentals under Didier Virot, a Michel Bras–trained chef. We also spoke with Culinary Editor Genevieve Yam, a veteran of Per Se and Blue Hill at Stone Barns and an accomplished baker and pastry chef. Both have come off their most recent trips to Paris ready and more than willing to pass along their food finds, sharing how to eat where they ate—or how you could recreate their favorite dishes in your own home.

Hungrily In Paris

Paris is not new to Daniel or Genevieve—they've both made multiple trips there over the years. Daniel's most recent trip was earlier this year with his family to visit friends, walk the city, and keep abreast of Parisian food—in particular with an eye to classic bistro recipes he was working on for Serious Eats.

“This is one of the gastronomic capitals of the world, and so any summation of Parisian food feels like it’s just automatically going to be insufficient,” he says. “I went there this time specifically with French bistro recipes on the brain, but Paris as a food city goes well beyond that. I mean, you could spend a couple of weeks just visiting the boulangeries!”

In other words, the most useful thing to bring to Paris? A good pair of broken-in walking shoes.

“Have a good time and if you walk around, you’ll find yourself in a pleasantly surprising restaurant, cheese shop, or market,” says Genevieve.

Similarly, Daniel advises you not to get trapped by this or any list of places to eat. One of the pure joys of a trip to Paris is exploring and creating memories by making your own culinary discoveries. 

“The best thing about Paris is, sure, you make your list of restaurants to go to, but then you set off and walk and get on the Metro—just throw a stone and you’ll find good food no matter where you are,” he says.

Where to Eat in Paris

Breizh Cafe

109 Rue Vieille du Temple

Though Lyons is universally regarded as the culinary capital of France, Paris’ strength as, y’know, the capital in every other way, lies in the breadth of its regional representation of French foods. So when Daniel heard about Breizh Cafe in artsy Le Marais, he wanted to see how they stacked up against his own recipe for galettes Bretonnes, the buckwheat crepes you find in Brittany. It’s a casual, rustic place with hefty wood tables and wood paneled walls that’s welcoming to everyone from singletons to couples and families, though it can get crowded. 

“These are the true, true buckwheat crepes, and I know from working on my recipe that they’re really tricky to make,” he says. “The batter is 100% buckwheat flour, so it’s kind of nutty and earthy and has this wonderful crispiness with a lacy bubble structure. And then you have the ham, an alpine cheese, and the sunny side-up egg kind of baked into it—just delicious, that juxtaposition of the crispy, lacy crepe and gooey, melty interior. Short of being in Brittany, it’s the real deal.”

A springtime offering added poached white asparagus to the classic ham, cheese, and egg filling. “You had this runny yolk flooding down into the expanse of melted cheese and white asparagus, with the melted cheese breaking into a kind of sauce that was almost like butter in spots,” he says.

The cafe offers far more than just the ham and cheese filling, including one wintery option that folded the crepe around tender potatoes, smoked fish, and fish roe, all bathed in a creamy sauce. 

When working on his own recipe for home cooks, Daniel found that using only buckwheat flour for the crepes is a tricky proposition, particularly in a residential kitchen without its own billig (the large, flat iron cooking surface for crepes)—the pure buckwheat crepe has no gluten, causing it to break too easily. His Serious Eats galettes breton recipe uses a buckwheat–wheat flour mixture for a more forgiving batter. It's a reliable substitute that’s a reasonable home version of his meal at Breizh Cafe.

“I was able to get a really potent buckwheat flavor in a batter that was still user-friendly for the home cook, so I stand by it,” Daniel says.

L'Ami Jean

27 Rue Malar

Want to eat contemporary French food alongside in-the-know locals? Pop into L’Ami Jean in the Seventh Arrondissement, with a wood-heavy storefront that almost looks like an old pub or the set from a Western movie but leads into a sleek, contemporary restaurant with lots of blond wood, a long, communal table on one side, and a perfect line of two-tops against a red leather banquette on the other. It’s often occupied by loyal local fans of the place.

“You wouldn’t know it was a good restaurant and you’d just walk by, but these are definitely regulars who go there, people who know this is where you go for great food in Paris,” Genevieve says. “You’re placed very close together, which is fun because you can overhear everyone’s conversations and eye what everyone else is eating. You can tell the people here genuinely like to eat here—they’re not influencers, just people who want a real good meal. No ring lights!”

Potatoes Pommes Anna A foolproof approach to a French classic.

rating:

cook time: 115 mins

serves: 4 to 6

view recipe

Some of those neighbors’ dishes you could find yourself slavering over might include crispy-skinned, pan-roasted game partridges; grilled and smoked oregano beef confit; or briny-but-creamy grilled scallops fresh from the morning’s catch.

As soon as you enter L’Ami Jean, the staff greet you, whisk you to a table, set down good, crusty bread with olive oil and a little dish with olives, and then introduce you to amazing reinventions of traditional French cuisine, like an incredible pommes Anna that Genevieve describes as “crispy and tender and shingled together with a sear on the outside and creamy on the inside, dark but not burned and all very dramatic—a fancy-feeling potato dish that’s really just potatoes and butter but can be difficult to execute well.”

