**UPDATE: Goût, Thé et… Chocolat is closed. It will re-open later at a different location. As for the shop it is taken over by a jovial man from the Pyrenées who will also sell chocolates.

*UPDATE: Goût, Thé et… Chocolat no longer sells Fabrice Gillotte’s chocolates. You can find his chocolates at:
Mococha
89 rue Mouffetard
75005 Paris

At Goût, Thé et… Chocolat on rue d’Aligre you’ll find a careful selection of chocolates, dark and milk pralinés or ganache made by France’s finest artisans. The chocolates that are for sale in this tiny shop are by a select few such as Rémi Henry or Hubert Masse to name a few.
There are also other sweet things such as artisanal ice-creams and sorbets by Mr Phoenix who only sells to reputable restaurants, macarons, tuiles au chocolat, dragées, hot cocoa, artisan jams, cheesecake… If they are selling the dark chocolate-covered hazelnuts with cocoa powder on top when you stop by, try them!
If you are looking for high end chocolates in the 12th arrondissement, this is the place to go to.

In the same neighborhood, check out Les Crus du Soleil for great wines at an unbeatable price, Sur Les Quais for some delectable tapenades or La Graineterie du Marché for a one-of-a-kind picturesque dry goods store.

Goût, Thé et… Chocolat
13 Rue d’Aligre
75012 Paris
tel: 01.43.40.34.45
Metro: Ledru-Rollin, Faidherbe-Chaligny

Tu-F: 9.30am-1.30pm / 3pm-8pm (4pm-7.30pm in August)
Sat: 9am-8pm
Sun: 9am-2pm
Closed on Monday

map

| Share  Email  Print | Comment

When I feel like eating a hamburger I head straight for Café Charlot in the Marais, right across the street from the Marché des Enfants Rouges, on rue de Bretagne. Here it is served with the right kind of bread, a soft sesame seed bun, a perfectly cooked burger (medium-rare by default), with everything it should have inside, and crispy French fries. It’s actually a cheeseburger and it costs €15. For the same price you can also order a delicious, and organic, chicken burger, also served with fries. Among the other gourmet sandwiches are the BLT, the hot sandwich Charlot (cheese, beef and grilled onions served on a french roll) and Café Charlot’s own take on the classic croques: le croque jeune homme and le croque jeune fille.
That’s for the sandwich section, there are also some classic French dishes a la carte such as bavette à l’echalotte or swordfish steak served with green beans. Aside from the food, the service is amicable and fast. If you stand out and like to be noticed you are more likely to be stared at, just as much as you can entertain yourself checking out the very Parisian crowd that itself cries for attention!
Other good places in the neighborhood that I recommend are Rose Bakery (another “trendy” place) and Breizh Café (a refreshing bowl of down-to-earthness!)

Café Charlot
38 Rue de Bretagne
75003 Paris
tel: 01.44.54.03.30
Metro: Filles du Calvaire

7/7
M-Sun: 7am-2am (Food is served all day until 12am)

map

| Share  Email  Print | 2 Comments

Au Vieux Chêne is a typical French bistro serving traditional food. The restaurant owners are against intensive agricultural practices and the ingredients they use are seasonal to ensure freshness and quality. The food is delicious, whether it be the plate of charcuterie (16€), the suckling lamb shoulder for two, served with a perfect gratin dauphinois and some mixed greens (48€/2 people) or the monkfish cheeks on a bed of buttery spinach that melts in your mouth (24€). “A meal without wine is like a day without sun” says a sign on one of the restaurant’s walls. At Au Vieux Chêne the wines and the Champagnes are excellent and very reasonably priced (wines go from 14€ to 120€ a bottle). Whether simple or elaborate, the dishes are always carefully crafted. For a less expensive meal try their lunch menu: 14€ (appetizer+main dish or main dish+dessert) or 17€ (appetizer+main dish+dessert), and respectively 28€ or 33€ for dinner menus.
For dinner, I recommend making a reservation.

