Paris food recommendations
 

I will be in Paris with my husband and 6 year-old daughter next week. The adults have spent time in Paris before, so i don't feel like there are things we have to see. The first two days will be just me and my daughter. I have a rough plan of our two days, but am not sure about food. She is very good in restaurants, but clearly we don't need anything high end.

We arrive Friday mid-morning and will get to our apartment hopefully by noon. We are staying at an apartment on Rue de la Harpe near the Saint-Michel metro stop. Does anyone have any recommendations for bakeries, cheese shops, small grocery stores nearby?

My plan is to go somewhere for lunch, was thinking Cafe de Flore. We have tickets to go up the Eiffel Tower at 4:30. Anyone have reccomendations for dinner in that area? An alternative would be to grab some supplies and eat in the apartment, as I am sure we will be tired.

On Saturday my plan is to go to the Arc de Triumphe and then to Place de la Concorde. My daughter has read about the beheadings that took place there and wants to see the site. I also heard there is some sort of trampoline you can pay for your kid to jump on in the area. I would like to visit the Orangerie. I am guessing we will get a late start given our jet lag. We will need to find lunch somewhere before the museum. As a reward for spending time in a musuem, I thought we might go to the Luxembourg gardens later in the afternoon. I read there is a nice play area there.

My husband arrives Saturday evening. So I have saved the things he is interested in for the next two days.

I guess what I would like to hear is any recommendations for restaurants and cafes, markets, bakeries etc... in the neighborhood of our apartment, possible restaurants around the Eiffel Tower and then some place to eat between the Arc de Triumphe and Place de la Concorde. And, of course any thoughts on my rough plan.

Thanks! Betsy

I probably would not waste a trip to Flore on a six year old child, even a sophisticated one. There won't be much if anything there that you could not get for her at a hundred other cafes, and she won't know the rich and famous who mingle with the tourists.

On the rue de la Harpe alone, Google maps shows a creperie, a pizza place, a thai restaurant, a couple of French restaurants, and apparently a MacDonalds nearby, which you can avoid. I would go for a creperie on day 1 lunch, and I would eat in that neighborhood rather than in the 7th near the Eiffel.

Oops! I mixed up two places. The place I am thinking of for lunch is Le Flore en Ile, on the Ile St Louis. Someone posted here awhile back about their omlettes. It sounded like a nice place to sit and eat when we will tired and probably very hungry.

Ackislander, from my past visits to Paris, I recall thinking the places to eat along Rue de la Harpe were pretty marginal. Since I have to be eating too, I am more than willing to waste some money on a six-year old in order to avoid mediocre food for myself! Although a creperie would be a good lunch one of our days. No worries on the MacDonalds, we only ever eat there on road trips when there is little other choice.

Hi eastave. We stayed around the corner in 2010 on Huchette with kids, one around age 6. We didn't go for many big name restaurants and often had to eat when and where we found ourselves.

My info is a bit dated, but take it for what it is worth (and perhaps check your favorite restaurant rating website). Most of the advice and comments we received was to stay out of that area (Harpe/Huchette) to eat, but we did have some decent experiences. Cafe Rim at the corner of Sainte Severin and Harpe had good pizza, plenty of customers, and if I recall large salads as main courses (not uncommon in the US, but maybe in Paris). We also had a late dinner/snack of crepes and sandwiches at the corner of Harpe and Huchette (they open up in the evening).

There is a Monoprix grocery store on St. Michelle just past the Cluny for snacks, drinks, meals etc. Easy walking from your apt.

At the Eiffel, a block or two either way will reveal serviceable and less touristy neighborhood restaurants.

There is also a Hippopotamus to the east on Lagrange, not too far from your apartment area. I think one could say Hippo is a French Applebees, i.e. a chain, and is kid friendly.

That location is really the center of extreme tourism, so it isn't like a regular residential neighborhood. There isn't any real grocery store anywhere near that location, as least not like a supermarket. There are some small shop vendors on bd St Germain (maybe fruits, the corner small market shop) or Sommerard, as I recall, but I can't really pinpoint one. I think maybe over near Maubert metro stop.

There are lots of people always walking up and down and outside that location because there is a mcDonalds right nearby, and in general, just fast food takeout places for tourists (it's a a pedestrian street), but some have places to sit. You can easily just walk around and check them out.

There is a bakery at 10 rue Lagrange about a block or more to the east, and one over on rue St Andre des Arts to the west (Les Arts Gourmand) http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restauran...de_France.html

The closest bakery is Gargantua right on that street at the beginning of it near rue de la Huchette.

Can't help you with a close supermarket, don't think there is one.

... when I was last in the area, there was a small market on Rue Severin...

And there was a nice bakery down the road towards the church, st. Severin.

AND I LOVED the Gyros. Due to the turnover, they were fresh and sumptuous.

Thank you all for the information. I am getting hungry thinking of the bakeries!