Clamato

80 Rue d3 Charonne

The unassuming green storefront of Clamato looks like it could belong to any old Parisian merchant, but it belies the culinary laboratory inside doing creative work with French seafood. Sandwiched between a rough wooden ceiling and worn tile floor, you take a seat at a simple wood- slate bench and seafoam-colored tables that evoke a coastal retreat, all bathed in a soft white light from the big, central window that looks onto a tree-filled courtyard.

Daniel ordered clams served in a rich broth and brought out in a small cast-iron pot. “It was this incredibly reduced sauce that had the clam juices emulsified into a backbone of meat broth. It was phenomenal—my kids just wanted to drink that sauce.”

That sauce brought to mind Daniel’s own work on his lobster bisque recipe, which he built around “a French vision of bisque,” using a meat broth for the base instead of the seafood-only, flour-thickened version more common in the States. “I got a fair amount of pushback for that—why would you put chicken stock in a bisque?!—even though it's a powerful combination, and traditional. It was validating to go to a place like Clamato, a restaurant celebrated in Paris today, to see that meat broth-seafood-shellfish combination being 100% a good idea.”

Grand Brasserie

6 Rue do la Bastille

A brasserie is a quintessentially Parisian dining experience both theatrical and homey, large and loud yet intimate. Grande Brasserie, across the street from Place de la Bastille, is a boisterous place with mirrors that stretch to the ceiling, intricately tiled floors, and whimsical yesteryear illustrations of French families celebrating life in both the fields and in the city.

Daniel, who had ended up there by chance while walking with his family and friends, was directly inspired by the tête de veau (calf’s head) he had to create his own recipe for crispy pork belly with sauce gribiche. 

“Instead of the rustic dish with boiled veal’s head and sauce gribiche, the Grande Brasserie veal head meat was cooked and shredded, formed into a cylinder and cut into a puck, breaded and fried,” he says. “When I was working on my constellation of bistro recipes, I quickly realized that the traditional version wasn’t going to work because where can you get veal head here in the US? It turns out the visit to this brasserie was when the lightbulb went off for me. I said, let’s do a fried torpedo of crispy, fried pork using a boneless pork belly, which allowed for accessibility and affordability and results in a dish that you might make to really impress your guests but isn’t actually difficult on a technical level. I really owe it to that restaurant to open my mind to the possibilities of this preparation.”

Bistro Recipes

Classic Steak Tartare

Pork Croquettes with Sauce Gribiche

He also happened to be working on a steak tartare recipe at the time, so he ordered it at the brasserie, finding their version delectable—and invaluable in the development of his own recipe.

“It had this creaminess that carried through, not thick and gloppy but a light sheen—something more than just a slick of oil,” Daniel says. “And personally, I think that’s better. This was what I went for with my own steak tartare recipe, using mayonnaise instead of just oil to dress the beef—it's delicious, perfectly made, and with a kind of silkiness to the dressing.”

Au Pied de Cochon

6 Rue Coquillière

This charming, multi-floor brasserie, which Genevieve describes as “an old-school Parisian restaurant,” is filled with art hanging on its cream and dark red walls, red curtains on windows overlooking the streets, massive floral chandeliers, and red velvet banquettes. It’s packed with both locals and tourists. 

Despite a small slide in quality as the restaurant has become more and more of a tourist destination, the desserts here are still top-notch and worth a visit. One of the highlights of Genevieve’s most recent trip to Paris was her meal at Au Pied de Cochon because of how the friendly, chatty, bowtied waiters put on a veritable pyrotechnics show when serving her order of crepes Suzette.

“They roll up to your table with this little cart with a butane burner and flambé the sauce in front of you,” she says. “It’s very simply prepared in a very buttery sauce, and theirs was a little more bittersweet than mine, but I heavily recommend the crepes Suzette flambé because it’s part of the fun.”

She also enjoyed the Île flottante, which she says excels with fresh summer or poached winter fruits, “light and fluffy” meringue, and a sauce with “real vanilla beans and seasoned so it’s a little salty-sweet.”

Les Parigots République

5 Rue de Chateau d'Eau

Compared to brasseries, bistros are cozier neighborhood places that Parisian families are generationally loyal to the same way many Americans are to their local diner. 

In Daniel’s case, he inherited his love for Les Parigots République from a Parisian friend who’s a habitué of the place. It’s a warmly lit, frequently crowded restaurant with mismatched stools at a bar overflowing with bottles, bowls, and glass carafes, simple wooden tables, and cane-back chairs spilling out onto the sidewalk. A colorful cast of local characters rounds it off, making it all come alive.

“We squeezed into a banquette, and there were old ladies at the table next to us, and this cat roaming around the restaurant. We had our coats in a pile in this very relaxed and casual, quintessential neighborhood bistro,” he says.

