My 10 Favorite Dishes in Paris were the Simplest

New York just doesn't have it in her.

Paris in June is a constant rotation of iced long blacks, coke zeros, and the coldest bottle of white wine in the fridge. It looks like New Yorkers all over Le Marais, fully booked restaurants, and overflowing wine bars with empty stemmed glasses scattered along the sidewalk. It smells like cigarettes, a bit of fresh rain, and very fragrant strawberries. It feels like the quick relief from a hot subway car shooting between arrondissements as a breeze passes through a cracked window.

With very little French and a very big appetite, ten days in Paris felt like a reset, albeit a rather busy summer vacation. My third time in the city, this trip was a reminder of how comfortable I could feel in a city so far from home, and so different from New York. Bistros are full at mid day with tables drinking wine. Laptops are nowhere to be see in cafes. Dinners are two hours long, as are lunches. No one is ever in a hurry. The city was built for lingering. If New York took its stress levels to about 50%, I think we would have a better sense of how people operate in Paris.

After my first visit in 2019, Paris felt special because everything I ate felt like the best version of itself—the best crepes, the best bread, the best cheese, the best wine, the best steaks. The best of any traditional French delicacy or dish was all over the city, hardly making itself known on chalkboard menus behind bars covered in discarded water jugs. You could have something spectacular and special without working too hard.

As my visits have changed, my familiarity with Paris has, too. Most importantly, I realized that what made Paris such an incredible city to eat in, somewhere that felt so refreshing, so unlike New York, so worth repeating again, and again, was it’s dedication to simplicity.

Restaurants serve house wines for 8 euro, the bread and butter at a bistro is completely and utterly plain, and perfect. The best morning coffee is a straight espresso with a stick of granulated sugar in a porcelain cup. The plain croissant is the best pastry, every time.

I went to Le Cheval d’Or and had mapo tofu tortellini, I went to Early June and had watermelon carpaccio, I had a bowl of anchovies with jalapeño escabeche at Tarantúla. Each of these dishes at exciting, hip, and fun restaurants were completely and utterly overshadowed, so effortlessly, by the city’s ability to make the simple so sexy.

In thinking about the standout meals from this trip, it wasn’t hard to pull out this through line. The 10 best things I ate were, above all, not that complicated or innovative. They were just perfect.

This list is only a small showing of what I ate on this trip, so part 2 will be next week with a neighborhood breakdown and a more complete scope of how to travel and eat in the city of loooove.

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Where: La Buvette, 11th Arr.

What: Butter beans, burrata with citrus

This is the epitome of Paris’ charm. A teeny tiny wine bar has a menu written on a mirror on the wall that seldom changes. Wines by the glass will be recited to you based on what’s open, or you can parse through a bottle list. Your options are olives, saucisson, burrata, parm, triple creme cheese with smoked pepper, a pickled egg with bonito, and butter beans. The beans are something we, as a family, dream about between visits. They are completely plain, draped in olive oil, sea salt, and lemon zest, and indescribable. An inimitable bean that has reached the platonic ideal of its texture. I am not particularly keen on burrata because I don’t think it has much potential to be special (sorry), but Buvette’s is different. A dehydrated citrus zest is grated over the impossibly creamy cheese, topped with more salt and olive oil. A never-ending bowl of sourdough is the preferred vehicle. Order 1 of everything, and 3 orders of beans.

Where: Clamato, 11th Arr.

What: Hake aioli and the most ridiculous fried collar with barbecue sauce and coleslaw.

For these two dishes to show up after 6 plates and still get completely wiped clean is testament to Clamato’s efficacy at making anything, from mignonette to plain cuts of fish, extraordinary. The hake aioli was a buttery-soft cut of fish, barely seasoned, surrounded by vegetables served raw, or steamed, or coated in butter, alongside a generous portion of aioli. I learned I have a new food aversion—whelks…not my thing, but I still ate three. Despite my new fear of enormous snails, this plate was so refreshing—not just in its simple palate but in its success while doing so little. Alongside crudos, roasted vegetables, or whole fried fish, this particular plate was a standout—a little celebration of seasonality and an appreciation for flavors that are perfect on their own. The collar was slightly less simple, but needed to be included. Woof.

