Eating & Drinking in Paris

How dining works in Paris

Paris eats on a fixed rhythm: lunch from about noon to 2 p.m., dinner from about 7:30 p.m. In between, most traditional kitchens close, and a bistro at 3:30 p.m. will usually offer you a drink and nothing else.

Places that serve all day advertise service continu. Brasseries, cafés, bouillons and crêperies usually do, which helps when jet lag makes you hungry at odd hours.

Reservations and TheFork

Book dinner almost everywhere except cafés, brasseries and bouillons. Most restaurants take online bookings on their own site or through TheFork (LaFourchette in French), the Paris equivalent of OpenTable. Many list discounts there of 20 to 50 percent off à la carte prices on quieter nights; drinks and set menus are usually excluded.

The hottest bistros release tables online two to four weeks ahead and fill within minutes. For Michelin-starred restaurants, book one to three months out and expect to give a card number; no-show fees of €50 to €200 (about $56 to $224) per person are common.

Many restaurants confirm by text the day before and may give away your table if you do not reply or arrive 15 minutes late without calling.

Terrace, inside or at the bar

At cafés, the same drink can carry two or three prices: standing at the counter (au comptoir) is cheapest, and a terrace table often costs most. An espresso might cost €1.50 to €2.50 (about $1.70 to $2.80) at the bar and a euro or two more outside.

Terraces are where smokers sit. Smoking is banned indoors, and a 2025 rule extended the ban to parks, beaches and bus shelters, but café terraces were left out. If smoke bothers you, sit inside.

Lunch formules: the best deal in town

The weekday lunch formule or menu du jour is how Parisians eat well for less. You choose two courses (starter and main, or main and dessert) or all three for a fixed price, often €18 to €32 (about $20 to $36) at a neighborhood bistro. Dinner from the same kitchen often costs far more. Look for the chalkboard (ardoise) by the door.

The bill, water and bread

• Service compris. Service is built into every menu price by law. Rounding up or leaving €2 to €5 (about $2 to $6) for a good meal is generous. Card terminals sometimes prompt for a tip; you can skip it. See Money for details.
• Water. A carafe of tap water is free and safe. If you just ask for "water," you may get a €6 (about $7) bottle of Evian.
• Bread is free and refilled. It goes on the tablecloth, not a side plate.
• No free refills on soda or coffee. Ice is rare unless you ask (des glaçons).
• Closures. Many independent bistros close Sunday and Monday, and some close for two to four weeks in August.

For what to say at the table and the unwritten rules, see Etiquette. For a menu decoder, dish glossary and how to order steak, see French Food.

Restaurant types decoded

Also useful: a salon de thé (tea room) for pastries and brunch, and a traiteur, a deli with takeaway dishes for picnics and apartment stays.

Where to eat, by budget

These are long-established places. Hours change, so check each restaurant's site the week you go. Price tiers reflect a main course per person: $ under €20, $$ €20–40, $$$ €40–90, $$$$ over €90 or tasting menus only.

Bouillons and cheap classics

Classic brasseries and famous cafés

Beloved bistros and néo-bistros

Michelin-starred Paris

The 2026 Michelin Guide for France, announced on March 16, 2026, kept nine restaurants in Paris at three stars. The big news was a demotion: L'Ambroisie on the Place des Vosges, a three-star fixture for decades, dropped to two stars.

Tasting menus at this level typically run several hundred euros per person before wine; check each restaurant's site, and look for a lunch menu, the most affordable way in. Book one to three months ahead. The 2026 guide also promoted Hakuba (1st), Alliance (5th) and Virtus (12th) to two stars, and gave first stars to 11 Paris restaurants, including Monsieur Dior by Yannick Alléno and Pilgrim.

Bakeries, pastry and viennoiserie

Paris has more than a thousand bakeries, and the one on your corner is probably good. Most close one or two days a week, posted on the door. A line at 7:30 a.m. or 7 p.m. is a good sign.

The 2026 best baguette in Paris

Every year the City of Paris holds the Grand Prix de la baguette de tradition française. The 2026 winner, announced in late February, is Sithamparappillai Jegatheepan of Fournil Didot, 103 rue Didot in the 14th arrondissement, on his first try at the contest. He receives €4,000 (about $4,480), and by tradition the winner supplies the Élysée Palace with bread for a year. The bakery sits on a residential street in the south of the 14th.

When ordering, ask for une tradition instead of une baguette. A baguette de tradition is defined by law: flour, water, salt and yeast or sourdough only, with no additives, giving a crisper crust and creamier crumb for a few cents more. Ask for it bien cuite if you like a dark crust.

