Le Tagine
Le Tagine has been serving tasty Moroccan cuisine with incredible natural wines for more than three decades. It’s a fun casual option for groups, including vegetarians and wine geeks, and it’s open on Sunday.
Notable Wine List
Semilla
Semilla is one of our favorite restaurants in Saint-Germain, with an excellent wine list and plenty of options for vegetarians. Open Sunday.
Garance
If you want to eat brilliantly rendered seasonal dishes, be thoughtfully cared for, sit in a comfortable chair and drink nice wines from beautiful stemware, put Garance on your list. It’s a terrific option near Napoleon’s tomb and the Rodin museum. You can see the Eiffel Tower twinkling as you enter and leave the restaurant. But despite its location near these major monuments, Garance seems entirely undiscovered by tourists. You can expect to pay 65-85€ for three courses at night.… Read More »Garance
Le Saint-Sébastien
Le Saint-Sébastien is known for its vegetable-driven (but not vegetarian) cooking and desserts with a savory spin. The 400-reference-strong wine list and impeccable service make this neighborhood restaurant one worth crossing the city for. Now helmed by chef Andrés Solis, the menu features a few subtle twists that highlight his Mexican culinary heritage. They have a beautiful bar, making it a great idea for solo diners and last-minute walk-ins. Recommended for Great Vegetarian Food in Paris. LE SAINT-SÉBASTIEN 42, rue Saint-Sébastien,… Read More »Le Saint-Sébastien
Juveniles
The casual neighborhood bistro we all dream about, complete with a charming host (Margaux) who remembers your previous visit, and her chef-husband Romain who makes beautiful bistro food in a tiny kitchen. The atmosphere is friendly and familial, despite the posh location near the Louvre. The wine cellar that began with Margaux’s father Tim Johnston remains one of the most delightful and well-priced in the city. The house-made terrine and rice pudding are recommended book-ends to your meal. JUVENILES 47… Read More »Juveniles
Le Baratin
Le Baratin is a Belleville bistro that we can no longer recommend because of the pervasive hostility from co-owner Pinouche Pinoteau
Géosmine
Géosmine, a new restaurant in the 11th, has stirred a lot of interest this year with their provocative tasting menu by chef Maxime Bouttier (ex-Mensae). Much of that attention has focused on his signature dish of cow udder with cream, algae and caviar. While some of his dishes might seem shocking, Bouttier’s creations feel sincere and are mostly successful (on any 11-course tasting menu there are bound to be hits and misses). Wonderful service and wine selections helped to soften… Read More »Géosmine
Amarante
In the age of Instagram, the plates and dining room at Amarante feel almost defiantly unadorned. Christophe Philippe has created a haven near Bastille for those who unapologetically love fatty food and offal and who share a disdain for vegetables. You won’t find any herbs, acidity or brightness on these plates. Both the food and the ambiance are decidedly heavy. Your gut-busting meal might finish with a simple scoop of chocolate mousse or a perfectly aged piece of Camembert-de-Normandie. The… Read More »Amarante
La Tour d’Argent
La Tour d’Argent is a 400 year-old restaurant with an exceptional view overlooking the Seine and Notre Dame. It reopened in 2023 after a long renovation, and we recently returned four our fourth visit and loved the experience. We’ve included La Tour d’Argent among our 50 favorite restaurants in Paris. LA TOUR D’ARGENT 15, Quai de la Tournelle, 75005Open Tuesday-Saturday for lunch & dinnerClosed Sunday & MondayReservations online or at +33 1 43 54 10 08 Their Instagram / Our Instagram OUR… Read More »La Tour d’Argent
Café de la Nouvelle Mairie
For the wine-indifferent, Café de la Nouvelle Mairie is merely a timeless, picturesque terraced café on a shady lane beside the Panthéon. But for alert wine geeks, it might as well be the Panthéon itself, as pertains to natural wine.
Pétrelle
Pétrelle is one of the romantic restaurants in Paris, and it’s also one of the most delicious. Chef Lucie Boursier-Mougenot and her team create a beautiful tasting menu that changes every week to reflect the seasons, and Luca Danti ensures that everyone in the dining room feels very well taken care of.
Le Mazenay
Le Mazenay is a modest bistro that’s serving classic French food with subtle Vietnamese accents. The restaurant is named after the village in Burgundy where chef Denis Groison was born, and the wine list reflects his ties to this region. But Groison grew up to travel the world, cooking in Singapore and Hanoi, and marrying a Vietnamese woman named Lan who very expertly oversees the dining room of their mom and pop restaurant in the Marais. He makes simple and… Read More »Le Mazenay
Septime
One of the the best contemporary tasting menus in Paris, and still one of the most difficult reservation to get.
