Is she reliable, I find Rick Steves doesn't know that much about food.

I've used her Paris book happily for over a decade. I also use her Bistro cookbook often. She is like any restaurant critic -- that is -- with favorites and definite opinions, but she does include a wide range of places. <BR> <BR>She has a website which I'll try to locate and post.

http://www.patriciawells.com/

That may be like asking "did the sun come up this morning?"

I've never read Patricia Well's reviews, but before I recently returned to Venice I'd heard that she'd named <BR>Venice's Da Fiore one of the ten best restaurants in... (Europe? The world?). <BR>Anyway, since I just ate there and happen to agree that Da Fiore is <BR>fabulous, I now think Patricia Wells is a brilliant restaurant critic. <BR>My impression of Rick Steves is that he tends to value price and convenience over quality, at least according to my opinions. His information seems to be good when it comes to a tip for where the nearest restroom is, or finding the cheapest hotel in town that has clean sheets. Beyond that I don't rely on his information on subjective issues like "good food" which <BR>doesn't seem to be on the same wavelength as mine. Obviously, zillions of other people respect his advice however. Like any source of <BR>subjective information, if you happen to agree with it, it's absolutely correct.

I used Patricia Wells' "Food Lover's Guide to Paris" when I was there in May-June, but I used it in conjunction with several other sources -- Frommer's Paris, Bistros of Paris, and this forum. What I did was I made a list of restaurants in my price range (around $15-25 per person) that were recommended in more than one source, and especially those with multiple recommendations. That way I never went wrong! It worked for me.

There is absolutely no comparison between Patricia Wells and Rick Steves. She is an experienced restaurant critic, food scholar, cookbook writer, and cooking teacher. He is a guy with no particular area of expertise telling people how to travel all over Europe without spending too much money.

I find her very reliable, but probably no critic is going to please every person as it is, to some degree, subjective. She knows a lot about food, that's for sure, and that's one reason why I like her reviews, book, etc. I've read a lot of her reviews in the International Herald Tribune, they're very good I think--these are available online, there is an archive going pretty far back, which unfortunately is not searchable or indexed in any particular manner, as I recall (ie, you can't search by type of cuisine or neighborhood).

I too admire Patricia Wells' vast knowledge of French cuisine (like KT I think she's a real pro). And like Lisa, we took along with us to Paris a variety of sources: her fantastic "Food Lover's Guide", reviews from her web page and IHT, some bistros from "Cheap Eats", articles from F&W, Bon A., Gourmet, T&L (some even written by Wells) and the Wine Spectator, plus recs from Bonjour Paris, the Belle France newsletter and many, many Fodor's favorites (thanks St.Cirq, S. Fowler, Elaine, Monica, to name just a few!) . Later I found "Bistros of Paris", whose reviews seems very consistent with what we experienced. We ate extremely well for a very reasonable price and made a couple of great discoveries by just following our nose and the locals. When I emailed P.Wells to thank her,to report just one semi disappointing meal(at Fogon St. Julien-probably just an off night) and to ask if she would consider doing a review of La Taverne Basque, she sent me a prompt and very nice personal reply, saying T.B. was one of her favorites too. She seems to enjoy reader feedback. As Elaine puts it so well, I agree with her, so she's great!

As far as Rick Steves suggestions goes, we stayed in a hotel in Barcelona that he recommended and they put us two floors up, in a room facing the busy street. Unfortunately, when the cars finally quieted down later in the night, we could hear (and watch) the several "ladies of the evening" who were flagging down cars all night long until dawn, right outside the front door of the hotel.

Hello chowhound, <BR> Patricia Wells has been of great help to me the first few times we travelled to France, but like Rick Steves and cinq terra, it becomes so popular with american tourists. We made a special effort to dine in basque country to savor a seafood restaurant she recommended. It had changed so much from the description and menu and the We speak english menu. Some times she doesn't mention how formal a place is. For example, eating at Clos de Violette in Aix on a hot august evening, we were surprised to see the waiters dressed so formally. Her cookbook "at home in Provence" is wonderful. She recently published a book on cooking in Paris. Once I went to our museum for a lunch with her and a book signing of a new edition, "food lover's guide to Paris" and a talk of her favorite dining spots. Well, the lunch was terrible, the sold out dinners all agreed on that, She was abrupt but nice and the talk never happened. Now meeting MKF Fisher is another story.'

Oh yes, forgot to mention that I used Sandra Gustafson's "Great Eats in Paris" in addition to the other sources I mentioned. I think the reason I had such great luck with restaurants is because I chose places that were recommended in more than one source.

I used recommendations by Fodorites, Patricia Wells and Sandra Gustafson for our Sept/Oct trip to Paris. Although I use Rick Steves' guides for sightseeing tips, I didn't bother with his restaurant suggestions. (His Italy recommendations in '99 were awful) I was surprised to see that 3 of our favorite Paris restaurants, Thomieux, Fontaine de Mars and P'tit Trouquet were in his book.