Cheap Places to Eat in Paris - Parislogue’s 10 Favorite

Posted by admin on August 2, 2008 under One stop travel guide to Paris | Be the First to Comment

Parisgirl’s dining preferences have changed along with the current exchange rate between the Euro and the dollar. Now, more than ever, I know how eager visitors are to find restaurants, cafes, pubs or delis where you can dine well and still have enough Euros left over for the rest of your visit. Sure, many of us would love to eat at Michelin-star restaurants, but you don’t have to break the bank to enjoy a good meal in Paris. Likewise, if you’re vegetarian, or you don’t care for fussy or trendy restaurants with waiters in starched collars, you’ll love some of the neighborhood bistrots. Show up more than once and you’re likely to be remembered and get a handshake from the owner.

Here are some of my favorites at the moment. They range in style and menus from somewhat formal to very casual, from traditional French fare to traditional hamburgers.

Giufeli

Giufeli, my #1 choice for recent favorites has temporarily closed while it looks for a new location with more ample seating. Hopefully, by the fall season it will be up and running (and retain its reasonable prices)

Giufeli has two seatings per night and a set menu. When a chef knows what he’s doing, I’m perfectly happy to eat whatever he decides to place in front of me. At 28 Euros for the set menu, I don’t think you can find a better deal in town. Your job is to choose a wine judiciously because here’s where you might go overboard simply from the euphoria of being in such a ‘bonne ambiance’. We only ate there once before they closed and I’m eager to return as soon as their new location is posted on their website.

La PanetiГЁre

9 Rue Maison Dieu

Metro: Gaite 14eme

Tel: 01 43 22 04 02

Closed Sundays and Mondays, 2 weeks in August.

This neighborhood restaurant is discreetly tucked away on a side street running parallel to Avenue du Maine. La PanetiГЁre is a good example of a neighborhood restaurant where you can expect to find fresh products, prepared with flare at a reasonable price. For 25 Euros (at my last visit) we ordered a three-course menu for dinner. (Hint: One of the specialties is ‘foie gras’ for fans of this incredibly rich duck liver)

L’Auberge de St. Roch

33 rue St. Roche

Metro: Pyramides 75001

Tel. 01 42 61 40 83



Quite simply, the fish is fresh. The chef knows just how long to cook fish - and that’s not a given in many Parisian restaurants which will charge you a much higher tab. The ambiance is rustic and the fact that L’Auberge is planted in one of Paris’s most stylish neighborhoods makes a pause in this welcoming bistro especially pleasant. No fuss, no stress.

Le Deci

51 Rue des Cinq Diamants

Buttes aux Cailles neighborhood

Tel. 01 45 80 61 38

Metro: Corvisart

Open for dinner Monday to Saturday. Open for lunch on Thursdays and Fridays.

Le Deci (short for ‘deciliter’ of wine) not only has good straightforward cuisine (you can download thier daily menu from their website)- but there’s good wine to accompany your duck magret and mashed potatoes. You can rest assured that the wines served here won’t be ‘run of the mill’. All the wines come from independent wine producers. The welcome is sincere and one wants to come back. An added delight of the Le Deci is its location on Rue des Cinq Diamants in Paris’s less well-known 13eme arrondissement (if you’re staying at the OOPS hostel, you’re not far from Rue des Cinq Diamants). Some people refer to this neighborhood as the ‘vieux Paris’ or Paris, the way it used to be

>More on Le Deci



Lou Cantou

35, CitГ© Antin

75009 Paris, France

+33 1 48 74 75 15

This maybe considered by locals their habitual ‘cantine’ but the floating islands dessert (for this visitor) was a treat totally out of the ordinary. I’d love to make this my everyday ‘cantine’ even if I have to hop on a Metro to get there. Make no mistake. The food is basic. You can order a ‘boudin noir’ and sauteed potatoes (blood sausage) and you won’t be disappointed - but don’t be expecting the Ritz for 13 Euros.

Le Plan B

89 Rue Daguerre

Metro: Gaite 75014

Tel. 01 44 20 20 09

How can you not love a bistro where you pop in around 10 pm and the kitchen is still open for you? The Plan B, located at the ‘far end’ of Rue Daguerre (which is really the near end for us because we live close to the Metro: GaГ®tГ©) is just enough removed from the pedestrian walkway section of DaguГЁre to retain its neighborly friendliness. This is just the place to go for a huge dinner salad if you’re not into having a full three or four-course meal. Which is why its name ‘Le Plan B’ is perfect for Parisgirl.

