Paris has always felt like my soul was born there, and meant to be there. I return to visit, almost like a yearly compulsion, and spend the rest of the year wandering around homesick, like an arm severed from my body, waiting for its annual surgery to reattach it.
Like many people who’ve been touched by Paris, I seem to steer clear of tourist sites, crowded squares, tourist-trap streets, and guidebook icons. I could spend a month in Paris and never set foot on the Champs-Élysées. For me, Paris is embodied in one small neighborhood, in its narrow, old little streets: the Marais. With an unexplainable zeal, I treat the Marais as Paris itself, and everywhere else as leaving Paris. All of this, of course, is entirely subjective, and I can’t fully explain or justify it to anyone who (rightfully) takes offense.
Instead of a map: every address in this article is a link. Click it, and the place will open right away in Google Maps.
A culinary tour starts with a good apartment
The apartment we always rent on Rue Saint Gilles, right across from the entrance to Place des Vosges, is one we return to so faithfully it feels like our own home, and in a way, it is. There’s a supermarket next door, a vegan supermarket just downstairs, an excellent artisan boulangerie 30 meters from the door, and the Bastille market a five-minute walk away, perfect for a shopping cart run twice a week. Everything a home cook needs to start the day with a smile.
This wonderful market is the largest among the markets of Paris, open in the mornings every Thursday and Sunday. It’s less picturesque and romantic than its nearby competitors (Aligre, Enfants Rouges), but in practical terms it’s the clear winner. It has everything a home cook could want. Every year I come back to the stand with the incredible stuffed pasta, and to my specific favorites: the cheese stand, the boudin sausage stand, the poultry and game stand, and the fresh ocean fish stand. Everything else changes depending on what I need and what catches my interest, and there’s always something. Buy some raw, unpasteurized crème fraîche, along with gleaming baskets of fresh red and black raspberries, blueberries, and wild strawberries. Add powdered sugar and a few drops of Calvados, mix it all together, and close your eyes when it hits your mouth.
Waking up, showering, and the first coffee of the morning, we do at our go-to café, Carette, a Parisian institution that’s been settled on the nearby Place des Vosges for ninety years, 25 place des Vosges. Surprisingly, they make a good coffee here, and the real highlight is that the rich display case, with dozens of kinds of pastries, is flawlessly excellent across the board. You’ll stand there staring, overwhelmed with choice. I highly recommend the giant palmier (elephant ear), crispy and caramelized with mountains of butter, a perfect way to line your stomach early before a busy day of eating.
It’s great to start the day at this calm, peaceful spot, sitting comfortably at an outdoor table, sipping, nibbling, and watching with fascination the water flowing each morning along the edge of the road, which always slopes gently toward the sidewalk. The city opens a tap somewhere at the edge of town every morning, and every curb bordering a sidewalk gets washed by the current, which carries off all the dirt, leaves, and yesterday’s leftovers into drains at every street corner. It’s clever how, with zero effort, they save thousands of cleaning staff and noisy brush trucks from having to work the streets. Admit it, you’ve noticed that every morning the edges of Parisian streets are wet, and you never knew why…
A noble effort to shake off the laziness gets us up from our coffee cups for a day of curiosity. We cross the Place des Vosges area through a surprising passage via Hôtel de Sully, soak up the atmosphere of this beautiful place and its adjoining garden, and come out directly onto the busy Rue Saint Antoine. A few steps toward the Saint-Paul (line 1) metro station and we reach one of the most impressive produce shops in Paris: 17 kinds of lettuce, 15 kinds of tomatoes, a stunning agricultural museum that’s a bit reminiscent of what Fauchon used to be thirty years ago, before it went bankrupt, was sold, and lost its character.
We devoured a fragrant bunch of muscat grapes and spent the morning wandering the dense area between Rue des Francs-Bourgeois and Rue de Rivoli. A young, fun atmosphere, with innovative fashion boutiques, modern art, surprising food, and a sea of architectural tradition steeped in the history of the Marais.
One of the most delicious places in the area is Miznon, by chef Eyal Shani (born 1960), 22 rue des Écouffes. Get the roasted cauliflower with garlic aioli, and the meaty pita with fish balls in chraimeh sauce. Wow.
Recommended pastry shops in the Marais
Since we still need something sweet, we’ll surprise ourselves with a Portuguese corner that opened in the area a few years ago. Comme a Lisbonne offers two kinds of pastéis de nata, a flaky pastry filled with a rich, creamy custard, small and delicate in flavor: one with cinnamon and one plain. The pastries are tiny, and it’s worth trying both. 37 rue du Roi-de-Sicile.
Of course that wasn’t enough, so just a few steps away, we won’t miss the chocolate and macaron shop of Pierre Hermé (born 1961) on 18 rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie. You have to try a few kinds of macarons here. The selection rotates and is even called “collections,” just like in the fashion world. Pick a few macarons and enjoy this wonder. Sadly, there are no cakes here. You’ll find Hermé’s cakes at the shop on Rue Bonaparte, and you can eat them on the bench in the square across from Saint-Sulpice church. Without a doubt, go for his legendary mille-feuille, the best cake in the world, full stop. Don’t forget to close your eyes while you eat.
