But I discovered on a recent trip that restaurants in Paris are still a great value no matter the cost, because the overall experience is so satisfying. In place after place, I found the freshest ingredients, endless creativity and waitstaff who were knowledgeable without being arrogant. Getting reservations was easy, too, now that the discouraging exchange rate is making Americans thin on the ground. (At press time, the exchange rate was 78 cents to the euro.) Even so, it helps to know where the best bargains are. Here, my strategies for dining out on a budget.
Book a table at a grocer's
I made one of my biggest discoveries in what seems like an unlikely location: an épicerie, or grocery store. At the year-old Les Papilles, one of Paris's newest food-shop-cum-restaurants, you get a four-course, $39 prix-fixe meal good enough to be served on fine linen, instead of on a small wooden table squeezed against shelves, with shoppers reaching over your head. Chef and owner Bertrand Bluy's portions, served on tables crowded with orchids in vases and sea salt in shot glasses, are very generous, so sharing is not only sensible but perfectly acceptable. And you can buy one of the store's reasonably priced wines—like the $32 Bourgueil from artisanal Loire producers Catherine and Pierre Breton—to drink with your meal.
It probably would have been cheaper to make dinner at home with ingredients bought at Les Papilles (the name means "taste buds"). But Bluy, who used to be the pastry chef at the Michelin three-star restaurant Taillevent, is a better cook than I am.
As part of
his four-course menu, Bluy set out a white porcelain tureen of velvety
artichoke soup; the foie gras mousse, shaped into two little eggs and
placed at the bottom of the empty bowl, melted creamily when I ladled
the steaming soup over it. Bluy uses the same supplier Taillevent does
for his incredibly tender and flavorful hanger steak, which he featured
in his petite marmite du jour (a kind of blue-plate special in
a covered copper casserole). The pan-seared meat with carrots and
spring onions, all seasoned with cumin seeds in a thyme-infused veal
broth, was wonderful. After the steak came a cheese course—a soft,
runny slice of Sainte-Maure chèvre with greens and a tapenade
tartine—and, for dessert, the same silky crème
brûlée Bluy used to make
at Taillevent for customers, who paid much more.
Another clever way to eat cheaply and well in Paris is to track down the young, up-and-coming chefs who, like Bluy, trained at Michelin-starred restaurants. Over the past ten years, these cooks, starting out on their own or working with first-time restaurateurs, have created an entirely new genre, the gastro-bistro, devoted to spins on the classics at modest prices. The original gastro-bistro, La Régalade, inspired dozens of others—most recently L'Ami Jean, L'Ourcine and La Famille, to name just a few.
The 18-month-old Café Moderne is one of the youngest of the bunch, with 29-year-old chef Sébastien Altazian—who trained with Michelin-starred chefs Michel Rostang and Guy Savoy—in the kitchen. I had doubts about getting to Café Moderne in time to try the three-course, $39 prix-fixe menu I'd heard so much about. I was delayed and didn't arrive for lunch until almost two in the afternoon, near the time French restaurateurs typically close the kitchen. But when I got there, the plush red banquette was still packed with media people and bankers. (There are five banks within a short stroll of the restaurant, which is across the street from the Bourse, Paris's old stock market.) Fréderic Hubig, a co-owner, caught me eyeing a dish of fresh-caught langoustines. "I'm delighted to have you here for a late lunch," he said. "But, unfortunately, at this hour the kitchen has run out of the daily special." That wasn't entirely a disaster, because I was already having trouble choosing from among Altazian's offerings.
Café Moderne isn't really a café, and Altazian does more than cook the hard-boiled eggs you see on every café counter. As a starter on the fixed menu, for instance, he lightly breaded soft-boiled eggs then fried them so the yolk flowed onto a silken spinach puree and mixed with strips of crispy, salty bacon. His lamb shoulder entrée was cooked until it was falling off the bone, then shredded and packed into a ramekin lined with dried, plumped apricot halves. What a great idea. Dessert, a molten chocolate cake, was more predictable, but absolutely perfect.
The restaurant's affordability extends to the wine.
"I
get lost looking at a regular wine list," Hubig told me. So at
Café
Moderne he arranged the choices by price. And he loves sharing co-owner
David Lanher's discoveries. He directed me to a $35 bottle of 2003 La
Vieille Ferme Perrin, from Provence's vanguard Côtes du Ventoux
wine
region. This easy-drinking, fruity red just kept getting better as I
sipped it with lunch. Serious wine drinkers will want reservations at
Café Moderne's Monday-night Grand Cru dinners, when the
restaurant
pours wines like Château Guiraud Sauternes 1er Cru
classé and Chateau Grand-Puy-Lacoste Pauillac Cru
classé—at cost!