La Table d’OrphГ©e

5 rue Bazeilles

Metro: Censier-Daubertin 5eme

Rue Mouffetarde district

Catering Deli (Eat-in or Take Away)

Your budget may be tight, but that’s no reason you should skimp on quality. I considered myself very lucky to chance upon La Table d’OrphГ©e located at the very tip of the Rue Mouffetarde neighborhood (at the bottom of the hill rather than the more pricey Place de le ContrГ©scarpe). With just a few tables outside the tiny catering shop, you can while a way the early evening hours with a pleasant wine served in proper stemware and ‘grignote’ or snack on goodies portrayed in the deli’s windows.

La Victoire SuprГЄme du Coeur (Supreme Victory of the Heart)

27-31 Rue Tibourg

Metro: Hotel de Ville 75004

Tel. 01 40 41 95 03

Open Mon-Fri Noon to 3 pm Evenings: 6:30 pm to 10:30 pm

Saturdays Noon to 11 pm non-stop service

Sundays brunch: Noon to 4 pm. Tea from 4 to 6:30 pm. Dinner 6:30 to 10:30 pm.

Vegetarian cuisine at its best. Somehow they’ve pulled it all together at the Supreme Victory - ambiance, wholesomeness and flavor. Vegetarian restaurants always run the risk of trying too hard - or not trying hard enough. This is one experiment that has succeeded. We’ve only eaten here once - and I hope to get back again -soon. La Victoire SuprГЄme is open for Sunday brunches.

Le Bombardier

2 Place de Pantheon

Metro: Luxembourg RER

Tel.01 43 54 79 22

Yeah, it’s a British pub. So, why am I including a British pub on this list? One reason is because Le Bombardier is open on Sundays, and secondly because I know some travelers (especially if you’ve been traveling for months) crave a connection with home - and what could be more homey than a roast beef Sunday meal? Not only that, the food happens to be quite good!

PDG

20 Rue Ponthieu

Metro: Franklin Roosevelt 8eme

Open Mondays to Sundays: 12 noon to 3 pm and 7 pm to 11 pm.

(Music at night)

Tel : 01 42 56 19 10

Newly opened Left Bank PDG at:

5 Rue Dragon

75006

Tel 01 45 48 94 40

‘PDG’ in French means ‘CEO’, ‘top guy’ etc. but this PDG is quite simply the best hamburger joint in town. The reason why I’m including PDG in this list is because suddenly hamburgers are hot in Paris. Okay, so you don’t believe me, that’s okay. We discovered PDG - simply by accident - trying to get away from the Champs Elysees overpriced cafes. (Hey, they have to pay for the address). Luckily for us, we arrived at PDG just before noon so we caught a table before the lunch crowd piled in. This place fills up quickly with those who work in the neighborhood - they come for the welcoming French patron - who also happens to speak perfect English (after a stint in NYC). Now all the super foodies are jumping on the hamburger wagon but PDG has been doing burgers very well, thank you very much for a long time. The only thing I must warn you - the hamburger prices here are comparable to NYC prices i.e. 15 Euros for a jumbo burger. On the other hand, you can have a luncheon daily special for between 12 and 15 Euros which falls quite within the norm for a reasonably priced Paris lunch.

>>More on Paris restaurants

>> More Vegetarian Restaurants

Tom’s list. If you like Parislogue’s choice of restaurants, I think you’ll like Tom’s list too. Maybe it’s because he comes from Rochester, but I tend to agree with him that an awful lot of travel stories feature a few ‘inexpensive discoveries’ and then fall back on the ’same old, same old’ i.e. the restaurants that are already well-known. Remember that new restaurants are popping up all the time in every Paris neighborhood.

‘Coup de coeur’: One of my favorite French restaurant websites is
www.restoaparis. com. Every once in a while they feature a ‘Coup de coeur’ or a ‘restaurant that touches the heart’. Although I haven’t yet had a chance to try out ‘Le Coin des Amis’, just at the foot of Montmartre, the prices look like they fall right into the range of my favorite budget restaurants. Finding a good, inexpensive restaurant in the Montmartre district is one of the greatest challenges. If you get there before I do, please send along an e-mail to share your impressions with Parislogue readers.

Le Coin des Amis

50 Rue du Mont-Cenis

Metro: Jules Joffren 75018

Sainte-Chapelle: A Glorious Gothic Masterpiece

Posted by admin on August 1, 2008 under One stop travel guide to Paris | Be the First to Comment

The magnificent Gothic cathedral of Notre Dame is so splendid that you really could be forgiven for overlooking - really, for not even knowing about - the other impressive Gothic church on the Оle de la Citй. But once you’ve seen the elegant and ethereal Sainte-Chapelle, you’ll never look at the words “Gothic church” the same way again.