Famous bakeries and pâtisseries

Viennoiserie guide

• Croissant au beurre: the all-butter croissant. Some bakeries also sell a cheaper croissant ordinaire made with other fats.
• Pain au chocolat: two batons of dark chocolate in croissant dough. In the Southwest they call it a chocolatine.
• Pain aux raisins or escargot: a spiral with pastry cream and raisins, now often flavored with pistachio or praline.
• Chausson aux pommes (apple turnover) and kouign-amann (a caramelized, buttery Breton cake).
• Chouquettes: small puffs topped with pearl sugar, sold by the bag or by weight. Kids love them.

Pastries to try at least once: éclair, Paris-Brest, millefeuille, tarte Tatin, flan pâtissier, Saint-Honoré and a fruit tart in season. For a quick lunch, most bakeries sell a formule of sandwich, drink and pastry for around €8 to €12 (about $9 to $13).

Markets and food streets

Paris has more than 70 open-air markets plus about a dozen covered ones. Open-air markets run mornings, roughly 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. (to about 2:30 p.m. on Sunday); arrive by 10. Prices are per kilo, and many vendors prefer to pick fruit for you, so ask before touching.

Covered markets keep longer hours, often reopening in the late afternoon, and nearly all close Monday. See the City of Paris market listings at paris.fr for every market and its days.

Food streets

Market streets are lined with bakeries, cheese shops and produce stands. They are liveliest Tuesday to Saturday and Sunday morning.

• Rue Montorgueil (2nd): pedestrian, central, with Stohrer, cafés and fishmongers.
• Rue Cler (7th): the classic market street near the Eiffel Tower, good for picnic supplies before the Champ de Mars.
• Rue des Martyrs (9th) and rue Mouffetard (5th): pastry, cheese and produce shops, busiest on weekend mornings.
• Rue Sainte-Anne (1st–2nd): Paris's Japanese and Korean quarter for ramen, udon and gyoza.
• Avenue de Choisy and avenue d'Ivry (13th): Chinatown, with Vietnamese pho shops and big Asian supermarkets.
• Belleville (19th–20th): Chinese, Vietnamese and North African food side by side, at low prices.

Cheese, chocolate and ice cream

Cheese shops

A good fromager ages cheese in its own cellars. Say how many people and when you will eat it, and they will pick cheeses ripe for that day. Ask for vacuum packing (sous vide) for travel, and read Shopping & Bringing It Home for US customs rules on cheese and meat.

Chocolate

• Patrick Roger: chocolate sculptures in the windows and intense ganaches; several shops, including place de la Madeleine.
• Jacques Genin (3rd, rue de Turenne): caramels, pâtes de fruits and a millefeuille assembled to order.
• À la Mère de Famille (9th, rue du Faubourg-Montmartre): a confectioner since 1761 with a beautiful old storefront.
• Debauve & Gallais (7th, rue des Saints-Pères): chocolatier to the French kings since 1800.

For hot chocolate, try Angelina (rue de Rivoli), Carette (Trocadéro and Place des Vosges) or the chocolat à l'ancienne at Café de Flore. French hot chocolate is thick, rich and served without whipped cream unless you ask for chantilly.

Ice cream

Berthillon, on rue Saint-Louis-en-l'Île on the Île Saint-Louis, has been the city's benchmark since 1954. The original shop has traditionally closed Monday and Tuesday and for part of the summer, but many cafés on the island sell its scoops. In the Marais, Une Glace à Paris, at 15 rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie and co-founded by a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, is excellent; it opens Wednesday to Sunday afternoons. A double scoop typically costs €5 to €7 (about $6 to $8).

Coffee, breakfast and brunch

How to order coffee

Ask for un café and you get an espresso. There is no bottomless drip coffee.

• Un café or un express: espresso.
• Un allongé or café américain: espresso topped with hot water, the closest to American coffee.
• Une noisette: espresso with a dash of milk.
• Un café crème or un crème: espresso with steamed milk, close to a latte. Mostly a morning drink.
• Un déca: decaf.

Specialty coffee

Classic cafés sell atmosphere more than great coffee. For flat whites, filter coffee and oat-milk lattes, Paris has a strong specialty scene. Long-standing names include KB (where rue des Martyrs meets avenue Trudaine in the 9th, plus a big roastery café near Bastille), Ten Belles (10 rue de la Grange-aux-Belles by the Canal Saint-Martin, plus branches in the 6th and 11th) and Coutume (rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière in the 9th and other shops). Many close by 5 or 6 p.m.

Breakfast

The French breakfast is small: coffee, a croissant or a tartine (half a baguette with butter and jam), and maybe orange juice. Cafés sell this as a formule petit-déjeuner, usually for about €8 to €15 (about $9 to $17). Hotel breakfast buffets often cost €20 to €40 (about $22 to $45) per person, so compare before booking a rate that includes it.

