What to eat in Paris

Paris is eaten dish by dish and in a fixed order. First comes a croissant that costs about €1.22 at the bakery, then a jambon-beurre eaten on a bench, then a hot lunch in a bouillon where a main course starts at €7, and finally a dinner of steak and chips or onion soup. This page says what each of those is, where to try it and what it costs, and leaves the daily totals, the set lunch menu and the tipping rules to the costs page.

Everything starts at the boulangerie. A baguette de tradition is made there under a 1993 decree from nothing but flour, water, yeast and salt, and the traditional craft was added to UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2022. A croissant from a bakery averages €1.22. For lunch you ask for a jambon-beurre, a split, buttered baguette filled with ham, also called a parisien, of which the French buy more than three million every day.

BudgetThe croissant and the coffee in a day's total:What Paris costs →

The bouillon is an old Parisian kind of restaurant from the nineteenth century that served hot meals quickly and cheaply, and a handful of them reopened after 2017. Bouillon Chartier has served since 1896, every day from 11:30 until midnight without a break, with main courses starting at €7. It has three rooms, at Grands Boulevards, Montparnasse and near Gare de l'Est, and nothing can be booked, so the queue is part of the deal and it is better to come before noon or in the late afternoon.

Steak frites and onion soup

In a brasserie the standard dinner is steak frites, a pan-fried steak, most often an entrecôte, with deep-fried chips and sometimes a béarnaise or a pepper sauce. If you order it 'saignant' it arrives rare, and since Belgium claims the dish as well, the French version is a matter of local pride rather than origin.

Onion soup is the dish of Les Halles. It took the form you know in the mid-nineteenth century at the old central market, where Au Pied de Cochon, among others, served it under a grilled cheese crust to workers at dawn and to late-night revellers leaving the cabarets. Both belong at the same table, in a brasserie or a classic bistro, where a three-course dinner averages €35 and a cheaper lunch €16.

Where to stayThe quarter with good small restaurants at prices that are not tourist prices:Where to stay in Paris →

Crêpes in Montparnasse

The small Breton crêperies around Gare Montparnasse date from the early twentieth century, when Bretons driven out by poverty arrived by train at that very station and stayed. Rue du Montparnasse still has at least seven of them, among them Chez Jeanne and Le Petit Josselin. A savoury galette complète with ham, cheese and an egg is the order for a meal, and a sweet crêpe is the dessert.

Markets and pastry

The Marché des Enfants Rouges in the Marais has stood since 1628 and is the oldest covered market in Paris. Its stalls serve hot dishes at the counter, from Japanese bento boxes to Levantine pitta. It is closed on Mondays, like the Marché d'Aligre in the 12th arrondissement, which sells fresh produce under a roof and in the street.

For something sweet there is the Paris-Brest, a round ring of choux pastry filled with praline cream and scattered with almonds. The pastry chef Louis Durand of Maisons-Laffitte devised it in 1910 for the Paris–Brest–Paris cycle race. Ladurée, founded in 1862 as a bakery on Rue Royale, turned the macaron into the double-shelled sweet with cream between the halves in 1930.

3 daysThe lunches already placed hour by hour in the plan:Paris in 3 days →

Day tripsA lunch out of town, and the station it leaves from:Day trips from Paris →

Hidden gemsWhere to eat once you step off the main routes:Paris past the postcards: the Arc on Wednesdays, free views →

Getting aroundWhich line gets you to the market or the bouillon:Getting around Paris →

When to goWhen to go to Paris, month by month:The best time to visit Paris →

MistakesMistakes that cost an hour, a ticket or a whole day:Mistakes everyone makes in Paris →

AirportYou land before the first meal: which airport and how to get into town:From the airport to Paris →

MuseumsMuseums and their hours, so that lunch fits in between:Museums in Paris →