Otto
Otto is a wine bar from Eric Tronchon, an MOF chef who runs the nearby one-star restaurant Solstice. I got to know (and love) Tronchon’s cooking when he was at Semilla, and when he developed the menu for Semilla’s next-door wine bar Freddy’s. The menu at Otto is very similar to Freddy’s: diminutive plates of grilled shitake mushrooms, fried things, grilled seafood. The wine list at both places is outstanding. But in contrast to Freddy’s, which is always so busy… Read More »Otto
Frenchie
Frenchie is the original outpost from Gregory Marchand, a chef who trained with Jamie Oliver in the UK and Danny Meyer in the USA. They hold one Michelin star and serve a no-choice tasting menu with five courses for 140€. The optional wine pairings are usually excellent. Frenchie opened in 2009 and has been a very tough reservation since at least 2010. Reservations open three weeks before a given date (Mon-Fri) and all tables are usually booked within a few… Read More »Frenchie
Prunier
Prunier is a historic caviar and seafood house that opened near the Arc de Triomphe in 1924. It boasts some incredible art déco frescos and moldings from that period has been owned until recently by Pierre Bergé, co-founder of the YSL fashion house. Chef Yannick Alléno of the three-star restaurant Ledoyen has recently taken over the kitchen at Prunier and is putting his own spin on iconic dishes like the Christian Dior egg (with caviar, cream and ham aspic). Prunier… Read More »Prunier
Bistrot Paul Bert
No longer included among our favorite Paris restaurants.
Clamato
Clamato is a seafood-focused small plates restaurant from Bertrand Grébaut of Septime. Expect pristine marinated fish, platters of oysters, silky crab fritters (accrabes), and maple syrup pie for dessert. Wines are natural and well-selected, just like at Septime.
Le Verre Volé
A bare bones room lined with shelves of natural wines, a tiny kitchen turning out simple and dishes; this doesn’t immediately feel like the kind of place a person would cross town for. And yet many do. Booking is imperative.
Les Enfants du Marché
Les Enfants du Marché, a modern & creative restaurant located within the open-air Marché des Enfants Rouges market in the upper Marais, is a dining counter known for natural wine and avant-garde cuisine. While the seating on bar stools in the bustling market might suggest a more lowbrow offering, the unforgettable plates evoke a far more fine dining affair (an evocation reflected in the highbrow prices). It is one of our favorite Paris restaurants.
Augustin Marchand d’Vins
Augustin Marchand d’Vins – like Left Bank predecessors La Crêmerie & La Quincave – is a bare-bones cave-à-manger, a wine shop in which one can dine, slightly.
Fish la Boissonnerie
This popular restaurant and wine bar run by Drew Harre and Juan Sanchez is a sort of Anglo haven, excellent for a quick glass, a solo dinner at the bar, or for those times when you’re just tired of speaking French. The wine list at Fish la Boissonnerie is populated by small producers, many of them organic and bio-dynamic, with fair prices and plenty of options by the glass. They’re open every day, and we often find ourselves here on… Read More »Fish la Boissonnerie
Ellsworth
Ellsworth has had many different iterations since it opened, but all have been delicious. Their most popular dish from the early days – the fried chicken – remains on the menu in small plate size among a changing roster of seasonal dishes. Braden Perkins and Laura Adrian, the duo behind (temporarily closed) Verjus, are raising most of the vegetables and eggs for Ellsworth at their farm outside of Paris, and chef Hanz Gueco is doing incredible things with these fresh… Read More »Ellsworth
Macéo
Macéo is a light and airy restaurant near the Palais Royal from Mark Williamson (Willi’s Wine Bar), serving creative dishes with plenty of vegetarian options. It’s a good place to book for large groups, and for dinner on Monday. The wine list is incredible. Open Saturday, open Monday, good for groups, vegetarian friendly, near the Louvre, excellent wine 15 rue des Petits-Champs, 75001Open Monday-Friday for lunch & dinnerOpen Saturday for dinner onlyClosed SundayReservations online or at +33 1 42 97… Read More »Macéo
L’Avant Comptoir du Marché
Of Yves Camdeborde’s three Avant Comptoirs, this is the one worth making a special trip – a place where the scale of the site finally matches that Camdeborde’s ambition.
Le Petit Sommelier
Le Petit Sommelier is a rare high-quality non-stop brasserie with a 1000-reference-strong wine list.