Au vieux Chêne
7 Rue du Dahomey
75011 Paris
tel: 01.43.71.67.69
Metro: Faidherbe-Chaligny

M-F: 12pm-2pm / 8pm-10.30pm
Closed on Saturday and Sunday

map

| Share  Email  Print | Comment

Bonjour Vietnam in Paris is the place for really good Vietnamese food in Paris.
The restaurant has only 4 tables (2 for two and 2 for four)! You can make a reservation if you want to make sure you have a table.
Recently a few changes have been made to the menu and the prices went up a bit, but the quality is the same: top of the line. Make sure you order the Bo Bun—the best I’ve had so far (12€), the summer roll (beef roll for 12€) the Vietnamese pork crêpes (8€) and the ravioli (awesome).

Bonjour Vietnam
6 Rue Thouin
75005 Paris
tel: 01 43 54 78 04
Metro: Cardinal Lemoine

Mon-Sat: 11.30am-3pm / 4.30pm-10pm
Closed on Sunday

There’s an annex to this restaurant, same owner, same food, different cook (not always as good as the one on Rue Thouin) at:

Bonjour Vietnam
85 Rue du Cardinal Lemoine
75005 Paris
tel: 01.82.11.60.93
Metro: Place Monge, Cardinal Lemoine

Tues-Sun: 11.30am-3pm / 4.30pm-10pm
Closed on Monday

map

| Share  Email  Print | 3 Comments

Pozzetto has some of the best pistachio gelato I’ve tried in Paris, it’s made from Sicilian pistachios and absolutely no artificial flavoring. The gelatos and sorbets are made daily for freshness, with the best fresh milk and/or seasonal fruit. There are only 12 flavors at a time, so that each one can be given all the attention it deserves. At Pozzetto they won’t ask you how many scoops you’d like and then charge you by the scoop. Here they do it Italian style: they fill up your cone or cup with a spatula and you can ask for as many flavors as you want!
Pozzetto’s espresso drinks are delicious too. A pleasant surprise in Paris where most espressos will make the inside of your mouth cringe and make you walk around with a contorted facial expression afterward.
What I also like very much about this place is that, you know when you get that craving late in the evening and everything else is closed, well Pozzetto’s there for you!

Pozzetto
39 Rue du Roi de Sicile
75004 Paris
tel: 01.42.77.08.64
Metro: Saint-Paul

21 Rue de Levis
75017 Paris
tel: 01.42.77.08.64
Metro: Villiers

7/7
M: 12pm-11pm
Tues-Sun: 11am-11pm

map

| Share  Email  Print | 2 Comments

Kunitoraya is a small Japanese restaurant in Paris that specializes in udon noodles—they are made in the traditional way by the owner himself. The udon dishes come in many different variations, hot when in a soup (i.e: Tempura-Udon, 13€) or cold with a sauce on the side (i.e: Kitsune-Udon, 11€). They come in regular or small sizes (count 5€ for the small Udon Wakame.) Aside from the delicious udon dishes I highly recommend the Tonkatsu (fried breaded pork, 9€), the Tentoji (omelette and shrimp tempura, 10€) and the Tempura (veggies and shrimps, 12€). Since the restaurant fills up quickly and doesn’t take reservations, the best time for lunch or dinner is after the regular eating hours.
Kunitoraya restaurant does not take credit cards.

