During the past 5 weeks here, I have nopt needed one reservation for a restaurant for either lunch or dinner. Yes I may have had to wait an hour, but I used to sometimes wait that long with reservations.

This 12th trip here, I vowed never to have to be a "slave" of a reservation time, I dont know what I am going to do tommorrow, so how can I reserve days/weeks/or months in advance.

I have to admit that I did not try this with 3Star restaurants, but with the ones I liked:
Le Comptoir
Crystal Room (Highly recommended for the room!)
Atelier de Joel Rubacon
Bastide Odeon
Jaques Cagnes
etc, etc....

I know that many people feel safer with reservations, but for those that are worried about not having any, it is not the end of the world. Try the restaurant early or late, and if you are 2-3 they probably will let you in, if they like you. Speaking French helps too.

My life is complicated enough at home, don't need complications on a vacation.

I had lunch at Gaya's without a reservaton and all the others where I dined.

I absolutely never reserve anywhere in Paris. If the place is full and the wait is too long, there is no place that I want to go to that badly -- and there are so many other good places to discover!

The key here is that you are willing to wait an hour and to eat either very early or very late. And places like Atelier Joel Robuchon do not take reservations save for the first seating..or at least they did not when I ate there last fall.

I said "I MAY have to wait an hour", but that only happened once, and that was because I arrived an hour before the restaurant opened for dinner.

I've never made reservations, but am always interested in other people's experience. I don't go to 3 star, but have been to some restos from Michelin Red guide with no issues. I almost always show up around 8 PM.
I travel solo and speak french whether that makes any difference..

I wouldn't wait anywhere for an hour. Your post does imply that wait was due to no reservation. I don't reserve restaurants that often, once in a great while if I happen to be around a restaurant in an area I'm staying, I might drop by in the afternoon. I'm not very picky, though, and don't eat in expensive or name restaurants very much. If some place were completely full, I"d just go somewhere else, I really don't care that much. Actually, I don't think I've ever been turned away from a restaurant due to no space in Paris. I wanted to go to Chez Fernand's last August, and another one, and couldn't but that's because they were closed.

It's just a different style, that's all. I don't care about going to certain restaurants that much, but if you do, I would be sure to make reservations, also. A lot of folks on Fodors care about where they eat in Paris and plan a lot in advance about that, at least for the handful of places they talk about on here a lot.

I would not wait an hour, either. I am glad that Intex was able to get in without reserving. But most of the places she mentions, with perhaps the exception of Atelier, are not those that feature on the "must" lists of most visitors to the city. There have been a good number of times in the past year that I have been seated at a restaurant in Paris or Rome, (and in Albi, and in Capetown..) and watched as people without reservations have been turned away. These were not three or even two-star places, nor were they particularly trendy, for the most part, but many were "food destinations" of one sort or another or old standbys (Allard is one of the latter that comes to mind; Armando al Pantheon and Trattoria Monti in Rome are others...)

So, as has been said above, if you know where you want to eat, it is always better to reserve to avoid disppointment, or to avoid having to wait for a table..this is true in Paris as it is in Rome, or in New York, or in Capetown...

Well, it's the end of October. You wouldn't have the same experience in mid-July.

I don't often make reservations, either. Yes, for the high-end restaurants you do need to. And if you have a group larger than, say, four people. And if it's a tiny restaurant - for example, I always reserve at Forimond because they only have about 10 tables. My sister was in Paris last week and called Florimond two days ahead and got the last table. And that's not even a famous restaurant.

I don't think a restaurant has to be a 2* or 3* place to be "popular" or in-demand so you would need restaurants. There are certain places that are commonly named in guidebooks, on message boards like this, etc (Florimond is one of those), so it doesn't surprise me you'd need reservations there. Florimond is small, also.

However, I do think reservations can't hurt with the kind of places Intex talked about which I think are popular and are on the must lists of a lot of people. Le Comptoir is written about a lot, for example, and often crowded. Never heard of the crystal room, though.

Cristal Room is the Baccarat place in the 16th. Le Comptoir is a Moroccan place near Les Halles. Unless the OP means Camdeborde's Le Comptoir du Relais in the 6th...????? Rubacon and Cagnes?

Le Comptoir is located on Carrefour de Odeon in the 6th, and is owned by the same people that own the Hotel Relais St Germain. They only have one service for dinner at 8:30, and is still a hot ticket, but made it w/o reserv.

The Cristal room is also supposed to be one of the hot tickets in Paris at the moment, (I went because of the architecture of the room, its great).

Just know that Le Comptoir is different from Le Comptoir du Relais. You wrote "Le Comptoir" so we (I)thought you meant the North African place near Les Halles!! How was the restaurant? Did you happen to write any kind of review or can you give us one now?