L’Ami Louis
L’Ami Louis is one of the most atmospheric restaurants in Paris. It’s dark and dramatic, with white jacketed servers bringing overflowing plates of snails, foie gras, and other classic French dishes. The roast chicken, with its accompanying tower of shoestring fries, is as good as everyone says it is. But L’Ami Louis is also one of the most clubby restaurants in Paris. It’s filled with regulars, it’s hard to get a table, and the prices are high enough to scare most tourists away. That’s probably by design. If you need to ask how much the roast chicken costs (it inches closer to 100 euros every year), then L’Ami Louis is probably not for you. It remains one of our favorite places in Paris, when someone else has gone to the trouble to book and ideally when someone else is paying.
À La Vierge de la Réunion
The overarching honesty and generosity of La Vierge’s concept places the restaurant alongside overachieving peers like Belleville’s Le Cadoret at the vanguard of a new generation of Paris bistrot that recognizes the value of virtue.
Sauvage
Sauvage is boisterous and fun. It has the feeling of a friendly neighborhood wine bar that just happens to have real talent (chef Sébastien Leroy) in the kitchen. Sauvage caters to a local St-Germain clientele that doesn’t bat an eye at relatively high prices, resulting in luxurious dishes like quail with foie gras and black truffle. The wine list leans natural, and contains treasures. We included Sauvage among our favorite restaurants in Saint-Germain. SAUVAGE 60 rue du Cherche Midi, 75006Open… Read More »Sauvage
Au Passage
Address: 1 bis passage de Saint Sébastien, 75011Hours: Open Monday-Saturday for dinner. Closed Sunday.Telephone: +33 1 43 55 07 52Book Online / Website / Facebook / Instagram Our Most Recent Visit It’s so nice when a restaurant delivers more than they need to, more than you expect to receive. When looking at a chalkboard menu filled with cheap small plates, one rarely hopes for anything more than simple products. But here at Au Passage, your 8€ octopus dish has undergone three days of preparation. There’s a quiet… Read More »Au Passage
À La Renaissance
Great natural wines by the glass, fresh well-prepared food, and congenial service at this simple bistro near Bastille.
Le Villaret
Le Villaret is one of our favorite Classic Bistros in Paris. Sometimes in life we chase after the ones who play hard-to-get and we ignore the nice, stable options who just want to treat us right. Le Villaret is the homely neighborhood bistro that I never appreciated until I stopped looking for love at Le Baratin and Le Repaire de Cartouche.
Le Repaire de Cartouche
Le Repaire de Cartouche is a great place to sit at the bar without reservations, order wine with a slab of terrine, and wait for your table to open up at Au Passage. It’s still great fun as a wine bar, even if it can no longer deliver as a restaurant.
Freddy’s
Freddy’s is a great call when you want to share some delicious nibbles and great wine while perched on a stool, especially at odd hours or on Sunday and Monday when many other places are closed.
Frenchie Bar à Vins
If you want a taste of Gregory Marchand’s cooking without the challenge of scoring a reservation at Frenchie, this is where to go.
Les Papilles
Bring some friends to share in Bertrand Bluy’s family style dinner at this cave à manger.
Willi’s Wine Bar
Willi’s Wine Bar has been a Paris institution since 1980, when Mark Williamson opened up near the Palais Royal. If you’ve come to Paris to drink wine, this is a great place to stop in for a glass (or bottle) and some simple food. It’s also a good place to book for larger groups. Open Saturday, open Monday, good for groups, vegetarian friendly, excellent wine, near the Louvre 13 rue des Petits-Champs, 75001Open Monday-Saturday for lunch & dinnerClosed SundayReservations online… Read More »Willi’s Wine Bar
Septime Cave
Septime’s Bertrand Grébaut and Théo Pourriat converted a shoe-repair shop to open this intimate, impeccably-designed wine bar just around the corner from their renowned restaurant. The well-informed staff serve a limited menu of exquisite small plates (ranging from cheeses and cured meats to foie gras stuffed with smoked eel) alongside a sizeable selection of well-priced natural wines from France and abroad.
On any given evening a mixed crowd of locals and tourists – some waiting for tables at Clamato, others just enjoying apéro-hour – perch on bar stools and repurposed grocery crates, mingling to a soundtrack of reggae and vintage jazz classics. For years more a way-station than an outright destination, Septime Cave has since summer 2015 been open for business on Sundays, rendering it all the more indispensable to the rue de Charonne neighborhood.
Taillevent
We have visited and will be posting a review soon. In the meantime, scroll to see photos and what others have said about Taillevent. Read More »Taillevent