La Sainte-Chapelle is a relatively small church with two chapels (an upper and a lower) that’s completely within the walls of the old royal palace, which is now the Palais de Justice. It’s partly because of the church’s small size that it’s able to architecturally accomplish some of the things that make it so special - including the soaring heights of the upper chapel seemingly without the usual requirement of flying buttresses for support. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

The chapel was built in the mid-13th century by King Louis IX as a place to hold the holy relics he’d acquired - so in one sense, the entirety of Sainte-Chapelle can rightly be considered a reliquary. The relics Louis had purchased (yes, he bought them, as opposed to other rulers over the ages who have just gone and stolen stuff) included the crown of thorns allegedly worn by Christ at the time of his crucifixion and a piece of the true cross, and all the relics cost him almost three times what the construction of Sainte-Chapelle cost. Look at the spires for a representation of the cross, as a reminder of what the church once held. (Don’t look for the relics in Sainte-Chapelle today, however - some are in Notre Dame now, while others were lost during the French Revolution.)

Sainte-Chapelle’s lower chapel was designed for servants who worked in the palace. It’s only about half the height of the upper chapel, and can feel a bit dark (especially in comparison to the light show upstairs), but do take a moment to admire the beautifully-painted columns and the ceiling. You’ll see the trademark French fleur-de-lys painted everywhere. There’s a spiral staircase in the corner that will take you up the stairs to the upper chapel.

And it’s this upper chapel that is Sainte-Chapelle’s crowning glory - it seems impossibly narrow and tall, and while I remember being enthralled by the ceiling (painted a deep blue and covered with painted gold stars), the true highlight of the upper chapel is the array of stained glass windows which surround you when you’re standing in it. There are 15 windows in all and they show scenes from both the Old and New Testaments. It’s said that in order to fully appreciate the windows, you’ve got to visit when the sun is shining.

What’s even more remarkable than the windows themselves, however, is the fact that the walls are almost entirely made of them - you’ll notice when you look around that the space between the windows is pretty narrow, and it’s certainly not enough space to have a flying buttress on the outside holding this impressive structure up. What’s more, even if there was enough space for a flying buttress or two, they’d be blocking all of that glorious light from even getting into the church. So what’s the magic here?

Rather than magic, it’s clever architecture. The extreme narrowness of the church meant that flying buttresses didn’t have to be so massive, or reach out so far beyond the church’s walls. In addition, this church is considered by many to be the pinnacle of Gothic architecture - so architects had learned enough by the time it was built to be able to support such a tall structure with only the bare minimum of exterior support. You’ll see the support pieces outside the church, but you wouldn’t recognize them as flying buttresses!

Also worth noting is the upper chapel’s enormous rose window, which is made up of more than 80 panels and tells the story of the Apocalypse. This beautiful window was a gift from Charles VIII in the late 1400s, and it’s said that the best time to see it from inside Sainte-Chapelle is at sunset.

Sainte-Chapelle was heavily damaged during the French Revolution, and many of its interior furnishings were stolen or destroyed. The original windows were removed for safe-keeping, however, as they also were during both World Wars, so that today most of the windows you see are original. The church underwent a restoration in the 19th century when the lowest section of windows had to be replaced.

Location: 4 Boulevard du Palais, inside the Palais de Justice, Оle de la Citй

How to Get There: On the Metro line #4, take the Citй stop; bus lines 21, 27, 38, 85, 96 and Balabus stop nearby

Hours: Open daily; March 1 through October 31 - 9:30am to 6:00pm; November 1 through February 29 - 9:00am to 5:00pm

The ticket windows close 30 minutes before the church closes.

The church is closed on January 1, May 1, and December 25.

Admission: €7.50 (adults), €4.80 (ages 18-25; those under 18 are free), €5.70 (per person group rate for groups of 20+ people)

Good to Know: Because Sainte-Chapelle is located entirely within the walls of the Palais de Justice, you’ll need to pass through security before you can even buy your tickets to get into the church. It’s airport-style security, with a metal detector and an X-ray for your bags, and you’ll have all sharp metal objects removed from your person before you’re allowed to go through. In other words, leave the Swiss Army knife in your hotel room.

For those visiting during the months of March-November, if a daytime tour isn’t enough, ask about the concerts that are held in Sainte-Chapelle.

More Information: Official Sainte-Chapelle website