Practical information
Address: 30 rue Gay Lussac, 75005
Nearest transport: Luxembourg (RER B)
Hours: Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations: Book a few days in advance
Telephone: 01 43 25 20 79
Website
View a map of all of our restaurants here.
Average price for lunch: 10–19€
Average price for dinner: 20–34€
Style of cuisine: Classic French
Special attributes: no-choice menu, prix-fixe, market-based cooking, superior wine list, exceptional desserts
Type of crowd: suits, foodies, neighborhood locals
Interior: charming & traditional
Atmosphere: casual
Trusted reviews
- Barbra Austin (2010) “The first course was a velouté of lentils. At first glance the white in the center of the bowl looked like a small poached egg but it was actually crème fraîche…two generous portions of magret de canard soon followed, served family style and surrounded by one of the most colorful assortments of vegetables I’ve ever seen in Paris.”
- Meg Zimbeck for BlackBook(2008) “Choose a wine from the shelf and then put yourself in their capable kitchen hands. Market-fresh ingredients arrive in copper-plated casseroles, and desserts are as good as you’d expect…”
- Marc Bittman for the New York Times(2009) “The food is often Michelin-star quality, and though the menu offers no choices — everyone gets the same soup, main course, salad and dessert — as long as your tastes are broad (or you’re a not-super-hungry vegetarian) you are going to be not only satisfied but happy…”>
- Colette Monsat for Figaroscope (2009) “Taillée dans un mouchoir de poche, cette cave à manger-épicerie fine, par ailleurs très convaincante, affiche souvent complet. ”
- David Lebovitz (2006) “This first thing you notice about Les Papilles is the wine, and the place does double-duty as a wine bar. The window has boxes and boxes of bottles of wine stacked neatly, and as you walk in, one side of the restaurant is entirely devoted to wine and a few choice food products…”
3 Responses to Our Guide to Paris: Les Papilles
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Busy and hectic, a real circus, with perhaps 45 covers on this November evening. Pumpkin veloute ladled over chestnuts and bacon bits with a dollop of creme fraiche. Lamb shank, caramel brown in a rich wine sauce with with tomatoes, mushrooms and green peas. Blue cheese wedge with poached plum and plum puree, followed by a layered dessert of banana puree, topped with panna cotta, topped with caramel foam. The dessert was outstanding and the rest was satisfying but rather on the bland side, lacking real depth of flavor. Great presentation throughout, and overall a fond memory.
Just a note on the price for dinner at Les Papilles – the restaurant only serves the full 4 course prix-fixe menu at 33 euro. Lunch is more flexible where individual dishes can be ordered.
We had lunch there in June this year and there was no choice of dishes, though their choices were excellent: cauliflower soup, maigret de canard as Barbara Austin describes above, Fourme d’Ambert, and panna cotta.