Brunch

Weekend brunch is a Paris institution, usually served from about 11 a.m. to 3 or 4 p.m. as a set menu. Holybelly, at 5 rue Lucien-Sampaix in the 10th, serves pancakes and excellent coffee daily from 9 a.m. to about 4 p.m. It takes no reservations and seats groups of six at most, so expect a line on weekends. Tea rooms, hotels and many cafés also do brunch; book ahead for Sunday.

Wine and cocktail bars

Paris drinking culture centers on a glass of wine with friends from 6 to 8 p.m., called the apéro, often with a plate of charcuterie. Many bars run a happy hour in the early evening. A glass of house wine typically costs €5 to €9 (about $6 to $10), and a craft cocktail €13 to €18 (about $15 to $20) in the center.

For rooftop bars, jazz, clubs and late nights, see Shopping & Nightlife in Paris. For French wine regions and how to read a wine list, see Wine.

Eating well on a budget

If you eat like a local, Paris costs less than New York or San Francisco. A day of excellent food can cost €35 to €50 (about $39 to $56) per person.

• Make lunch your main meal and order the formule.
• Eat at a bouillon for dinner: three courses with wine for well under €30 (about $34).
• Buy a bakery sandwich. A jambon-beurre (ham and butter on baguette) is a Paris staple at about €4 to €7 (about $4.50 to $8).
• Get crêpes from a street stand, falafel in the Marais or pho in the 13th.
• Shop at Monoprix, Franprix, Carrefour City or a market for picnic food and apartment breakfasts.
• Drink the free tap water and the house wine (vin de la maison, by the carafe or pichet).
• Use TheFork discounts and stand at the counter for coffee.

For daily budgets and cost examples, see Money and Budget Calculator.

Picnicking: spots and rules

A picnic of bread, cheese, charcuterie, fruit and a bottle of wine is one of the best meals in Paris and costs €15 to €25 (about $17 to $28) for two. Pick up a corkscrew (tire-bouchon) and plastic cups at Monoprix.

• Square du Vert-Galant: the tree-shaded tip of the Île de la Cité, at water level below the Pont Neuf.
• Champ de Mars: lawns facing the Eiffel Tower, sometimes fenced off for events.
• Canal Saint-Martin: locals sit on the canal edge on warm evenings.
• Parc des Buttes-Chaumont (19th): hilly lawns where sitting on the grass is allowed.
• Luxembourg Gardens and Tuileries: grab one of the green metal chairs; most lawns here are off-limits.
• Seine banks: the car-free quays near the Musée d'Orsay and on the Île Saint-Louis.

Food tours and cooking classes in English

A guided tasting walk early in your trip teaches you what to order for the rest of it. Tours usually last about three hours and include enough food for lunch; cooking classes run two to five hours. Expect roughly €100 to €200 (about $112 to $224) per person, and book a week or more ahead in spring and fall.

Dietary needs

Paris restaurants are more flexible than their reputation, but substitutions are less routine than in the US. Tell your server at the start and keep the request simple. Under EU law, restaurants must be able to tell you which of 14 major allergens are in each dish, including gluten, nuts, peanuts, milk, eggs, fish, shellfish and sesame.

Vegetarian and vegan

Say je suis végétarien (or végétarienne) or je suis vegan. Watch for lardons in salads, meat stock in soups and sauces, and fish offered as "vegetarian." Bistros usually have one vegetarian main; Asian, Lebanese and Indian restaurants offer more.

• Le Potager de Charlotte (rue de la Tour-d'Auvergne in the 9th, and the 17th): fully vegan, plant-based French cooking, with Sunday brunch.
• Hank (Marais): vegan burgers and pizza, cheap and fast.
• Arpège: the three-star restaurant where vegetables are the main event.
• Passage Brady (10th): a covered arcade of inexpensive Indian and Pakistani restaurants with many vegetarian dishes.

Gluten-free

Many restaurants now mark gluten-free dishes. Galettes at crêperies are made from buckwheat, which is gluten-free, but many crêperies add wheat flour or cook on shared griddles, so ask for 100 percent buckwheat (100 % sarrasin). Chambelland (11th) is a dedicated gluten-free bakery using rice and buckwheat flours. Macarons are made from almond flour and are naturally gluten-free, though not certified.

Kosher

The Marais around rue des Rosiers has been the heart of Jewish Paris since the 19th century. Look for a Beth Din of Paris certificate in the window, since many places sell kosher-style food without supervision. Certified restaurants close from Friday afternoon to Saturday night. Larger kosher communities, with many more restaurants, are in the 17th, the 19th and around rue Richer in the 9th.

Halal

Halal butchers and restaurants are common in Belleville, Barbès and along rue Jean-Pierre-Timbaud in the 11th, and signs say so. The tea room at the Grande Mosquée de Paris in the 5th, by the Jardin des Plantes, has long served mint tea and pastries in a tiled courtyard; check that it is open before you go. For tagines and couscous, ask at the counter whether meat is halal.