Best Restaurants in Paris – A Local’s Guide by Arrondissement
As someone living in Paris, married to a Frenchman, and picky AF when it comes to food and dining… I’ve created this list to help you navigate the best restaurants in the city. I’ve eaten at over 100 restaurants in Paris and have kept a running list of the great, the good, and the ones to never return to. Every restaurant on this list is somewhere I would go back to or recommend to someone visiting.
One thing worth knowing before diving in is that dining in Paris (and France as a whole) requires a little more patience than you might expect. Some of the best restaurants in the city only take reservations by phone, in person, or not at all. The systems here are behind and the truly good places fill up fast. If you want help navigating reservations, building an itinerary around where you want to eat, or simply need someone who knows the city to point you in the right direction, that’s exactly what I do through In France. I would love to help you plan your dream trip to Paris that is worth every penny!
Each restaurant in this guide is organized by arrondissement (more on that here) and every single one is a personal recommendation from me.
Where to Stay in Paris – A Local’s Guide to the Best Arrondissements
Best Restaurants in Paris’s 1st Arrondissement
The 1st is one of the most central and most visited arrondissements in Paris… which means it has its fair share of tourist traps. But look past the obvious and there are some genuinely excellent restaurants here. I only included one because while others are on my list to try, I haven’t had the opportunity to visit yet.
Nhome
Nhome is not what you expect from a Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris, which is one of the reasons I like it so much. There are no individual tables, no formality, no sense that you need to lower your voice. Instead you sit alongside strangers at a shared table, working your way through a set menu that is really, truly incredible. The food is exceptional, the atmosphere is warm, and the whole experience feels more like a very good dinner party than a restaurant visit. It is one of my favorite places to eat in Paris and one of the first I recommend to anyone who wants a Michelin experience without the stuffiness that usually comes with it. Book well in advance and go for dinner.
Don’t miss…
Best Restaurants in Paris’s 2nd Arrondissement
The 2nd is one of those arrondissements that rewards people who know where to look. The Montorgueil neighborhood in particular has one of the best concentrations of good restaurants in Paris, and is known as the birthplace of the Parisian food scene.
Aux Lyonnais
If you want an introduction to classic French food, Aux Lyonnaise is where I would send you. Lyon is widely considered the food capital of France – and this bistro in the 2nd brings that tradition to Paris in the most unpretentious, satisfying way. The menu reads like a love letter to Lyonnaise cuisine and the staff and atmosphere make the whole experience feel warm rather than formal. Order the quenelle. You will not regret it!
De Vie
De Vie is one of the most fun and genuinely unique dining experiences in Paris right now, which is one of the reasons I recommend it so enthusiastically. Instead of a wine pairing, the six-course tasting menu is paired with cocktails – three-sip pours created specifically to complement each course, all made with French producers and seasonal ingredients. The pairings are creative, considered, and truly blew my expectations out of the water. Just make sure to book well in advance.
Frenchie Bar à Vins
At Frenchie Bar à Vins, there are no reservations, which means the move is to arrive right when it opens and claim your table before the crowds arrive. The food here is incredible with small plates that are easy to share. (By the way, the bacon scones alone are worth the visit). The atmosphere is lively, loud, and dimly lit – perfect for a date night or girls night out.
L’Altro Frenchie
From the same team behind Frenchie Bar à Vins, L’Altro Frenchie is Italian rather than French, and a genuinely excellent option if you want a night off from French food. After eating here, I can tell you that both the pasta is exceptional and so is the atmosphere.
Best Restaurants in Paris’s 5th Arrondissement
The 5th is one of my favorite arrondissements in Paris. It feels less polished than the 6th (another one of my favorite areas), more lived-in, and home to some genuinely excellent neighborhood restaurants that feel like real Paris rather than a version of it designed for tourists. Just make sure to get away from the Seine for the non-touristy restaurants!
Bistrot des Lettres
I recommend Bistro des Lettres for lunch. It has a great neighborhood feel and is unlike any other restaurant in Paris for one very specific reason. At the end of your meal a wooden box arrives at the table… fountain pens, aged paper, and an envelope. You write a letter to yourself or someone you love, seal it, and the restaurant mails it back to you exactly one year later. It might sound gimmicky, but trust me… once you’re actually sitting there with a pen in hand thinking about where you will be in twelve months – it’s a pretty cool experience. And not to mention, the food is also excellent.
Les Papilles
Les Papilles is not for picky eaters. There is no menu in the traditional sense. You eat what is on the board that day, a set menu built around whatever the market produced that morning, and you just have to trust the kitchen. Every single plate surprised me and the room doubles as a wine shop so the bottles surrounding you are all available to drink or take home.
