Places to eat in Paris

I have decided that in order to do the places we visited justice, I should do a separate post about Parisian food and our experience of eating out in Paris.

We were only there for 4 meals and 2 of them were just quick lunch bites whilst out site seeing, so I won’t talk about those, as they are covered by my post about the trip itself.

For dinner and for breakfast however, we went all out.

For dinner we visited one of Craig’s favourite restaurants in Paris, which he has been to a few times and then for brunch we went to Laudrée on the Champs Elysees, which you may have heard of as it is a famous patisserie which is known for its pretty pastel coloured macaroons.

They were both really delicious and so I have reviewed them below.

 

Les Editeurs

 

After a drink in the Latin Quarter, we headed here as we had made a reservation for 8pm. We went in and were greeted with the very French atmosphere, and to my delight, rows of bookshelves filled with all sorts of books lined the walls. We were seated upstairs, which was a bit quieter – Craig had only sat in the downstairs area before so this made a change.

It was still almost full upstairs however. Apparently it has been refurbished since he last came her and now has a bit more of a modern twist in the furnishings, but has kept its charm with all the books. As you may have guessed from the name and the books, the place was apparently very popular with authors, being located in the same area as many of the publishing houses of Paris.

We were seated by the window at a cosy two-person table in comfy red leather chairs, and opted for a glass of champagne straight away, when in France! The menu is handily also available in English, if like me you do not speak a word of French. The menu is quite wide ranging, there is a set menu – with 3 courses available for roughly 38 Euros.

We went a la carte however, and knowing that our mains were likely to be very filling, we had a sharing cheeseboard to start, to make sure that we got full enjoyment of our cheese. We also ordered a delicious bottle of Medoc from Bordeaux to have alongside.

The cheeseboard was heavenly, we had a camembert, a soft cheese that was either goat or sheep and then a really tasty nutty flavoured cheese that looked like Manchego but wasn’t (and we are still annoyed that we forgot to ask the waiter what it was called!). This came with some bread and walnuts, and was pretty filling already. We took our time with it though and there was absolutely no rushing to the service which was nice.

Craig then had some duck, and I went for French onion soup, and a side of French fries just for good measure. Didn’t really need the fries though I had plenty of bread and the bowl was huge, and, COVERED in cheese. Literally a whole cheese top it was like a dream come true. It was a lot of rich food though, again we ate pretty slowly and took time to enjoy the food.

There was no way we had any room for dessert, so we chilled whilst we finished our wine and got the bill. It wasn’t super pricey, I think it came in at somewhere between 110-20 Euros, which for all that food and a good three or so hours spend in the restaurant is not too bad.

I really enjoyed the food at Les Editeurs and I would definitely recommend a visit there for some dinner, or they also had lots of lighter options for lunch if that works better in your itinerary. It was good French food and I hope to return and in theory try something else but that cheese top, I mean soup, might just tempt me too much!

It can be found at 4 Carrefour de l’Odéon, 75006 Paris, France, if you would like to go test it out for yourself.

 

 

Laudrée

 

I had been looking forward to our trip to Laudrée for quite some time when it finally arrived. I am a big fan of brunch and the range of the menu here was quite overwhelming. There were so many things I wanted to try, from pastries, to avocado toast, to poke bowls, sandwiches, pastries. I wanted to eat it all.

We arrived and were seated upstairs, which was nice as downstairs was quite busy and packed in – I think they may save that for walk ins and reservations are for upstairs but I am not sure. The take away pastry counter is on the left as you come in and it just made me even more eager to start eating.

We were sat down for about 10 minutes before someone actually realised we didn’t have any menus, which was torture when you are hungry and there is a big table of pastries right by you, but other than that the service was pretty good for the rest of our visit.

They do set breakfast menus with pastries and coffee etc but those were rather pricey. To be honest the whole place was very pricey, so I wouldn’t recommend coming here if you are trying to do Paris on a budget, but as a one off for my first trip here it was a nice thing to do.

We both ordered the freshly squeezed orange, and 2 mini croissants with jam to start off with – I didn’t feel that we could come here without having a pastry since that is what they are best known for! They did not disappoint, but I was glad we only went for the mini ones, as the main thing we ordered was very filling indeed. It was beautifully presented, with our poached eggs nestled on top of a bed of spinach, served on some type of brioche muffin, with smoked salmon weaved around the eggs into an ‘S’ shape. The hollandaise sauce came on the side. Top marks for presentation. The food was very, very good and kept us going until about 5pm which is pretty impressive considering how much walking around we did that day.

We also got some entertainment / anthropological study time whilst we were there from three girls in the corner who had about 4 different cameras and their phones plus a variety of sunglasses and hats who all took it in turns to pretend to eat the food and posing pouring tea and all sorts before they actually started to eat the food as we were leaving, and about half an hour after their food had actually arrived. I am all for a quick Instagram shot as you know, but like 30 seconds, then I am eating my food! Nice insight into the world of the Instagram influencers there for us, although still not as extreme as the photo shoot we witnessed on the beach in Vietnam where girls were literally swapping outfits for photos! But that is a debate for another time and place perhaps.

I very much enjoyed my visit to Laudrée on the Champs Elysee, and it definitely was a lovely treat and I felt very fancy there with the big high ceilings and grand French house style interior they have upstairs.

The brunch dish was really good, the eggs cooked to perfection and the salmon was smoky and melt in the mouth, however if I ever go back I will be going for some of those incredible looking cakes for sure!

If you don’t want to have to go all the way to Paris to check Laudrée out, they do have several places in London such as in Covent Garden, Harrods and St Pancras plus others, but it isn’t quite the same is it?