Where: Chez Georges, 17th Arr.

What: Frisee salad with lardon and a poached egg, escargot, radish with butter

My favorite meal of the trip—a solo lunch with enough food in front of me to fill a two-top. The staff was unexpectedly kind, and the dining room unnecessarily gorgeous. Breakfast radishes were served with a slab of butter and a bowl of salt for dipping. Escargot arrived steaming hot with shells full of a sharp parsley butter, and a mustardy bowl of frisee with crispy lardon, soggy croutons, and a perfectly poached egg arrived in an enormous white mixing bow. I sat at this table smiling to myself for well over an hour. I felt like Anton Ego eating the ratatouille.

Where: OLGA, 12th Arr.

What: A fresh baguette with bleu d’auvergne, pickled cherries, and amarena cherries

Owned by La Buvette, OLGA is a mini wine bar serving sandwiches daily—some very straightforward, like a buratta and saucisson sandwich, some more imaginative. Be sure to get a dessert cup on your way out, mine was in a recycled creme fraiche container, with clotted cream and fresh apricot jam.

Where: Mokochaya

What: Strawberry scone

The cafe half a block down from the beloved Mokonuts, has plenty of seats to enjoy a long coffee break and indulge in baked goods or an early afternoon bento box. This was one of my favorite daytime visits and was also easily the best scone I have ever had in my life—it was so crispy on the outside I was certain it would be dry on the inside. I was incredibly wrong. The outer crunch formed a protective shell around a sweet and soft interior that defied physics a bit. The fresh strawberries folded in dissolved into a sweet swirl of jam throughout. I miss it.

Where: Joe’s Dough, 14th Arr.

What: Beurre sucre crepe

The Angel has never led me astray—this tiny stall next to the Montparnasse cemetery was no exception. Joe has been working this stall for more than twenty years, delicately pouring organic wheat flour crepe batter, chopping fresh vegetables, and pulling together beautiful sandwiches all day long for decades. With a generous pour of crunchy sugar and a healthy dose of butter, my crepe was wrapped in a paper cone and handed to me with a bunch of napkins, a warning of the butter that promised to drip through its wrapper. I think, realistically, I could eat this every day of my life, and could probably eat 4 consecutively in one sitting without thinking twice.

Where: I/O Café, 4th Arr.

What: Flat White

My favorite coffee shop in Paris, and repeatedly one of the best coffees I have ever had. Perfect for sitting with a book to prolong a nice, slow morning.

Where: Le Baratin, 20th Arr.

What: Crème brûlée, bass crudo with salicorne and cherry vinegar

From start to finish, this meal was a revelation in simplicity—delicate white fish with a crispy skin surrounded by vegetables, beef cheek with an herby sauce draped over it, small bowls of fish stock, and our favorite, a delightfully sharp and sweet cherry and stone bass crudo. The crème brûlée had such a rich and creamy custard that left a trail of black speckles of vanilla bean across the white dish, no matter who many we tried to scrape up with our spoons. The woman in the kitchen running the show is my hero.

Where: Atelier P1, 18th Arr.

What: Croissant au beurre

Just when you think you’ve had the best croissant of your life…you hit a new pâtisserie to top it. This one had a thin, crisp shell with an airy and incredibly buttery interior. Worth trekking up the hills of Montmartre through crowds of tourists for.

Where: Boulangerie-Pâtisserie Terroirs d'Avenir, 11th Arr.

What: Pain aux raisin

Previously my favorite croissant, and where I had a life-altering olive fougasse last trip—Terrors d’Avenir is making some of the best baked goods in Paris. The lamination on this pain aux raisin which, by the way, was still warm, was beautiful and added a golden brown crunch to an otherwise sweet and almost custardy interior. Look at her!

I can’t wait to dive into a more robust, neighborhood and itinerary-driven newsletter for you next week….see you then :)