My family will be staying at the Hotel Grandes Ecoles in March. Can you recommend some reasonably priced restaurants in the 5th arrondisement?

Also, is there a particular area or room we should request at the Grandes Ecoles? I have read some of the reviews of this hotel hear at Fodors and they seem favorable.

Thank you for your help. Laurie

Try the Rue Mouffetard - it has many restaurants from which to choose.

The area between Place St Mich and St Severin is crammed with inexpensive restaurants. Quite touristy but I've eaten at many of them and they really are not bad and the prices are great. I think your hotel is closer to the Rue Mouffetard area mentioned above but the Place St Mich is right across the river from Notre Dame and makes a nice stroll after dinner. I think that area is about a 15 minute walk from the area of your hotel.

Hi Laurie,

At the bottom of rue Mouffetard is a restaurant called the Cave de Bourgogne, recommended by our Paris Walks guide. We ate lunch there and it was good. There are lots of restaurants off rue Mouffetard but many of them are of mediocre quality.

The Polidor is a well-known bistro with fairly good food at reasonable prices; not too far from the hotel. Definitely try the tarte tatin with creme fraiche.

If the weather is warm in March you can buy food at the market or in the local stores and picnic in the courtyard of the hotel.

The rooms in the building across from reception and next to reception have larger rooms than the ones in the main building. I think a first floor room would be the best since You have a large window. In the event it's warm, you won't be able to leave the door open in the ground floor rooms since you won't have any privacy; they open right on the garden.

We requested a room in one of the garden buildings but got a room in the main building. It was pretty, not real tiny (had 2 nightstands,a desk, and a chair), and it had a balcony with a table and two chairs that looked over a very quiet, leafy alley. It was very private and we now think probably better than a room overlooking the garden, which is lovely and therefore often full of people! I don't remember our room number but it was on the first floor (our 2nd floor) at the end of the hall on the right.

A restaurant that we really enjoyed in the 5eme was Chantairelle at 17 rue LaPlace. Very good Auvergnian food in a pretty atmosphere.

Have a great trip!

Laurie:

Some of the worst food in Paris is in the 5th arrondissement, so choose carefully. The vast majority of those places off the Boul' Mich' near rue de la Harpe and so forth - the ones where the maître d' rushes out into the street and tries to lure you in - are pretty dreadful.

Same goes for the rue Mouffetard - I'd get some specific suggestions for that area.

I've enjoyed meals in the 5me at Restaurant Moissonnier on the rue des Fosses-St-Bernard and at Campagne et Provence on the Quai de la Tournelle. Also at Chez Pento on rue Cujas

Ask for a room in either of the two buildings that is NOT the main building (i.e., the building where you register and have breakfast).
As for restaurants, what you call "reasonably priced"? I can strongly recommend Perraudin at 157 Rue St. Jacques, just the other side of the Sorbonne and a short walk from the hotel. They don't take credit cards nor reservations. Be there when it opens at 7:30.
Be very careful of the restaurants on upper part of rue Mouffetard (the section closest to the hotel). Most in that area are mediocre at best.

Thank you all for your suggestions! I have taken notes. I really appreciate knowing a little bit about the areas of the hotel, too. We will try to request 1st floor, away from the main building.

We ate at Polidor last summer and enjoyed it. The toilette was really an "experience" too!

Thanks for reminding me about Perraudin.It was on my list to try last time we were in Paris, but we didn't make it.

St. Cirq, thank you for those suggestions. I haven't heard of those places. You gave us some great suggestions for restaurants in the 7th, when we were in Paris last summer. We tried many of them and really enjoyed them.

Thanks to everyone for your help! Laurie

Three restaurants nearby you may like:

Buisson Ardent

Dromadaire Gourmand

L'Atlas

They've been mentioned before on this board (by me, natch!).

"Search" and ye shall "Find" (sorry, I sometimes find puns irrestable)

We had a wonderful dinner at La Papillote on rue du pot de fer - right off rue moufftard. While I'm not sure what you would consider reasonably priced, I think the price compared favorably to what we would pay for the same meal here.

We also ate at the ChantAirelle recommended by an earlier poster. Be sure to take your camera. The have a lovely walled area outside for dining - if the weather permits. The meal was very reasonable.

Hi,
Across from L'Atlas (morrocan) is Chez Rene on Blvd St Germain

If you walk on the left bank, going south along Seine, you will come acroos wuite a few decent restuarants like
Le Montebello with outdoor patio with view of Notre Dame and Rotisserie du Beaujolais, left bank, along seine, south of Notre Dame. If you go north, there is Les Bouquinistes.

Others:
Moulin de Vent/Chez Henri Rue des Fosses St Bernard

And of course Reine Blanche on Ile St Louis.

Mike

Provence and Compagne has been replaced by some other place whose name I do not know. Chez Pento may likewise have been replaced--or be the place that recently replaced something else. Check these recs out carefully.

As AJ suggested I also do:

LE BUISSON ARDENT
25 rue Jussieu, Paris, France
Phone: 01-43-54-93-02

It's been two years since I've been but I still read good reviews.

Laurie, here's the link to a similar questions that came up a couple months ago.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34448371

There are been a couple threads on this very same subject fairly recently, as others noted, so I won't repeat what I said before as I gave several suggestions before and probably couldn't think of them all now without my notes.

Someone here or another post mentioned Le Volcan on rue Mouffetard, and I have eaten there a couple times and think it is one of the better modest places in that area. It is also a very pleasant and attractive ambience, not crowded. It's just slightly north of place Contrescarpe on a corner, as I recall. It is kind of beyond the real cheap string of restaurants you find at the bottom. Au Piano Muet on there is decent, also. It's not too hard to tell the better restaurants as a lot of them are really cheap -- too cheap to be good--although that's not foolproof.

Both Chez Pento and Campagne et Provence closed several years ago. Chez Pento (9 rue Cujas) was replaced by a Corsican restaurant, Le Cosi. This place got good reviews by Patricia Wells, but it's not cheap -- more like 30-40 euro without wine. Campagne et Provence was replaced by some French country place, Restaurant Quai V. That is still pretty cheap for the prix fixe and here are comments on it. I am posting this article from Paris Voice because it lists several good very reasonably-priced French restaurants

http://parisvoice.com/02/dec/html/fooddrink.cfm

I think the restaurants around rue de la Huchette etc are among the worst in the city, myself, although I know you will see a lot of tourists in them and I've known college-age kids who like them because it sort of suits their style and they aren't really into good dining yet. They are certainly cheap, however. In the hierarchy of cheap restaurant areas like that, I'd put that area at the bottom (I had meat in one of those places once that was disgusting and probably dangerous), and both rue Mouffetard and a street in St-Germain off carrefour Buxi a cut above for that kind of thing. I think that street is rue Gregoire de Tours (or the next one, Ancienne Comedie).

Thank you all, for your suggestions. I wish we could stay in Paris longer, so we could try all of these restaurants!

Thanks again for all your help! Laurie