Kunitoraya
39 Rue Saint-Anne
75001 Paris
tel: 01.47.03.33.65
Metro: Pyramides

7/7
M-Sun: 11.30am-10pm

map

| Share  Email  Print | Comment

Pasta Linea is tiny in size but grand in many other ways. Owner Silvia Pronzato will welcome you the same way she would welcome a friend and she will make sure that you stay as long as you want. It doesn’t matter that there are only three tables that seat only ten people altogether. If the tables are taken you can get your food to go, there’s a lovely place with benches right around the corner: Place du Marché Sainte Catherine, or Place des Vosges a few blocks away. Everything at Pasta Linea is Italian, the wines, the oils, the cold cuts, the stone-ground flour used for the homemade fresh pasta, ravioli or lasagna, everything except the bread. Main dishes are about 12€ (7€ to go). If there is no bread left for sandwiches (6€ to go) she may suggest that you go get your own, bring it back, and will take it off the price of the sandwich. The antipasti plate (12€, or 7€ to go) is a combination of roquette, sundried tomatoes, mozzarella di bufalo, cucumbers, lentil salad, small onions soaked in balsamic vinegar, carrot salad, baby artichoke hearts, red peppers, eggplant and zucchini…It’s one of my favorite joints for a late lunch where you can walk in and be sure to find an open table—the joys of good restaurants that serve all day.

Pasta Linea
9 Rue de Turenne
75004 Paris
tel: 01.42.77.62.54
Metro: Saint-Paul

Tu-F: 12pm-7.30pm
Sat-Sun: 12pm-7pm
Closed on Monday

map

| Share  Email  Print | Comment

Created in the late 19th century, Ladurée—inventor of macarons—is one of the oldest Parisian tea houses. Today it counts several tearooms/pastry shops/restaurants in Paris and abroad. Ladurée is to Paris what sourdough bread is to San Francisco, catfish to New Orleans, BBQ to Texas and fried green tomatoes to the southern United States… It is part of the Paris’ culinary identity. As if Ladurée needed any publicity, Sofia Coppola’s visually stunning movie, Marie-Antoinette, made the Parisian tea house famous all over the world. Now the lines are even longer and sometimes stretch all the way around the street corner as if we were in cold war-era Russia. If you plan on eating at Ladurée on the Champs-Elysées I highly recommend reserving your table online. You can choose your day and time, and avoid the ridiculous wait in line. The online reservations will soon be extended to the other tea salons. Ladurée serves breakfast (morning pastries, bread, eggs any style, French toast, fresh fruit salads, juices…), brunch (it is served on Saturday and Sunday from 10am until 3.30pm and will cost you 35€) and lunch as well as dinner (main dish at 29€, menus at 34€ and 42€, club sandwiches from 15,50€ to 23€). Pastries and teas will coast you around 7€ each.
If you are visiting Paris in winter and wish to warm up in a cozy and elegant atmosphere, Ladurée is the place to be: it is sort of overheated and makes you kinda melt. And then you melt some more when you see the list of pastries.

Ladurée
6th arrondissement
Ladurée Bonaparte
21 Rue Bonaparte
75006 Paris
tel: 01.44.07.64.87
Metro: Saint-Germain-des-Prés
open 7/7
M-F: 8.30am-7.30pm
Sat: 8.30am-8.30pm
Sun: 10am-7.30pm
*Chocolate counter, open 7/7
M-Sun: 10am-7pm

8th arrondissement
Ladurée Royale
16 Rue Royale
75008 Paris
tel: 01.42.60.21.79
Metro: Madeleine, Concorde
open 7/7
M-Th: 8.30am-7.30pm
F, Sat: 8.30am-8pm
Sun: 10am-7pm

Ladurée Champs-Elysées
75 Avenue des Champs Elysées
75008 Paris
tel: 01.40.75.08.75
Metro: George V
open 7/7
M-F: 7.30am-11pm
Sat: 7.30am-12am
Sun: 7.30am-10pm
*Restaurant, open 7/7
M-Sun: 7.30am-12.30am

9th arrondissement
Ladurée Printemps Department Store
62 Boulevard Haussmann
75009 Paris
tel: 01.42.82.40.10
Metro: Havre-Caumartin
M-Sat: 9.35am-7pm (until 10pm on Thursday)
Closed on Sunday

map

| Share  Email  Print | Comment