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

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Franco-British couple Mr. and Mrs. Rose had a child. They called it Bakery. A Rose Bakery was born in London. Then they decided to move to Paris and they gave birth to a second, and recently a third, Rose Bakery. Rose Bakery is the name of their very successful—hence the new addition to the family—bakery/restaurants. The third Rose Bakery restaurant is in the hands of chef Kaori Endo, a 34 year-old Japanese cook who just published a book of recipes and who will be on T.V for eight cooking shows. At Rose Bakery they use quality ingredients, lots of organic and carefully chosen goods for their savory tarts, quiches, healthy salads (lentil salad, carrot salad, potato salad, baked beans, duck pot-au-feu…) and their delicious desserts (carrot cake, cheesecake, vegan fruit cake, lemon cake, green tea-raspberry cake, banana nut bread, scones, muffins, brownies…) They serve breakfast during the week and brunch on the weekend (eggs, pancakes…). In other words, Rose Bakery is a perfect place for breakfast, lunch, brunch and afternoon tea and pastries. It’s healthy, good, pretty and it is located in two great areas of Paris.

Rose Bakery 3rd arrondissement
30 rue Debelleyme
75003 Paris
tel: 01.49.96.54.01
Metro: Filles du Calvaire

Tu-Sun: 9am-6pm (kitchen closes at 4pm)
Closed on Monday

Rose Bakery 9th arrondissement
46 rue des Martyrs
75009 Paris
tel: 01.42.82.12.80
Metro: Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, Pigalle

Tu-Sun: 10am-6.30pm (kitchen closes at 4pm)
Closed on Monday

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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

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Le Fumoir in Paris has been mentioned everywhere, from the Paris guides to the NYTimes. It’s location is prime, it is right across the street from the world’s most visited museum — the Louvre. It’s very central, serves food all day, has a few tables on the sidewalk that are heated during the cold days and are hard to get when it’s warm and sunny. Le Fumoir has a cozy atmosphere, 1940’s music, dim lights, leather chairs and dark wooden tables, the espressos are served with speculoos (cinnamon cookies) and water, lots of it—my American friends should appreciate that. It’s a few steps away from one of my favorite places in Paris: the cour carrée du Louvre. The cour carrée du Louvre is most beautiful, i think, at dusk. I was once alone there (probably unlikely to happen ever again) until someone walked by and stopped for a short while, it was just the two of us, me and Isabella Rossellini.

Le Fumoir
6 Rue de l’Amiral Coligny
75001 Paris
tel: 01.42.92.00.24
Metro: Louvre-Rivoli

M-Sun: 11am-2am
All year round.

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When you are done visiting the Sacré Coeur, and you find yourself following the horde of tourists down the steps of the Basilica, and to the right and up the cobblestone street, don’t stop there where everybody else does. Keep moving up the streets and down the steep steps of the butte Montmartre towards the Metro Lamarck. On your way there you’ll find Au Relais, a café/bistro/restaurant at a street corner. It has a tiny slanted terrasse full of trees—a lovely place to hang out in summertime. It serves a lot of traditional French drinks such as Lillet or Dubonnet as well as Kirs that are served either with Chardonnay (traditional) or Sauvignon Blanc. They serve food all day and until late at night. This a very friendly neighborhood bar where I take my friends for a drink after having braved the crowds at the Sacré Coeur.

Au Relais
48 Rue Lamarck
75018 Paris
tel: 01.46.06.68.32
Metro: Lamarck

7/7 M-Sun: 8am-12am (from 9am-1am on Friday and Saturday)

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Imagine a pita so big you almost need to hold it with two hands. L’As du fallafel in Paris has the best falafel in town: scrumptious crispy garlicky chickpea falafel, creamy sesame hummus, pickled crunchy cabbage, small pieces of salty cucumber, fried eggplant and mildly hot harissa (spicy sauce). This is a very filling dish and yet it’s so good you might feel like having another bite or two once you are done with it. It is served with a plastic fork and is usually eaten right there on the street. At L’As du Fallafel the line can be ridiculously long on sunny weekends… that said I’d definitely go on a sunny day since most of the time you end up eating your falafel outside.

L’As du Fallafel
34 Rue des Rosiers
75004 Paris
tel: 01.48.87.63.60
Metro: Saint-Paul

M-Sun: 11am-12am
Closed on Friday evening and Saturday for Sabbath

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Here’s a café with a lovely terrace overlooking a lush patio, where you can have a bite at any time during the museum’s opening hours. It serves breakfast and lunch. It is open to anyone, with or without visiting the museum. If you want to get away from the busy avenue of the Champs-Elysées, and relax while enjoying free Wi-Fi, this is the perfect spot. It is right across the street from the Grand Palais and a stone’s throw away from the Seine river. Entrance to the Jardin du Petit Palais is through the mosaic-tiled garden.

Le Jardin du Petit Palais
Musée du Petit Palais - Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris
Avenue Winston Churchill
75008 Paris
tel: 01.53.43.40.00
Metro: Champs-Elysées - Clémenceau

Tu-Sun: 10am-6pm
Closed on Monday

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Breizh Café in Paris is the crêperie at its best. The galettes (name given to savory crêpes made out of buckwheat flour) are an absolute delight. The menu offers an interesting variation of toppings, going from the classic galette complète (ham, egg and cheese) to less traditional ones such as the “fourme d’ambert” served with blue cheese, grapes and walnuts. All the ingredients are top of the line: from free-range to organic goods, you can be sure that you will be served the best. There’s a long list of ciders to choose from, all carefully picked, as well as Breton beers and Breton coca-cola (Breizh cola!)
Aside from the very lovely people working there and the perfect crêpes, there’s one more thing that I find particularly satisfying: Breizh Café’s opening hours - it’s open non-stop from lunch to dinner Wednesday through Sunday.
If you choose to eat at the regular French hours (12pm-2pm and 8pm-10.30pm) I would highly recommend you make a reservation. Otherwise you should be fine just walking in. And how about paying Breizh Café a visit around 4pm for a sweet crêpe such as the applesauce-salty caramel-vanilla ice-cream one, for those too are highly worth the detour.
Paris’ Breizh Café is in the Marais, catercorner from the Musée Picasso gardens.

Breizh Café
109 Rue Vieille du Temple
75003 Paris
tel: 01.42.72.13.77
Metro: Saint-Sebastien-Froissart

W-Sat: 12pm-11pm
Sun: 12pm-10pm
Closed on Monday and Tuesday

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