Where We Ate In Paris

Nick is dairy and gluten free so it can sometimes be a bit tricky finding restaurants that are suitable, but I found plenty of options to choose from!

Here are my favourite places we ate at during our trip…

This award winning restaurant is located in Les Halles, and is owned by renowned French chef Jean-François Piège.

Beef is the star of the show at this restaurant, and the different cuts available on the menu are on display in a glass cabinet so you can have a look and choose your steak.

As it had been a while since I’d been to Paris, I’d completely forgotten that restaurants give you a basket of bread for the start of the meal. The slices of fresh crusty baguette were delicious, and as Nick couldn’t eat these, I had to restrain myself and not fill up on all the bread straight away!

We shared a starter of cured beef with pickled cucumber; the cured beef was full of flavour and the pickles provided a perfect balance.

And for mains of course we opted for steak, although there were a couple of non-steak options on the menu: lobster ravioli, grilled salmon or lamb.

This was an expensive meal, but absolutely worth the money. The flavour of the steak was incredible, and it was seasoned and cooked perfectly (rare for me!). There were a couple of options for sides with the mains, and we both went for pommes allumettes and a side salad. If you’re looking for somewhere to go for a treat or a special occasion, this is the place to go.

On our second night we headed up to Pigalle to this vibrant Peruvian restaurant. I loved the decor here, with the art-deco stained glass windows, and a bright blue and orange interior.

They have a great cocktail menu! Nick ordered a Mikuna Piloma, made with tequila, pineapple juice, lime and grapefruit soda, and I went for a lime mule, made with Pisco, lime juice, and a fiery ginger beer.

To eat, we ordered a selection of starters and a main course to share. One of the highlights of our meal was the guacamole, it came with roasted pineapple on top which I’d never had before, and I loved it!

From the starter menu we also ordered beef fillet tataki with chimichurri sauce, marinated chicken skewers, and of course ceviche. There is tuna, salmon, or a classic white fish ceviche to choose from. I asked the waiter which he would recommend, and he told me to go for the classic which came with sweet potato in a class leche de tigre.

And from the mains menu we ordered Lomo Saltado, a traditional Peruvian stew with sautéed strips of beef tenderloin, onions, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, garlic and soy sauce, and it came with a bowl of rice. This was delicious, and the sauce had a very rich flavour. This is something I'm keen to try and make at home.

This was a really busy restaurant so you would definitely need to book. It had a great atmosphere, and there was live music that started later in the evening.

For our final evening meal, we went to Big Bang Grill, a Korean BBQ in Saint-Germain. This is always a fun restaurant choice, and Nick had never been to one before and really enjoyed it.

This was another very busy restaurant so booking in advance is recommended. The downstairs was full, and they just had a couple of free tables upstairs when we arrived.

We ordered belly pork and spicy marinated steak to cook on our little table grill. The belly pork came with a tasty sesame oil dressing which was for drizzling over the pork after it was cooked, and lettuce leaves to wrap the pork in to eat it.

The menu choices for the grill come with 6 small bowls of sides, made up of rice and different vegetables. One of the options was kimchi, I find this is usually a bit too hot for me but I really enjoyed the kimchi here.

If you didn’t fancy cooking on the grill, there are other options on the menu like bibimbap, noodles and Korean crepes. And whilst this wouldn’t necessarily be high up on restaurant choices to visit in Paris, the food was great and it was a fun experience.

My final mention goes to Noglu, a completely gluten free cafe. They have 2 locations in Paris, and one was a convenient 10 minute walk from the hotel.

We headed here for brunch on Saturday. It's quite small inside and it was extremely busy, but we seemed to arrive at a time when a few people were leaving and managed to get a table quite quickly.

Because it was so busy, it didn’t seem to be very organised and it took us a while to be served, but once we had ordered the food and drinks came out quickly.

I ordered avocado toast with a side of smoked salmon, and this came with a small salad.

This was a great option for Nick as he could eat pretty much everything on the menu, and we enjoyed it so much that we came back for breakfast on the Monday morning before our flight home.

Our lunch on Sunday in Montmartre wasn’t noteworthy so doesn’t get a mention on the blog. We made the mistake of visiting a very touristy restaurant near Sacre Coeur and had some extremely average and over-priced steak & frites.

There did look to be some great restaurants in this area that we saw later on, so I would definitely do some research on the best restaurants in Montmartre before coming back to this area again.

So whilst we didn’t eat at a lot of traditional French restaurants on our weekend in Paris, we did have some delicious meals. Let me know your favourite restaurants in Paris in the comments below.