Best Restaurants in Paris’s 6th Arrondissement
The 6th is one of the best arrondissements in Paris for eating well, and also one of the most densely packed with genuinely excellent restaurants. Saint-Germain-des-Prés (the 6th) has a reputation for being expensive and tourist-facing, and some of it is. But the side streets around Odéon and Rue Christine are home to some of the most classic, satisfying bistro cooking in the city. This is where I would send someone who wants to eat like a Parisian.
Chez Fernand Christine
One of those restaurants where everything just feels right – the food, the atmosphere, the room, the entire experience. Tucked into Rue Christine in the heart of Saint-Germain, it has the kind of classic Parisian bistro energy that is increasingly difficult to find in this part of the city.
Freddy’s
Freddy’s is a restaurant serving up French tapas (perfect if you’re scared of French food and want to try small bites instead). Unfortunately, Freddy’s does not take reservations and the restaurant is well-known so it gets packed QUICK. The format is casual and convivial, the food is excellent, and it is one of the more fun and lively places to eat in the 6th. Go with someone you don’t mind sharing plates with!
Chez Dumonet
Chez Dumonet is one of the great classic bistros in Paris. Everything here has just been done right from the room, to the cooking, the portions, the wine list… all of it. It’s the kind of restaurant that makes you understand why people fall in love with eating in France. Book well in advance – this one is known and loved for a reason.
L’Avant Comptoir du Marché
L’Avant Comptoir du Marché is the perfect spot for a quick, casual lunch. The restaurant is a standing wine bar serving small plates – the format is informal, the food is excellent, and there are large vats of butter on the counter that you can help yourself to freely (yes really).
Roger la Grenouille
Famous for serving the best frog legs in the city, Roger la Grenouille is an old school Parisian restaurant… in the best possible way. It feels like it’s been around forever, and essentially – it has. Opened in 1930, locals continue to flock to this beloved, French restaurant.
Best Restaurants in Paris’s 7th Arrondissement
The 7th is another neighborhood that can be hit or miss because it’s where the Eiffel Tower is. Some of the 7th is residential and elegant (think wide streets and grand Haussmann buildings); while another part of the area is incredibly touristy because of the Eiffel Tower. The restaurants that I like here are classic without trying too hard.
Auberge Bressane
Auberge Bressane has a bit of a medieval feeling – stone walls, low ceilings, candlelight, and an atmosphere that makes you want to linger for hours. The cooking is classic French with roots in the eastern region of France, and the bouchée à la Reine is the dish to order. Auberge Bressane is consistently one of my top favorite five restaurants in Paris.
Les Antiquaires
I love just about everything at Les Antiquaires. The food, the atmosphere, the room, the fact that you can sit outside, everything. It has the feel of a proper neighborhood restaurant in the best part of Paris and is one of my favorites in the 7th!
Oui Mon Général
Oui Mon Général is the kind of restaurant you walk out of wanting to tell everyone you know about. It’s a little bit different in the sense that it has a blend of French, Greek, and Spanish influence. The restaurant is so good they don’t even need to open on the weekend which is truly impressive.
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Best Restaurants in Paris’s 9th Arrondissement
The 9th has quickly become one of the most interesting arrondissements to eat in Paris… particularly the South Pigalle area, known locally as SoPi, which has a concentration of excellent neighborhood restaurants that feel local (versus touristy). If you want to eat well and feel like you are actually in Paris, the 9th is worth the trip.
L’Annexe
L’Annexe is the kind of restaurant that is increasingly rare in Paris – big portions, traditional French cooking, and a room where you will rarely hear a word of English spoken. And when you rarely hear English, that means the locals have claimed it as their own, which is always the most reliable indicator of a restaurant worth visiting. The food is fantastic and the restaurant is no frills or performance. Just very, very good French cooking.
Mumbai Café
Paris has no shortage of restaurants but good Indian food is harder to find than you might expect.. which is what makes Mumbai Café worth knowing about. The food is great, the cocktails are excellent, the room is beautifully decorated, and the atmosphere is fun and lively. Mumbai café is a great choice if you want a break from French food.
Best Restaurants in Paris’s 11th Arrondissement
The 11th is where Paris eats. More good restaurants per block than almost any other arrondissement in the city, a young and creative food scene, and the kind of neighborhood energy that feels so local. The 11th is continuously surprising me, so if you only have time to explore one arrondissement for eating, this is the one.
