Paris has changed a lot since Eater started rounding up its essential restaurants in 2016. Over the last nine years of writing this map, I’ve watched as the city’s entrenched food pyramid — a top tier of haute-cuisine, followed by dressed-up bourgeois restaurants, and finally a base of bistros and brasseries — has flattened out. Today, you can find outstanding contemporary French cooking at reasonable prices all over Paris.
Across the board, modern Parisian menus are trending toward vegetables, with meat playing a supporting role to local produce from sustainable producers. But even as they embrace the new, many Parisians remain rooted in rock-of-ages French comfort food, which is available at a wave of traditional bistros; highlights include the very popular Bistrot des Tournelles in the Marais and thriving stalwarts like Le Petit Vendôme. Tasting menus also remain popular, as at Datil, where chef Manon Fleury turns out a menu that puts her among a class of talented female chefs (including Eugénie Béziat at Espadon at the Hotel Ritz and Soda Thiam at Janine) who have taken Paris by storm.
Most recently, a tectonic shift has allowed the 9th Arrondissement to become the new Saint-Germain-des-Pres, an arty bohemian Paris quartier par excellence. This well-heeled food-loving neighborhood brims with small under-the-radar restaurants serving beautifully cooked modern French comfort food to a clientele of local regulars.
In this latest refresh, we’ve revamped our write-ups to include even more relevant info for diners, including a rough range of pricing for each destination — ranging from $ for quick, inexpensive meals with dishes largely under $10 USD (or the equivalent in euros), to $$$$ for places where entrees exceed $30.
We update this list quarterly to make sure it reflects the ever-changing Paris dining scene. New to the map in February 2025: P’tit Bon, a modern bistro with a shifting menu and a welcoming atmosphere; and Pristine, a vegetable-focused bistro with an industrial design aesthetic. The guide is organized by arrondissement, spiraling out from the 1st.
Alexander Lobrano is a well-known Paris restaurant expert, has written Eater’s best restaurants map to Paris since 2016, and is the author of Hungry for Paris, Hungry for France and My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris. He writes often for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