Cooking school
Having a student cook for you is guaranteed not to cost much, but you never know just how well the pupil has learned the lessons. Two cooking schools in Paris, however, offer an amazing (if charmingly imperfect) culinary experience. The four-course meal at the fourth-floor restaurant of the école Supérieure de Cuisine Française Ferrandi, for instance, includes a vast selection of cheese and costs only $23, $28 or $45, depending on the day of the week and who's cooking (second- or third-year students).
My meal was, for the most part, surprisingly good. The menu is not a rehash of Escoffier's 20th-century classics but composed of completely contemporary recipes, such as roasted sea bass in a red wine sauce and thyme-scented rabbit with a potato gratin and caramelized onions. The service is chancier than the food, because the waitstaff includes many first-year students; my server had to hide the chocolate tart because half of it skidded across the floor when he tried to slice it in front of me. Though mortified, he persevered with grace.
For the best possible deal, take a lunchtime cooking class at the eight-month-old Atelier des Chefs—then eat what you make. For $20, you spend 30 minutes in a modern, glass-enclosed kitchen with up to 21 other students, making a one-dish meal under the direction of an instructor. The day I was there, the teacher was Jean-Sébastien Bompoil, a young, English-speaking chef from the Ritz. There are no recipes and practically no lecturing; you get to work as soon as you've washed your hands and donned a plastic apron. There was at least as much chattering as cooking going on as my fellow students and I companionably shared the tasks of peeling potatoes to make mashed potatoes with olive oil and scallions, and paring off the thin, viscous membrane that surrounds a monkfish fillet. We pushed chunks of fish flavored with salt, pepper, lemongrass and olive oil onto lemongrass skewers and took turns pan-frying them before it was time—too soon—to move into the adjoining room for lunch. The two brothers who created the Atelier, François and Nicolas Bergerault, have taken pains to make the lunch more than an afterthought. You can buy a glass of wine to have with your meal, as well as cheese, coffee and dessert, which you can linger over at the small bar.
Go to the grand restaurants at lunch
While top-drawer restaurants aren't giving the food away, many of them do offer the deal of the century at lunch—often a complete prix-fixe meal for the cost of a single entrée on the à la carte menu. Le Grand Véfour, Le Cinq and Le Bristol, among others, all have fabulous prix-fixe menus for under $105.
One of the least expensive with the most choices is the set lunch menu at the Hôtel Meurice's Le Meurice, on the Rue de Rivoli across from the Tuileries Gardens. Chef Yannick Alléno has garnered two Michelin stars and a great deal of buzz since he took over a year ago, and he has lots of impressive customers; I sat near the daughter of the President of Gabon, who was celebrating her marriage at the Meurice that afternoon. Yet Alléno is ferocious about giving good value. For $87, I was served a meal that included the same amuse bouche as the new bride, but I forgot to write down exactly what it was because I was too distracted by the Meurice's gilded, Corinthian-columned, laurel-wreath-motif opulence. The baby-lamb chops in the fricassée des Pyrénées might have been too fearsomely tiny for some people—they were the size of a man's thumb—but I loved the way the roasted pink meat contrasted with the dark, deeply flavored pieces of braised lamb shoulder. There were truffles, along with apples, celery and chestnuts, in the broth surrounding my beautifully roasted scallops. And the menu even included foie gras, which came in a terrine layered with quince, a notoriously hard fruit that Alléno managed to make as tender as the duck liver. The sommelier steered me to the wine list's most interesting and affordable handcrafted wines, including a spectacular $49 bottle of 2003 Domaine St. Nicolas Fiefs Vendéens.
Trust in serendipity
I don't know exactly why Angl'Opéra, Gilles Choukroun's year-old restaurant, is so inexpensive. The $49 I spent for an à la carte meal was stunningly modest, given the quality of the food, which is some of the most wonderful and inventive in Paris.
The restaurant is on the ground floor of the Hôtel Edouard VII on a corner of the Avenue de l'Opéra. I didn't love the awkward room, which is shaped like a pie wedge, or the clichéd Christian Liaigre style: dark wood and striped velvet banquettes with red and green throw pillows. But I've hardly ever tasted anything as good as Choukroun's $14 fried langoustines, coated with bread crumbs and ground pistachios and served with a salad of cilantro and sliced, blanched almonds dressed with olive oil and chile pepper. You want to scrape and suck the langoustine shells to get every bit of the crust. Some of his ideas are just so smart: I adored his roasted duck magret served with a reduced beet juice sauce, because the richness and sweetness were balanced by earthy green lentils and a shot glass of the lentil cooking liquid. It was as memorable a dish as any I've had in the past few years—and at $25, I left with enough money to start planning a return trip to Paris.