Aux Bons Crus
One of the last surviving routiers in Paris. The concept was simple: honest, generous, home-style French cooking at fair prices, served on red-checkered tablecloths to truck drivers and travelers who needed a proper meal. Aux Bons Crus still does exactly that, in the heart of the 11th, and it is one of the best introductions to classic French food you will find anywhere in the city. The cooking is comforting and traditional, the room feels like old Paris, and you will very rarely hear English spoken at the tables around you. That is always a good sign.
Double Dragon
Double Dragon is the more casual and playful of the two restaurants owned by French-Filipino sisters Tatiana and Katia Levha. The concept is an Asian canteen drawing on the sisters’ childhood in Manila, Hong Kong, and Thailand showcasing foods with bold flavors, sharing plates, lots of chili, and an excellent natural wine list.
Le Servan
If Double Dragon is the casual sibling, Le Servan is more elevated. At Le Servan, the menu changes frequently, built around whatever is fresh and available, with French technique layered through Southeast Asian flavors. The room is a beautifully renovated 1980s bar with hand-painted ceiling murals and floor-to-ceiling windows.
Restaurant Au Passage
Au Passage has been one of the fixtures of the 11th for over a decade and it still delivers exactly what made it famous – small sharing plates, an ever-changing menu built on seasonal market ingredients, and one of the best wine lists in the arrondissement. The setting is intimate and slightly hidden, tucked into a passageway off the main street, with warm lighting and the kind of lively, unpretentious atmosphere that makes the whole evening feel effortless.
Best Restaurants in Paris’s 14th Arrondissement
The 14th is one of the most residential arrondissements on the Left Bank and the kind of neighborhood where locals eat rather than tourists look. It rewards those who venture south of Montparnasse and it has some of the best, most satisfying French cooking in the city.
L’Assiette
L’Assiette is housed in a former charcuterie with worn wooden tables, a marble counter, and intricately painted ceilings (a dream Paris bistro!) Chef David Rathgeber has been turning out deeply traditional French cooking here since 2008 and the cassoulet is widely considered the best in Paris. White beans cooked low and slow (as my French husband likes to say, “the beans sleep overnight”), Toulouse sausage, confit de canard, bubbling and piping hot in a ceramic casserole – it’s a dish you crave when it’s cold outside. I would specifically recommend this one for a winter visit – book in advance and order the cassoulet. You will not regret it.
Best Restaurants in Paris’s 18th Arrondissement
The 18th is one of the most neighborhood-feeling arrondissements in Paris and in the right places – a world away from the tourist version of Montmartre that most visitors experience. Once you get past the souvenir shops and portrait painters around Sacré-Coeur and into the residential streets to the north and east, you find one of the most interesting, local eating scenes in the city.
Adraba
Adraba is the full-throttle version of Levantine dining in Montmartre – festive, generous, and completely delicious. The cooking is rooted in Israeli and Middle Eastern tradition, executed with a sincere love for the cuisine. It is the kind of restaurant that feels like a party from the moment you walk in… warm, noisy (in the good way), and built entirely around sharing and pleasure. An excellent option for a group dinner or fun night out in the 18th.
Fana
Fana is the kind of restaurant that makes you genuinely happy to live in Paris… or to be visiting it. Located on a pedestrian street in the back of Montmartre, chef Gabriel Gras Fernandez and pastry chef Jorice Sardain are cooking precise, seasonal French food at prices that feel almost unreasonably fair. It earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand within its first year and I have to say, the desserts in particular are extraordinary.
Meha
Meha is unpretentious, not at all famous, but delivers consistently good food time and time again. Like most great restaurants in Paris, the cooking changes weekly with the seasons, and here the prices are quite affordable for the level of quality you receive. Reservations are recommended.
Pantobaguette
Pantobaguette is the 18th’s most characterful evening spot – part restaurant, part natural wine bar, part music venue, with vinyl on the turntable and a menu that fuses Basque and Korean influences. The energy is lively, the cooking is creative, and it’s perfect for those looking for a fusion restaurant in Paris.
Zoutra
Opened in October 2025 just across the street from its “older sibling” Adraba, Zoutra means “small” in Aramaic. Here there are 35 seats, candlelight, and the energy of a very good dinner party rather than a full-throttle restaurant experience. The same chef, Elior Benaroche, is behind both kitchens, but the food here is lighter and more nimble. The wine selection is exceptional and the welcome is warm enough to make you feel like you are visiting friends.
This guide will keep growing as I continue eating my way through the city – new restaurants will be added and occasionally ones will be removed if they stop being worth your time. If you are planning a trip to Paris and want help with reservations, itinerary planning, or knowing which arrondissement to stay in for your specific trip, you can learn more here. Paris is one of the greatest cities in the world to eat in… but only if you know where to go.
Planning a Trip to France?
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