Usually I eat at bistros and neighborhood cafes that I wouldn’t want to publicize, and not only for selfish reasons. Years ago I wrote about one, now closed, on the Rue St. Honoré not far from the Ritz Hotel. Soon afterward I saw tourists coming in clutching the article, only to leave puzzled and peeved a few minutes later. They didn’t especially want to eat among shop girls and hardhats, crammed in between smokers drinking little pitchers of wine. They didn’t find it charming that the owner’s hunting dog snuffled around their feet. They didn’t understand that the only good things to be eaten there—but they were very good indeed—were the specials not on the menu or very, very simple meals like, say, a faux filet (sirloin steak) and salad. You get no bragging rights from such places.
The brasseries of Paris are a step up, and there are many that are good, even those that have been subsumed into restaurant chains. I like the bigger ones like the Balzar and La Coupole on the Left Bank, Boeuf sur le Toit and Wepler on the Right Bank. Once or twice a year, I wrestle down a choucroute (sauerkraut) with assorted bits of ham and sausage piled on top. But mostly what I go for are the raw oysters—the meaty spéciales, the more refined fines de claire, the delicate belons. I’m happy to see tourists flooding through these places. The higher the turnover, I figure, the fresher the shellfish.
And then there are the several restaurants created by the Costes brothers over the last quarter century (Georges on top of the Pompidou Center; L’Avenue near Dior and Nina Ricci on Avenue Montaigne, among others). Their menus and wine lists are simple and good, if a little pricey, but their greatest attraction is style. The flagship Costes Hotel, decorated by Jacques Garcia as if inspired by bordellos under the empire of Napoleon III, is at once surprising and welcoming. Many French and British celebrities are habitués, and tables are just about impossible to come by during the fashion shows.
So, that said, when friends ask me to recommend restaurants in Paris, where do I feel confident sending them? Most recently, to the following three. The food and atmosphere are deeply, traditionally French, prices are high but not celestial, and the eating experience is almost always satisfying:
Benoit is a great favorite among people who could afford to dine anywhere in the city. (The restaurant has a curious distinction as the place Princess Diana had originally intended to dine on the night she was killed.) Benoit is on the Right Bank in the 4th Arrondissement toward the center of the city, not far from Les Halles, just off Rue de Rivoli (20, rue St Martin. Phone +33 (0) 14 272 2576; Fax +33 (0) 14 272 4568).
Chez Allard is on a narrow street in the heart of the Left Bank and seems not to have changed, or even been painted, in about 50 years. I recently had an excellent duck roasted in olives (for two) (41 , Rue Saint-André-des-Arts in the 6th Arrondissment. Phone +33 (0) 1 43 26 48 23; Fax : +33 (0) 46 33 04 02).
D’Chez Eux, on the Left Bank just behind Les Invalides, is so much like the France that foreigners expect when they come to Paris, right down to the checkered tablecloths and grumpy waiters, that it borders on self-parody. But the food is delicious. A house specialty is a salad graced with foie gras that’s been blended with Armagnac. I recently had raw oysters and roast duck, both of them, as the French say, impeccable (2, avenue Lowendal in the 7th Arrondissement. Tel: +33 (0)1 47 05 52 55; Fax: 01 45 55 60 74).
