The six foods you need to eat in Paris

Eiffel Tower at Night.jpg

As promised, I’m wrapping up my Paris trip with a look at the six foods you need to eat when traveling to the city of light. Scroll to the bottom of this post for a complete list of my favorite Paris restaurants (from this trip) by arrondissement. Without further ado, I give you my Paris guide to delicious eats.

Baguette, pain au Chocolat and all the pastries

I guess it really isn’t a trip to Paris unless you eat all the bread, right? Well I can confidently say that is 100 percent true. I don’t know what it is about eating baguette in Paris, but it was really one of the highlights of my entire experience. I didn’t mind the monotony of eating this every morning for breakfast because it was that good. Just tear off a little piece, add some butter, and you’ve got one of the best treats Paris has to offer.

Macaroons

Speaking of treats, you obviously have to eat macaroons when in Paris. Specifically, I would recommend building a sampler from Laduree on the on the Champs-Élysées (look for the mint green bags everyone is carrying).

Enjoy an authentic bistro experience

This isn’t so much a meal as it is a dining experience one should have when they visit Paris. The city is all about bistro dining, of which you can find at several different price points. One of our favorites was Semilla in Saint Germain (6th).

Duck confit

Sorry vegetarians, but the French know their duck. I had duck a couple of times while in Paris and each experience was delicious. My favorite hands down was from Les Papilles in the Latin quarter (5th). The cool thing about Les Papilles is that there is no set menu. Each guest is served whatever the chef feels like cooking at the time, which is great for someone like me who isn’t picky. I would highly recommend dining at this must-do foodie experience. Each meal is four courses, and ours consisted of broccoli soup; duck with fresh veggies; cheese and figs with honey; and lastly a mango sorbet.

Crepes

In Paris you can find crepes of both the sweet and savory variety. For our dining pleasure, we trekked all the way to Versailles (more on that here), and it was totally worth it. Here at Creperie Versailles (clever name, I know) I ordered the “Cowboy” which included cheddar cheese, minced beef and balsamic drizzle with a bed of lettuce on top. For the sweet crepe, we split the apple turnover and the Nutella, banana and walnut. Drool-worthy.

Hot Chocolate from Angelina’s

We dined at Angelina’s for breakfast twice because the breakfast special is just that good. I ordered the same thing every morning: muesli, yogurt, baguette, pain au chocolate and hot chocolate. All of this came as a set and it never disappointed. You CANNOT go to Angelina’s and not get the hot chocolate. It’s what they’re famous for. Angelina’s is a chain that you can find all over the city.

For all things food related in Paris, check out Paris by Mouth for the inside view of where to eat and what to order, curated and written by actual Parisians.

Here were some of our favorite spots to dine from all around Paris:

Breakfast:

  • La Café Plume (1st arrondissement)
  • Angelina’s (1st arrondissement)

Lunch:

  • La Laiterie Sainte-Clotilde (7th arrondissement)
  • Bijou (18th arrondissement - Montmartre)
  • Creperie Versailles (Versailles)

Dinner:

  • Semilla (6th arrondissement)
  • Les Papilles (5th arrondissement)
  • Café Sud (8th arrondissement)