190 Best Restaurants in Paris, France

With so many of Paris's fabled brasseries co-opted by upscale chains, the 2013 opening by three-Michelin-star chef Eric Frechon of this modern take on the traditional brasserie in the St-Lazare train station was met with curiosity and joy. Though prices are commensurate with his status, Frechon doesn't skimp on the classics: steak tartare, escargot, and charcuterie all make memorable appearances. Bright and loftlike, Lazare riffs on familiar brasserie themes—think marble-top tables, globe lights, soaring ceilings, and mosaic floors. There's a dish du jour every weekday, like slow-cooked lamb with lemon confit and olives, or crispy grilled pork on a bed of turnip kraut, all well-prepared and comforting (just like grand-mère used to make).

Regulars grumble about the uneven cooking at Le Balzar, but they continue to come back because they can't resist the waiters' wry humor and the dining room's amazing people-watching possibilities. The restaurant attracts politicians, writers, tourists, and local eccentrics—and remains one of the city's classic brasseries: the perfect stop before or after a film in a local art-house cinema. Don't expect miracles from the kitchen, but stick to evergreens like snails in garlic butter, onion soup, traditional choucroute with sautéed potatoes, and baba au rhum for dessert.

This small, casual French restaurant is nestled on a tiny street that runs between two major boulevards. The atmosphere is warm and relaxed, and the extensive, traditional menu of market-fresh produce makes it difficult to decide what to eat; for starters, try the sautéed pleurotes (oyster mushrooms) with a poached egg or the salmon-mango tartare, followed by the wild-fish catch of the day or juicy pork ribs, all accompanied by a wine direct from the producer. Friendly chef-owner Eric also offers daily specials depending on what he finds at the market. 

A Champs-Élysées institution, Le Fouquet's brasserie has served steak tartare and lobster ravioli to the French royalty of stage and screen since 1899 (Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour were regulars, and the César Awards dinner is still served here every year). The brasserie's two glassed-in terraces overlook Avenue George V and the Champs-Élysées and provide an excellent spot for watching the Parisian world go by. Settle into a black velvet chair for breakfast (€21, €33, €41) or lunch (€45). It's not cheap, but the reliably good menu, designed by superstar chef Pierre Gagnaire, is full of French classics.

The avant-garde chef Inaki Aizpitarte transformed what was a dowdy café into a sleek, if chilly, all-marble watering hole (designed by Rem Koolhaus) for late-night cuisinistas. Honing his ever-iconoclastic take on tapas, the dishes served here are a great way to get an idea of what all the fuss is about. Dishes are small, decently priced, and meant to be shared to maximize exposure to the food.

Now a fancy fish brasserie serving seafood delivered fresh from Normandy every day, this restaurant began as a dingy meeting place for exiled artists and intellectuals like Lenin and Picasso. The family-owned institution hired star Japanese chef Yoshikiko Miura to modernize its menu while keeping some enduring classics. Try the sole meunière or the bouillabaisse, the ingredients of which are on display in their raw form in the restaurant's outstanding fish shop next door. The famous millefeuille (Napoleon) is a must for fans of this rich, creamy dessert. You can still drop by the covered terrace for a cup of coffee or a drink.

Equal parts café, bar, and restaurant, Le Fumoir is a timelessly popular place to sip coffee and read the paper or enjoy an after-dinner drink. Reservations are recommended for the prix-fixe dinner as well as for the copious Sunday brunch from Chef Henrik Andersson.

With its globe lamps and molded ceilings, this neighborhood institution feels elegant yet not overpolished, attracting a wonderfully Parisian mix of elderly lone diners, business lunchers, tourists, couples, and the post-theater crowd, all of whom come for the enormous seafood platters, duck foie gras with Sauternes jelly, steak tartare, and roasted chicken rendered famous by Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give. Open every day, Le Grand Colbert is also a pleasant destination for a quick bite between 3 pm and 6 pm, when most everything else is closed.

With its Art Nouveau decor, friendly waitstaff, and menu of fresh bistro food, this is the perfect place for a drink or meal after visiting the nearby Montparnasse Cemetery.

Sink into a comfy armchair at this popular tearoom, whose name translates to "the Dormouse in the Teapot" (from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). The savory tarts are good, but the real stars are desserts like the decadent chocolate crumble tart or mile-high lemon meringue pie. The restaurant's all-day hours are a bonus, especially for teatime, but its no-reservations policy means lines for weekend brunch can be dauntingly long.