Alright, time to sit for a bit and rest. For that, we head to the best crêpe restaurant in Paris. Right near the Musée Picasso sits Breizh Caffe, a culinary project imported from Saint-Malo in Brittany to Paris, a compact crêperie on the street corner. As is traditional in Brittany, the crêpes are dark and made from rich, gluten-free buckwheat flour. There’s a wonderful selection of crêpes and galettes with a variety of fillings and preparations, using artisanal Bordier butter. I recommend the crêpe tatin with apples, brown sugar, and flambéed Calvados, and the smoked herring and warm potato galette. There’s a selection of chilled ciders to choose from. A fun little break.
After this meal, we walk a few meters with cider in hand toward the charming garden at the corner of Rue de Temple and Rue de Bretagne. A tiny rest that revives us for what’s next, because thirty meters from the garden, we enter the Marché couvert des Enfants Rouges, a small covered market in the north of the Marais. It offers a selection of stalls with fresh ingredients alongside a variety of street food stands, cafés, and restaurants. It’s a fun, experiential stroll that lets you look, buy, and taste as much as you like. The area is pleasant and, both inside and nearby, holds plenty of places to grab a bite, 39 rue de Bretagne.
But we’re not going to waste the remaining capacity here. I’m moving on to the sweetest finish of all. From here, we walk to the temple, the hall of the best pastry chef in the world. For a man whose level of commitment, perfection, and precision in his product has no equal in any competing pâtisserie anywhere, welcome to the chocolaterie and pâtisserie of Jacques Genin (born 1962), the man and the legend. You walk in and it feels like you’ve entered a museum, not a café. There isn’t a single cake in the display case, and you can’t order a cake to take home either. On display are chocolates, nougat candies, and marmalades. Cakes you order sitting down, and they’re served to you. The idea, so that you get the best of the best of the best, is that the pastry shouldn’t sit together with the cream for more than a few minutes before it reaches your mouth, otherwise its crispness gets soggy and ruined.
You order, and they assemble the cake you asked for right there on the spot. Not Pierre Hermé, not Michalak, not Hugo & Victor, and no other pastry chef in Paris or the world goes to such extremes, and the result more than justifies it. Take your time and spend at least two hours here. A divine pistachio mille-feuille, a legendary lemon basil pie, an amazing Paris-Brest, some of the best chocolate chou in Paris, fruit and especially vegetable marmalades you’ll never taste anywhere else in your life, insanely good caramel candies. Don’t hold back, diet starts tomorrow. Genin is the first place I go to when I arrive in the city, my standard starting point. 133 rue de Turenne.
And finally, two more recommended restaurants in the Marais
For those of you who decide to go all in and chase the fantasy all the way to paradise, I’ll bring you back to my place for this one. Nearby, at the southwest corner of Place des Vosges, stands the beautiful restaurant L’Ambroisie, by superstar chef Bernard Pacaud (born 1946), who has held three Michelin stars continuously for thirty years, held in especially high regard here. If François Hollande (born 1954) chose to host Barack Obama (born 1961) for dinner here in 2015, maybe you can treat yourself too. Unlike what’s standard at Michelin restaurants in France, there’s no tasting menu here, everything is ordered à la carte, and again, unlike the stereotype of tiny portions at fancy gourmet restaurants, the dishes here are generous and filling. The menu is in French only, and dinner here will run around 380 euros per person before wine and service.
A couple will likely part with a small fortune here for a once-in-a-lifetime meal. I know it sounds extravagant, but I just think the intensity of the experience and the memory it leaves behind are far more meaningful than two nights at an all-inclusive resort somewhere. It’s a matter of perspective. It’s a shame that the more realistic option for us mere mortals to experience a Michelin restaurant isn’t available here: a lunch menu for around 100 euros per person, a worthwhile experience available at most Michelin restaurants in Paris. To book a table at L’Ambroisie, you need to arrange it at least a month in advance. 9 place des Vosges.
For those of you who are tired after a long day and skip the Michelin stars of L’Ambroisie, I’d recommend ending the evening at our go-to bar, Chez Janou, a quiet corner tucked away like an island of calm in the heart of a trendy neighborhood with lively nightlife nearby. A family-run place that specializes in pastis, serving dozens of kinds of pastis. Sit outside in the open air and sip a good pastis (the staff are friendly with English speakers too and will happily make recommendations). Since Chez Janou is a bar that also serves food, if you’re hungry, go for the duck breast, the stuffed rabbit, the risotto with scallops, and of course their famous chocolate mousse. Take your time, you’re here to stay a while. 2 rue Roger-Verlomme.
I hope you enjoy these recommendations. Of course, they need to be updated every year, and I’ll keep writing about Paris and food. Bon appétit.
Already done a culinary tour of the Marais and looking for more ideas?
- Why not take a historical tour of the Marais, where you’ll discover the charming mansions, hidden gardens, and juicy stories of the neighborhood? You’re welcome to choose between the tour of the central and southern Marais and the tour of the northern Marais, following in the footsteps of the Marquise de Sévigné (1626-1696).
- Looking for more restaurants in Paris? Check out the next article and you’ll find plenty of recommendations for restaurants that readers of the site have loved.
Related reading
