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Paris advice
My highly intelligent friend asked me for advice about Paris. (Most of you know him, and perhaps he will identify himself in the comments.) He has been to Paris before and doesn't need guidance to the usual tourist sights. For work reasons I've made many trips to Paris over the last three years, so I recommend the following...
1. A few of the best restaurants are Pierre Gagnaire, Taillevent, Le Cinq, and perhaps Guy Savoy. Most critics might put Gagnaire as number one.
2. Michelin "two-forkers" are quite good, but you must book to get in. In general you can't get a seat in a decent Parisian restaurant unless you either book or show up at opening. If you are wandering around looking for good food at 8:30 p.m., or for that matter 1 p.m., you are unlikely to do well.
3. In The Louvre, spend an hour in the Poussin room and also obsess over Watteau's Voyage to Cythera.
4. In Musee d'Orsay, gaze at Courbet's Origin of the World (sorry, I can't link to the image on a family blog but do Google it) and Puis de Chavannes, in addition to the usual delights.
5. Go see the medieval tapestries at Musee Cluny.
6. Spend a few hours walking the main roads of the Left Bank. Start at Invalides and take the major arteries through to the Islamic Center. Walk, walk, walk.
7. Watch The Triplets of Belleville and spend hours walking through the (rapidly gentrifying) working-class neighborhoods of the Right Bank. The Metro is splendid but it robs you from seeing the greatest walking city on earth (Buenos Aires is number two). Don't take it. Walk, walk, walk.
8. Go into a good cheese shop and spend $40. Focus on the weirder cheeses. Buy the non-pasteurized delights. Sit down with a baguette and some fruit as well, finishing the meal with small squares of outrageously priced dark chocolate. Throw in a sausage for good measure. Keep the cheese leftovers in your room at night and eat them for breakfast the next day. And the day after that. See how many days they will keep, you will be surprised.
9. Rue de Bussi and thereabouts has a convenient collection of cheese, fruit and bread shops, and it is in an excellent part of the Left Bank.
10. Internet Cafes are hard to come by. You must rely on the dumpy area near Centre de Pompidou. I find Paris to be the hardest city to blog from.
11. See a "world music" concert from Algeria, Madagascar, or the Congo. Or try contemporary music at IRCAM.
12. Here is my previous post My Favorite Things French. Douse yourself in Godard films before going. Start with Breathless, Band of Strangers, and My Life to Live.
13. If you want to read recent French social science (if you can call it that), try Bruno Latour's We Have Never Been Modern, Jean Baudrillard, Alain Badiou's Metapolitics, and Gilles Deleuze's Anti-Oedipus. Don't get too upset if these books only make intermittent sense. At least they are alive. For a recent hit novel, try Houllebecq's The Elementary Particles.
Comments are open, and I encourage all of you but especially John Nye and Barkley Rosser -- both Paris experts -- to make a few suggestions for my friend.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 25, 2006 at 07:01 AM in Travels | Permalink
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Comments
The best restaurant in Paris is Apicius. Better food, less pretension. Try the fois gras and the
the chocolate deserts.
WS Grizzard
Posted by: WS Grizzard at Feb 25, 2006 9:04:05 AM
Quality of Paris restaurants has declined dramatically over the past 20 years. Where once you could hardly get a bad meal there, even in the local bistro, today that is the norm.
While I have not eaten there in 5 years, Taillevent probably remains the ultimate "Parisian" dining experience. Gaya (there are several) can be quite good on a far lesser scale for fish. There used to be several superb restaurants in Versailles, itself well worth the day trip. Personally I happen to be a gothic cathedral obsessive - so Chartres is a place I like to go. And in Paris, after one has spent the obligatory time waiting to get into Notre Dame, one should visit the Sainte Chappelle.
Paris is a city of museums, hell the French do at least two things extremely well, food and museums. The Rodin Museum in the 7th as well as the newer Maillot Museum nearby are well worth an afternoon if one needs time away from the generally over-crowded and over-rated Orsay. (The Van Goghs in particular looked so much better in the Jeu de Paume)
BTW Tyler it is Rue de Buci.
And as for foie gras, Grizzard, I am with you - so long as it is poele (accent aigu).
Posted by: Martin at Feb 25, 2006 10:56:31 AM
I don't recommend keeping the unpasteurized cheese very long without refrigeration. Just about nothing I eat makes me ill, but I just about died from unrefrigerated, unpasteurized French bleu cheese in 1984. That's right - bleu cheese, the kind that is supposed to remain the most bug free.
Posted by: David Tufte at Feb 25, 2006 11:22:38 AM
While it may have been a bad night, a three star restaurant should never have a bad night. Our evening two years ago at Taillevant began with a rather cold welcome, enduring several minutes of screaming from the kitchen, mediocre service (longingly looking for five minutes at our half-full bottle of wine across the room while our glasses were empty)and food that was far from superb (a sauce that tasted like a salt-lick), and not even a good-bye when we left. (Yes, M. Vrinat was on the premises.)