When the opulence of the neighborhood begins to overwhelm, this refreshing island of unpretentious pleasures is a good place to restore both body and budget. In addition to the charm of its bright, cheerful interiors—complete with mirrors, fresh flowers, globe chandeliers, and a zinc bar—you'll find a sophisticated daily menu of market-fresh dishes and small plates. After sampling the excellent and well-priced wines by the glass and deliciously uncomplicated desserts, you'll understand why Parisian foodies keep this address to themselves.

From a wine-soaked boeuf Bourguignon and garlicky snails to tasty slabs of homemade country pâté served with cornichons and a hearty red, this Art Nouveau–era bistro offers all the classics of southwestern France. Check the blackboard menu for the daily specials, delivered in generous portions at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

This lively café in the heart of the Left Bank theater district specializes in meats, wines, and cheeses from the Auvergne region of France, famous for its prize beef cattle. If you don’t want meat but love cheese and mashed potatoes, try the aligot, a hearty recipe of potato puree, melted cheese, cream, and garlic.

What used to be a rare bookshop has been carefully reinvented into a coffee shop and gourmet deli serving casual fare like an egg and salmon breakfast, creative pasta dishes, and mixed veggie salads. The vintage hand-painted storefront and tile floors have been preserved and make the space utterly charming; these are the details that make people fall in love with Paris. There is a children's menu and a large choice of homemade desserts.

This photo op–ready corner café draws a quirky mix of hipsters, artists, and discriminating tourists. The food is good and includes classics like steak tartare. For a weekday lunch, try the two-course menu du jour (€19). If you're craving a taste of home, the excellent cheeseburger comes with a heap of crispy fries.

Parisian to its core, the Hotel Plaza Athénée's Art Deco dining room—including a mural that's a registered historic landmark—is a cherished neighborhood stalwart. Masterful updates of French classics include dishes like warm salad of delicate greens, thinly sliced artichokes, and Parmesan, flecked with shaved black truffles, and house-made foie gras with slices of fresh figs and a rich dried-fruit chutney. Go on the last Wednesday of the month, when the dining room is transported back to the 1940s with live jazz and an audience primed for a rollicking good time.

Legendary performers and artists, including the likes of Isadora Duncan and Hart Crane, used to hang out here, and now it's a popular place for a coffee, glass of wine, or well-made cocktail. It may not be as hip as the equally historic cafés in St-Germain-des-Prés, but Le Select is a low-key way of soaking in the Left Bank historic café scene without the hubbub.

A quiet residential street shelters one of Paris's great neighborhood bistros and among the last of the city's authentic ones, which retains its moleskin banquettes, blackboard menus, and small wooden tables where you'll touch elbows with your neighbors. Expect fresh market ingredients in a gastronomic menu that's liberal with deluxe details. A typical meal might include vegetable soup with foie gras and cream, truffle tagliatelles, panfried scallops in crab sauce or axoa de veau (a Basque veal sauté), and a vanilla soufflé with cherry jam. All this plus a great choice of wines by the glass keep happy regulars filling the dining room. Prix-fixe menus start at €32 at lunch.

Chef Christian Constant has an unfailing sense of how Parisians want to eat these days, as proved by this third addition to his mini restaurant empire near the Eiffel Tower. At Les Cocottes, he's shifted the normally leisurely bistro experience into high gear, which allows him to keep prices moderate. Seated at a long counter on slightly uncomfortable stools that discourage lingering, diners can mix and match from a menu of soups, salads, cocottes (dishes served in cast-iron pots), verrines (starters presented in tapas-style glasses), and comforting desserts, all made from fresh, seasonal ingredients.

If you're young—or young at heart—come here to hang with the Sorbonne crowd at this bustling brasserie on a shaded pedestrian lane. It's steps from campus and also near Le Jardin du Luxembourg.

All of Paris seems to collide at this lively corner café in the heart of the Marais, where you'll find pretty much whatever is your pleasure any time of the day or night. Slide into a red banquette, or take a seat on the wide wraparound terrace to watch the world go by while indulging in generous servings of all the French classics, a glass of wine, or coffee and dessert.

The operatically beautiful LiLi, in the Peninsula Hotel, puts sophisticated Cantonese cuisine in its rightful place—the gastronomic center of the world. The menu features all the classics, raised to the status of haute cuisine: small plates of dim sum (seafood, vegetable, or pork dumplings) alongside more substantial fare like fried rice studded with market-fresh vegetables, succulent Sichuan shrimp, and barbecued suckling pig. The chef's signature crème de mangue laced with pomelo pearls is an ethereal ending to an exceptional meal. At €75, the prix-fixe lunch menu is a wonderful introduction to this timeless cuisine.