Adding to its rustic vibe, Les Parigots’s steak au poivre came out on a wooden carving board and reflected what Daniel has always wanted his own steak au poivre to be: loaded with peppery flavor and casual yet prepared with careful and deliberate technique. 

“You’re having a good time, you’re drinking wine, having good food, and no one cares if you’ve knocked a fry off the plate,” he says. “My steak au poivre recipe tries to capture that.”

Bouillon Chartier Montparnasse

59 Bd du Montparnasse

Bouillons are something like “a bistro or a brasserie meets a cafeteria,” says Daniel of these historic Parisian dining halls that once catered to a largely working class clientele.

The Bouillon Chartier Montparnasse is a location of one of the originals, with art nouveau designs blooming out of seemingly every corner, from the flower-bulb wall sconces and standing lamps to the elaborately wood-framed mirrors and wall tiles covered in scenes of creeping blossoms and sinuous vines under ornate stained-glass ceilings. 

Parisians have rediscovered their love of these places anew, and when Daniel went, the line was “spilling out the front” despite the fact that the restaurant was serving “easily 100 people at once”—young people and old, families and solo diners, a real microcosm of Paris as a whole.

The food hearkens back to Bouillon’s roots as a place for 19th-century workers to get their fill after shifts: unfussy, traditional French food, filling and inexpensive but done well. Think pink slabs of country terrines with stick-to-your-ribs meatiness, hearty and savory bouef Bourguignon, quenelles of pike swimming in creamy sauces, and crunchy, slightly bitter celeriac remoulade. And, of course, a custard dish filled with chocolate mousse or a mound of rice pudding to finish the meal.

"I highly recommend visiting a bouillon, just not necessarily for the food," says Daniel. "It's really about the bustling scene, and the history of these restaurants." Just as a '50s diner might be considered an essential American restaurant experience despite the food often being unremarkable, the slapdash fare at many bouillons comes out quickly and doesn't show much attention to detail: "My gribiche was clearly just mayo scooped from a tub of premade stuff with a small amount of minced pickle and caper stirred in." Still, the meat it was served with was “boiled and tender and gelatinous, making your lips sticky and wonderful; the wine was drinkable and cheap; and the atmosphere was gruff but fun.” All in all, worth it. 

Chez Aline

85 Rue de la Roquette

Though eating on the go is basically a mortal sin in France, Paris is a busy city, and the people do often need a relatively quick meal. Though tiny Chez Aline is a humble sandwich shop, it has queues that get long at lunchtime and can keep the staff busy wrapping incredible baguette sandwiches in white paper. No one has an excuse for not being ready with their orders, because the daily menu is written in silver marker on the outside wall right next to the front door. 

Daniel made sure to order the sauce gribiche because he was working on his own recipe for the eggy, capery condiment. He ordered a fried chicken cutlet sandwich with the gribiche smeared on the split baguette.

“In a sandwich, this is a sauce that is playing on many levels, adding the moisture element, the condiment notes with the salty-briny capers, the interesting texture from the diced boiled eggs, and brightness and freshness from herbs,” he says. “There’s no surprise why it’s so delicious with fatty meats and fresh green vegetables like asparagus.” 

Des Gateaux et du Pain

89 Rue du Bac

No trip to Paris is complete without a shopping expedition to a boulangerie and visit to a patisserie, but Des Gateaux et du Pain manages to combine both and then some in an elegantly sleek space that looks more like a museum exhibit on French design or a high-end jewelry store than a place to nip in for breakfast supplies or a dessert to bring to a party.

“The windows are shiny, the countertops are shiny, everything is lined up perfectly in the glass cases, and you feel like you’re in the lobby of a five-star hotel,” Genevieve says. 

It was also the perfect place for Genevieve to buy a mille-feuille, a pastry with a special place in her heart—one that she’s had as her birthday cake every year as a child—and it did not disappoint.

“It’s very hard to find a place that does mille-feuille well because it depends on the quality of the vanilla you use, the pastry cream, and how thick the puff pastry is—there are so many places it can go wrong,” Genevieve says. “Their pastry is so flaky and so delicious, and they used real vanilla in the pastry cream and glazed the top of their mille-feuille a little bit.”

So when she decided to come up with her own recipe for mille-feuille, Des Gateaux was one of the experiences she drew upon, though the result was “a different interpretation that is still delicious.” 

City of Delight

Parisians love to cook and Parisians love to eat, and there’s a special kind of magic the city seems to infuse into every victual that passes from kitchen to plate to mouth, whether it’s from the local boulangerie, the chicest three-Michelin star restaurant, or the reach-down freezers at the nearest Picard grocery store. It’s that rare city where every trip is guaranteed to be a culinary adventure. So whether you treat our guide like a fixed itinerary or a springboard for your own unique food odyssey, take satisfaction in knowing that a paradise of good eating awaits.