svenakk_dnet

Hi,

I would like some help refining and determining a 5-day Paris in July.
I've already gotten some help from the community, for which thanks, and now have a more detailed view on the options. We go from Monday to Friday with Friday the main meal of the day being during lunch time.

First off, my companion and I are foodies from Belgium. We are adventurous eaters who are willing to splurge on restaurants. Thus, budget is no issue, if it is worth it ($1000 meals might be worth it if we enjoy ourselves).

We eat and like everything but search for restaurants that are less available to us and are unique in some sense.

Being Belgian, we have access to prime quality French type cuisine (we went to both 3-starred Michelins in Belgium) so it has to be special if we do that in Paris.

We like exotic, ethnic and foreign cuisines. We like restaurants that are amongst the worlds-best or offer an experience that is unique or very special or innovative or very authentic.

Our best experiences were the wild playground of Barcelona (Tickets, Disfrutar, ... ), the world-class foreign options in London (Gymkhana, HKK, ...) or the exquisite refinedness and local kitchen of Rome (La Pergola, offal cuisine in Checchino Dal 1887)

In that sense, we would not immediately go for a classic French Bistro and would like foreign options.

We are wary however of overdoing it. While we can eat a lot and walk 20km+ a day in city trips, we would like to avoid being overstuffed and overdrunk.

Finally, we are a big fan of tasting menus and accompanying beverage pairing.

Below I've listed some of our options we are looking at and at the very bottom a possible preliminary itinerary.

Could you comment on those options and perhaps, based on my description above and the list below, add things you particularly recommend?

3-star level:

L'Arpege - king of vegetables speaks to us. Is the Terre et Mer menu also veggie focused? Is it true that this restaurant overstuffs you?

Pierre Gagnaire - called the most playful and innovative of 3-stars (also been compared to Disfrutar), we were wondering about this one.

L'Ambroisie, Guy Savoy and Le Cinq also seemed like good options but more classical, opinions?

Neo-Bistro:

Le Chateaubriand - on many lists, seems interesting

Clown Bar - sounds like a fun adventure. Calfs brains!

Septime - Again very well known. I was wondering about this one.

Asian-Touched French Cuisine:

Kei, Ze Kitchen Galerie, Sola, Kura, - Heard good things about these restaurants, but would like to avoid too many French type dinners so unsure if I should do one of them when doing some of the above. How Asian/French are they?

Japanese:

Okadu - renowned, is this one good?

Yen - Head it is minimalist. What are your opinions?

Aida - Called fanciest Japanese, but is it authentic?

Chinese:

Yam'Chta - Fusion again. Is it too French?

Lili - Is this an authentic place? Not a lot of info

Shang Palace - Michelin Chinese, but the menu did not seem like it was hardcore Chinese, though I can be wrong.

Vietnamese/Indonesian/Korean/Thai:

I found few fine-dining options in these categories. Some are listed below, can you comment/add?

Indonesia, Ossek Garden, Pho Bom, Ossek Garden, Woo Jung, Mai Thai, Aux Trois Nagas

African/South-American:

Similar as above, found few fine-dining authentic options.

Did find Kootchi, Anahi and Carbon. Can you comment?Proposal if I had to choose now (but wouldn't want to):

Day 1: L'Arpege

Day 2: Okadu

Day 3: Lili

Day 4: Pierre Gagnaire

Day 5: (during lunch time but going for the full tasting menu) Yam'Chta

Would this be excessive in terms of do-ability? This is just a quick suggestion but I am looking to refine this much further!