There's not a brasserie in Paris with a view to match the one at this eatery set on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower (the Jules Verne, helmed by chef Frédéric Anton, is on the second floor). Multiple Michelin star chef Thierry Marx presides over this chic dining room, done up in creamy leather and blond wood, where everything is "stylish, sustainable, and cozy" (and we might add, expensive) with special attention to local products whenever possible. Like any good Parisian brasserie, this dining room is open from 10 am until 11:30 pm and serves every meal, from breakfast to late-night drinks at the bar. Views are equally stupendous day or night, but there's nothing so romantic as seeing the City of Lights at night—especially from within the tower, glittering madly for five minutes at the beginning of each hour after sunset. Online booking lets you choose your view; a window seat will cost you extra.

Once you're done with the Louvre, this little sandwich stand adjacent to the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel is probably the closest spot to snag something to restore you. Classic French sandwiches like ham-and-butter or tuna salad are served on fluffy baguettes reminiscent of ciabatta. They're joined by quiches, a handful of salads, and desserts.

Michelin-starred chef Hélène Darroze made a name for herself decades ago, and her long-established restaurant in Paris has been revamped and renamed Marsan, a nod to her birthplace in the country's southwest. It's prix-fixe only, at lunch and dinner, whether you opt for the elegant upstairs dining room, the semiprivate table for six with a view of the open kitchen, or the more casual large table on the street level surrounded by the wine cellar. At the large table, you can choose between a simple three- or four-course menu (€45 or €95), which changes weekly. The more elegant dining room serves a four-course lunch menu on weekdays and a six- or nine-course tasting menu for lunch or dinner (€175 or €225, respectively) that features beautifully presented courses such as foie gras, lobster, hake fish, farm-raised squab, and Darroze's signature baba, an Armagnac-infused cake with vanilla syrup and candied pears. For truffle fanatics, there is a €325 six-course menu featuring Perigord black truffles in every dish. 

Inside the Grand Palais, Mini Palais is a stylish dining room, but the menu is the real draw. The burger de magret et foie gras, a flavorful mélange of tender duckling breast and duck foie gras drizzled with truffled jus on a buttery brioche bun, underscores what's best about this place: a thoroughly modern cuisine with an old-fashioned extravagance. For a summer meal or a cocktail, the majestically pillared terrace overlooking Pont d'Alexandre III must be the most beautiful in Paris.

This spot has quickly become a go-to for its chic atmosphere, small gourmet plates, and natural wines from around the world. Olivier Garcia, ex-sous-chef at the one-Michelin-star restaurant Tamara, presides over a small but tantalizing menu that includes a scrumptious oyster gratin with miso and caramelized shallots or melt-in-your-mouth pressed beef shoulder with seaweed and rhubarb. The knowledgeable staff can steer you to some gems from their far-flung wine cellar to perfectly pair with each dish.

Housed in an 18th-century Marais mansion on a picturesque backstreet, this Japanese restaurant, bar, tearoom, pastry shop, and boutique redefines preciousness. It took four years for the architect and owner to construct, and every detail is a triumph of Japanese craftsmanship—from the rough wabi-sabi walls to the graceful sculptural touches to the ethereal porcelain tea and dinnerware used in the restaurant and for sale in the boutique. Walk-ins are welcome at the boutique and pastry shop, featuring a wealth of organic Japanese teas and exquisite pastries, but don't expect to get a seat at the tearoom or restaurant without a reservation—and don't forget your platinum card.

Small but mighty when it comes to fresh and delicious Japanese comfort food in the form of inari age: sushi rice wrapped in fried tofu (that used here is imported from Kyoto) and topped with vegetables, fish, or meat. The menu also features delicious udon, donburi, gyoza, and mochi for dessert. The dining room is spare but warm, with Noguchi lighting and lots of wood. The chef holds a sake sommelier certificate, and you'd be wise to take his pairing advance. There's also a tantalizing selection of sake cocktails and natural wines.

Chef Jason Gouzy won a Michelin star less than a year after the 2020 opening of this sought-after restaurant, where each dish resembles a gemlike work of art. The sleekly romantic dining room perfectly mirrors what's on the menu: dishes of exceptional imagination and refinement with an emphasis on seasonal market-fresh vegetables, seafood, and meticulously sourced meats. Watch Gouzy perform his small miracles—imaginative smoked vegetables and exquisite, unexpected pairings—from behind the kitchen window or wait to be surprised. It's never a disappointment.