Anybody see a pattern in my restaurant posts today? Appreciate your feedback.


http://www.vagenende.fr/us/p1.html

The decor is fantastic and the food is ok but not something you'll remember as really outstanding. You can read lots of posts here and on foodie sites complaining about it in fact. I have to agree that it's not super but the decor will stay with you forever. it's fantastic.

Thanks julie. Do you know of any place close by with decor, good food and friendly wait staff? Asking for the impossible?

I bet ira eats here!

Yes, nice Decor, beveled mirrors, and other trappings of the Art Nouveau but the food is nothing to rave over. If you have seen the French in Action series on PBS, the dining part of vocabulary was filmed there.

I see the pattern. Decor seems to be the draw for you, perhaps even at the expense of great food. If this is the case, I can recommend Le Procope; I had a lovely oyster sampling here recently and it certainly is beautiful in addition to being the oldest cafe in Paris:

www.procope.com

Another one that always gets mentioned for looks is:

www.brasseriegallopin.com

And don't forget Bofinger, where the food can be pretty good, and Brasserie Flo, where I had a good meal a few years ago:

www.flobrasseries.com

Actually, I ate at Flo about 10 years ago so really should not comment on it at all...

We have eaten in most of the Flo Brasseries over the years. For the past 2 years they have been relying on their old reputation. It seems as if everything is done by formula with much less attention to detail. Service is harried and for the last two times quite diffident. Some revitalization is needed. This is our conclusion from dining at Julien and Bofinger in the past 12 months.

Hi Cato,

Vagenende is one of my Lady Wife's favorites, more for the ambience than the food.

The food is good - I like their choucroute - but not outstanding.

See the Paris part of my trip report for more of the same kind of restaurants.
http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34676645

Laperousse is worth every penny.

Dare I recommend one more time, chez Clovis. Not in the 5th, but in Les Halles area, on rue Berger, across the park from St. Eustache (where we spent Christmas Eve in 1999--just before the Paris and surrounds storm of the century--ah, the memories) the decor is fantastic also, but for a different reason than at Vagenende--because it truly is an authentic preservation of a Les Halles bistro when Les Halles was the food market of Paris. And the food is pretty fantastic too. Recommended highly--our first obligatory stop on every trip to Paris.

Two of us ate at Vagenende in 2004. It has nice old-world decor, but the food was nasty.

Okay, okay - its sinking in fast: more for the ambience than the food!

You should listen to Julie Vikmanis. Her report on another site steered me to Chez Denise and it was one of my best meals in Paris recently. I passed Chez Clovis, a few doors away, and it was packed with locals. The decor at these two places is quintessentially Parisian.

You might want to check out my post on 18 meals in Paris. It has reviews of those 18 meals and in response to a question from another poster a list of lots of Paris restaurants where I've eaten rated in ABC groupings with some comments. Hope you find it helpful. (I'm not averse to just popping my head into a restaurant that has beautiful decor, seeing it, and then popping out to eat elsewhere if I've been warned that the food doesn't live up to the decor, you might be crass enough to do that too, especially if they don't have a bar where you can at least stop for a drink.)

Here are some places you can pop your head into before heading elsewhere to dine; I would not place much faith into their comments on food:

http://www.parisdigest.com/menus/res...on.htm#Procope

You guys are great - super info.