Paris has a reputation for expensive mediocre food that is entirely deserved within about 400 metres of any major monument, and entirely undeserved two Métro stops away.
The markets
Free to walk through, cheaper than supermarkets for produce, and the best introduction to how the city eats.
| Market | When | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Marché d'Aligre (12th) | Tue–Sun morning | Cheapest, most local, plus flea market |
| Marché Bastille (11th) | Thu, Sun | Largest street market in Paris |
| Enfants Rouges (3rd) | Tue–Sun | Oldest covered market, food stalls |
| Marché Saxe-Breteuil (7th) | Thu, Sat | Eiffel Tower in the background |
| Belleville (20th) | Tue, Fri | Cheapest produce in the city |
Aligre is the one to go to if you pick one. A covered hall with butchers and cheesemongers, a street market outside that is markedly cheaper, and a small flea market at the end. The wine bar in the covered hall is an institution.
A market lunch — bread, cheese, charcuterie, fruit — costs about €10 for two people and is eaten in a park.
The formule
The single most useful thing to know about eating in Paris.
Most ordinary restaurants offer a fixed-price weekday lunch — two or three courses for €14–20. It is what people who work in the city eat, and the same kitchen charges roughly double for comparable food at dinner.
Look for a chalkboard outside. It is frequently not translated.
The bar versus table rule
Cafés legally charge more for table service, and both prices are posted.
An espresso is €1.20–2 standing at the counter and €5–7 seated on a busy square. A beer follows the same pattern.
Standing at the bar for a quick coffee is what Parisians do, and it is not a downgrade.
Where the real bistros are
| District | Area |
|---|---|
| 11th | Oberkampf, Charonne, Sainte-Marthe |
| 10th | Canal Saint-Martin, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis |
| 20th | Belleville, Ménilmontant |
| 12th | Around Marché d'Aligre |
| 13th | Butte-aux-Cailles, Chinatown |
All are ten to twenty minutes from the centre on the Métro, and prices are set for people who live there.
Belleville in particular has excellent Chinese, Vietnamese and North African food at €8–14 a meal, which is not a category Paris is known for and should be.
What to avoid
Photographic menus and staff soliciting from the door. Both are reliable signals, and both cluster around Notre-Dame, the Louvre, Montmartre's Place du Tertre and the Champs-Élysées.
Menus in six languages in the same window.
Anywhere on a square with a direct view of a monument, where you are paying for the view at roughly double.
Two habits
Say bonjour before anything else, in every shop and interaction. Its absence is what reads as rude in France, far more than imperfect French.
Lunch is 12 to 2 and many kitchens genuinely close outside service hours. Turning up at 3pm expecting a cooked meal is the most common reason visitors end up in a tourist restaurant, since those are the ones serving continuously.