Book a table at a grocer's:
Follow the young protégés:
Eat at a cooking school:
Go to the grand restaurants at lunch:
Trust in serendipity:
Irritating as it may be to some Parisians, the flow of tourists is as much a part of the city's urban texture as is the river that traverses it. Like the Seine, this stream of visitors is channeled through the neighborhoods on the river's Left and Right Banks. Few sightseers venture beyond this area, with all its museums, monuments, and shops. But the daring explorer who escapes this gilded cage is never sorry. The minute he walks into a café-tabac and asks, "Où est le Métro Bolivar, s'il vous plaît?" he has made the city his own.
If you are in an adventurous mood, go east. Enclaves in this part of Paris—the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 19th, and 20th Arrondissements—have retained some of their rural character and are now colonized by young bourgeois in search of the bohemian lifestyle. Although eager sightseers are never far behind these stylish real estate pioneers, you can still find unspoiled areas that are quietly sensational—non-médiatisé, or "not publicized," as the French like to say.
To discover them, you may have to get lost. Follow a resident into a courtyard (saying a polite "Après vous, Madame" as you hold the gate for her), to see what's around the corner. Rather than making a beeline to the most happening addresses in this suddenly chic eastern crescent (you've heard of the Rue Oberkampf, haven't you?), take a more roundabout approach. Because you cannot actually plan to get lost, the following destinations are great starting points. They include some of my favorite hidden haunts, boutiques, sights, bistros, and landmarks on the east side of my hometown.
Zigzagging in the 10th
I sometimes start my peregrinations by nosing around the wholesale district at the eastern end of the Rue de Paradis. A paradise indeed, if you are as fascinated as I am by the French-country porcelain called faïence. Almost all the stores—some specializing in fancy crystal, others in sturdy crockery—are open to the public. The most welcoming is La Tisanière Porcelaine, an intimate shop jammed with teetering piles of dishes and a wide range of charming 18th-century reproductions, some originally designed for Marie Antoinette.
Around the corner, on Rue d'Hauteville, the 18th century is alive and well at the Hôtel de Bourrienne, a small palace open by appointment only. Behind its ordinary façade, the mansion retains its original (and thus slightly musty) Empire décor. You'll be able to imagine what it was like to be Napoleon's wife, as Josephine did indeed sleep here in one of the delicately ornate bedrooms.
Another destination in the 10th is that great old railroad station, the Gare de L'Est. After a stop in the main waiting room to pay homage to a monumental Norman Rockwell—style painting of young World War I soldiers embarking for the front, I too head east. Taking a shortcut across Square Villemin, I reach the graceful bend of the Canal St.-Martin, on the tree-lined Quai de Valmy. The breathtaking sight of the vaulted footbridges over the placid water usually incites me to stop at L'Atmosphère, a bistro on Rue Lucien-Sampaix. I lean on the wooden bar, order a glass of Pinot Noir, and watch corpulent barges negotiate the locks that regulate their gradual descent toward the Seine.
Moving as slowly as the water itself, I work my way downstream to Antoine et Lili, a colorful "village" on the Quai de Valmy made up of a boutique, a florist, and a restaurant. These form a poetic world thanks to a mix of ethnic, kitsch, and naïve objets. The menu changes daily, depending on "le feeling" of the chef, but a spicy "feuilleté Ali Baba" is likely to supplant the traditional croque-monsieur.
Across the canal, at the end of Avenue Richerand, stands an enticing pavilion in the same style as Place Dauphine. Without asking permission, I pass through its portal into what looks like a bastion. Beyond the first courtyard is the majestic and peaceful quadrangle of the Hôpital St.-Louis, one of the oldest hospitals in Paris. The spacious garden is surrounded by cheerful brick-and-stone façades, their steep slate roofs accented by classic dormer windows. In this leafy sanctum, forgotten by busy Parisians, one can taste a silence four centuries old.
Trend-spotting in the 11th
Overrun but still worth the detour, the Rue Oberkampf, in the 11th Arrondissement, is the gateway to one of Paris's most talked-about neighborhoods. But don't expect picturesque sights: here, people-watching is the main event. The street is a catwalk for Parisians doing their utmost to be "très looké." During a recent lunch at Café Charbon, I was so distracted by the couple at the next table that I had trouble concentrating on the menu. (Too bad I understand French; I might have been spared the details of their amorous afternoon.)
I prefer the quieter Robinet Mélangeur, a small bistro on Boulevard de Ménilmontant. This shaded esplanade off Rue Oberkampf is fast becoming as hot as Boulevard St.-Germain was in its existentialist heyday. The new generation of Sartres and de Beauvoirs are called anars, for "anarchists," and despite their facial hair and nose rings, they still look incredibly chic.
