FAQ. How to eat ‘’local“or avoiding those dastardly Americans like us in Paris restaurants.

On another food website someone recently asked “How to eat ‘local“’ which I take it to mean how does one American avoid other Americans sitting near them or worse, talking American English during meals.

And of course, it goes without saying that the reason we’re in Paris is to avoid the very people whom we would be delighted to eat with in the US, but no matter.  I’m here to tell you how. 

First, eat at lunch not dinner.  Lunch is when French folks go to their local places and dinner is when they go home; lunch is when Americans are trying, quite rightly, to see the Louvre, Versailles, the Champs—Elysees, etc., and dinner is when they can kick back. 

Second, go to “new” places, that is, places that have not been written up in the New York Times, Financial Times, Food and Wine, Travel & Leisure and the guidebooks, be they in English (Zagats, etc.) or French (Michelin, Pudlo, Lebey, etc.).

Third, eat where the French not Americans are; thus avoid the city center and go to the 5th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th or even better, beyond the peripherique – in Levellois-Perret, Puteaux, Meudon, Issy-Les-Molineaux, Vitry-sur-Seine or Le Perreux-sur-Marne.  This recalls the advice given by the mysterious Olivier Morteaux for success, to “go to a culinary wasteland.” 

Fourth, check out the blogs, especially those in French, you don’t need to understand the nuances of a wordtwister like Francois Simon to get the point of most writers. 

Fifth, read Meg Zimbeck’s excellent weekly summary of news from the blogs in Paris by Mouth (disclosure: I’m in her pocket). 

And sixth, look around you, the best food-finder of the last decade came across many finds while motorcycling around Paris; if the restaurant across the street or when flaneuring looks new and the menu intriguing, what have you got to lose?

Comments

[Parigi]

Lastly, show some class. For @#&* sake don't harass English-language blogs about where to avoid people like the blogger: "I ask you for recommendations for the kind of restaurants in which I especially won't see you."

[Kelly]

The 9th is still the centre, I know. But if you were to choose one of the following for a solo diner (for dinner, not lunch), which would it be?

L'Office
Les Saisons
Le Bouclier de Bacchus
Vivant Table

Looking for what everyone's looking for: a meal that I can think back upon with a huge smile on my face.

I'd also asked on CH about a lunch choice among Pottoka, L'Affriolé and Chez Lucie, but I've seen only the first reviewed on your site. Unless you might have some "via-via" insights into the other two?

[John Talbott]

Well, I just ate at L'Office again and plan to return to Vivant next week again so I guess I'd put them on top.
The last meal I had a meal at L'Affriolé was in my pre-web/pre-blogging daysand I've never heard of or been to Chez Lucie - should I?

[Kelly]

No reason whatsoever, as I've gathered from hours of perusing your blog that la cuisine antillaise would probably not be your thing. :o)

Upping the ante a bit: Vivant or Abri? I am going to try like the dickens to drag a colleague to L'Office for lunch on the same day I dine solo, which would remove one conflict - so you see I promptly have to add one back in! Probably won't get into either Vivant or Abri, which would serve me right!

[John Talbott]

I would and have had la cuisine antillaise (eating locally I might add).
But to your test of my palate. I refuse the challenge. Vivant or Abri? Are you kidding? Vivant is Pierre Jancou in all his glory and bird tiles and 2 Japanese chefs and the last time I went I could get in the same day, but Abri with (it seems) 20 Japanese chefs and waitfolks where being understood in NippoFrancoAnglese is a blood sport when reserving - complet, complet, complet, well you get the picture; my advice, clever because it's the only think that worked for me is to ask, "well, when are you not complet" and book in the name of a three letter one - Tom, Tad or Cat, not Talbott which gets mangled beyond comprehension.

[Kelly]

In no way did I intend to slight your palate with regards to all things antillaises - I just seemed to remember reading a comment somewhere in the blog where you mentioned preferring to focus your Parisian energies on new restos/new chefs in the bistro line.

I've retired, worsted, from the Abri blood sport. No openings, and with only one arrow in my quiver of Paris visits, the "when might you not be complet?" approach will just end in tears. So it's on to Vivant. Wish me luck. If I don't get in, and can't get lunch at L'Office, would you stick with L'Office for dinner over Les Saisons?

And do you ever tire of being the food world's Delphic oracle? Or Cassandra?

[John Talbott]

Vivant vs L'Office; tough call, very tough
In my very arbitrary rating system I rated Vivant 7.5, Les Saisons 6.9 and L'Office 6.7
You cannot go wrong.