The Robinet, with its bright red walls, hearty plats du jour, and housemade tarts, is a well-kept secret for loyal 11th Arrondissement gourmands. My favorite seat is a banquette by the window, from which I can observe the 20th Arrondissement, across the boulevard. Throngs of people press flesh at the Montagnard and the Brasserie Le Soleil, popular cafés with impromptu terraces made up of mismatched tables and chairs set out on the sunny sidewalk.
Keren Ann epitomizes the multicultural modern nomad: born to a Javanese-Dutch mother and a Russian-Israeli father, the 31-year-old singer-songwriter settled down in Paris at age 11. These days, the artist splits her time between Paris and New York, and even wrote her last album, the melancholy Nolita, as a tribute to her adopted city; for her, Manhattan is the other pole in a bicontinental urban existence. "You don't have to belong anywhere to belong in New York or Paris," she says. "Every street corner is recognizable from cinema. The ambience, the vibe—everything is so familiar." Still, Keren Ann has remained loyal to the village-like neighborhood of Les Abbesses in Montmartre for the past eight years. Recently, T+L trailed the singer through a typical evening in her Parisian life.
5:45 P.M. A night in Paris may as well begin among the dead—at the Cimetière de Montmartre (20 Ave. Rachel; 33-1/ 53-42-36-30), one of Keren Ann's must-see city haunts. "Dalida and many artists are buried here," she says, leading the way across the Pont Caulaincourt in the rain. "At no time is it spooky. There's a nice energy, and the stained glass is really beautiful in the daylight."
6:45 P.M. Moving at a Parisian-quick trot past the movie-set cafés on the Rue des Abbesses, we stop at La Mascotte (52 Rue des Abbesses; 33-1/46-06-28-15), an unassuming brasserie with old wall tiles and a Bordeaux-themed clock, for belon oysters and a glass of chilled Macon. She smokes steadily, chatting up the characters at the bar. This could be a scene out of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie, much of which was filmed nearby.
7:20 P.M."Salut, ma chérie, ça va?" Keren Ann calls out to a toothless woman camped out on a stoop on Place des Abbesses, the neighborhood's main square. "Do you have enough cigarettes?" Keren Ann supplies this local fixture with smokes, while the nearby épicerie provides her with a daily liter of milk. "I've known her for seven years. She calls me Barbara, and herself Mademoiselle Gangster," Keren Ann says. "She says she's a messenger sent to protect the area from cars that are actually aliens."
7:30 P.M. It's a half-hour until closing at Keren Ann's favorite book and music store, L'Oeil du Silence (91 Rue des Martyrs; 33-1/42-64-45-40), a shop with high ceilings and an eclectic mix. "It's best to come in and let yourself be surprised," she says, adding that this is where she goes for hard-to-find items like DVD's of Nico performing live and a John Cale biography in French and English. She pets the owners' dog and sits down on the mosaic tile floor to leaf through Emily Dickinson, translated into French.
9 P.M. At the intimate Café Burq (6 Rue Burq; 33-1/42-52-81-27; dinner for two $64), co-owner Frédéric Péneau pours the singer a glass of champagne at the bar, which is lit with sherbet-colored Christophe Pillet-designed wall sconces. "When I'm writing or recording and I want a drink, I'll come here—it's just two steps from my house," Keren Ann says, pausing to double-kiss a flow of fashionable acquaintances who squeeze past the bar on their way to dinner. "It's a real neighborhood sort of place, but people come from all over town for their roasted Camembert," she says. Her favorites on the menu: veal liver sautéed with figs, rump steak with shallots and soy sauce, and a crumble with seasonal berries for dessert.
9:45 P.M. Down the hill from Les Abbesses in the Pigalle quarter, bustling Boulevard de Clichy is lined with sex shops and flooded with tourists spilling out of the topless show at the Moulin Rouge (82 Blvd. de Clichy; 33- 1/53-09-82-82; dinner and show from $171 per person). "I love this area," Keren Ann says. "There's something old and very French about it." She's also fond of Montmartre's music halls—especially the Théâtre Le Trianon (80 Blvd. Rochechouart; 33-1/44-92-78-03), with its red velvet seats and slanted stage.
10:15 P.M. Nights often end at the kitschy cabaret-style bar Aux Noctambules (24 Blvd. de Clichy; 33-1/46-06-16-38), where the drink specialty is a Vodka Pomme Frozenn made in a slush machine and the house act is an old-timer named Pierre Carré, who sings French classics while playing a keyboard or an accordion. "You come in here at 2 a.m. and order a digestif or a bottle of champagne," Keren Ann says, "and he sings all these very cheesy—in a good way— songs from his heart."
11 P.M.
From Aux Noctambules, it's a short walk back to her apartment, and
Keren Ann strolls down the middle of the lamplit, rain-dampened
streets. "I love the way Paris smells after the rain," she says.
"Wherever I am, I always feel as if I'm somewhere else. But when I come
here, I come home."