Guy Savoy, on the other hand was over-the-top in every respect on two visits (one shortly before it reached its third star and one shortly after). Warm and impeccable service, food that one remembers for a lifetime and an incredible generosity (Oh you liked the truffle and lentil soup? You MUST have more!). As one would say in pre-Euro days, VERY expensive and worth every centime.
Posted by: Stephen Alpern at Feb 25, 2006 11:46:23 AM
I was a student in Paris a few years ago. My budget was a students one, of course, so I don't know anything about the fancy restaurants but I did spend a lot of time in the cafés around the city. Some of my favorite one are (all are old style cafés where you could confortably sit down with a book and have a good cup of coffee):
-- Le Petit Cafe by the Ecole Politechnique, close to the Pantheon
-- Chez George on Rue de Canette
-- Piment Café on rue de sevigne
-- Another one (forgot the name) on Rue Beautrellis
I'm a chess fan so I enjoyed playing chess with locals at Le Reflet (a cafe/bar two blocks west of the Sorbonne) on weeknights or in the Jardin du Luxembourg on Sunday mornings.
I would say, if you have some money, go to the specialty shops in the Marais or on Ile St-Louis for fashion, art and all things culinary.
Snaebjorn.
Posted by: Snaebjorn Gunnsteinsson at Feb 25, 2006 11:54:28 AM
Well, since Tyler is specifically inviting me, I'll comment. I agree with the critics: Pierre Gagnaire is simply the top of the top. If you are going to spend the money to go there, then do the whole hog and get the degustation menu. It is probably the best meal on the planet right now.
Another three star that is very fine in terms of total intimate experience is L'Ambroisie in the Place des Vosges.
In terms of more affordable I agree that Chez Georges is very nice. Another find is Au Trou Gascon in the 12 arrondissement, which specializes in Gascogne cuisine and has one of the best selections of armagnacs anywhere. Another, just behind the Pantheon in the 5th is La Truffiere,
excellent mid-range quality and prices.
A funky street to walk in terms of much cheaper places to eat, varied shopping, and just general people watching is the Rue Mouffetard in the 5th arrondissment, Latin Quarter. This is actually the old road from Roman Lutece to Lyon.
If your friend like Monet, the Marmottan is a not well known museum that specializes in his work in the luxurious 16th, not far from OECD HQ. Regarding museum recommendations, it depends on what s/he is interested in.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Feb 25, 2006 1:02:50 PM
That "Origin of the World" painting reminds me of the graffito sometimes scrawled over urinals - "the future is in your hands"
Posted by: Peter at Feb 25, 2006 1:17:29 PM
I think you mean Bande a part for the second Godard film you mentioned, the english title is Band of Outsiders.
Posted by: J at Feb 25, 2006 6:32:16 PM
I always recommend taking a stroll following the 1210 Philippe Auguste city wall:
http://www.philippe-auguste.com/mur/index.html
In any case, if you're walking down the rue Vaugirard (Paris longest!) doing a Left Bank walk, and it's a Saturday, do stop by the Institut Catholique and see if or when the tour of St-Joseph de Carmes is on. In the crypt, there are collected and displayed the skulls of 114 or so non-juring priests brutally beated to death in the garden of the former abbey during the September [1792] Massacres. Revolutionary skulls are...cool.
Posted by: Brian C.B. at Feb 25, 2006 9:03:26 PM
"In Musee d'Orsay, gaze at Courbet's Origin of the World (sorry, I can't link to the image on a family blog but do Google it)"
title + artist + Google instructions = link
To mention with specificity IS to link, isn't it?
Posted by: Slocum at Feb 26, 2006 7:13:37 AM
I agree with Tyler about the lack of internet access. A relic of Videotex policies?
You might try geocaching. http://www.geocaching.com/
It works like this: a local hides something or creates a location-based puzzle, records the geodetic coordinates from his GPS, and posts the clues at the site linked above. You then try to solve the puzzle using your GPS receiver. The enthusiasts who make the puzzles usually try to guide others to interesting but hidden locations.
The last time I checked, though, France had the lowest density of geocaches in western Europe. Also, the last time I checked, the site was free, but now they charge a nominal fee ($3/month or $30/year) to use the better map features.
Posted by: Eric H at Feb 26, 2006 11:04:21 AM
Tough to make recommendations without knowing the person's tastes, but one tip is to spend some time at the smaller museums, e.g. Balzac or for Techies, the Arts et Metiers.
If he can understand French, he should strongly consider going to the Comedie Francaise to see some Moliere. Worth a trip even if you don't get everything or if the particular performance isn't to your liking.
My favorite bakery for breads was Le Boulanger de Monge. For rich chocolate cakes, I'll take Dalloyau.
In between meals of foie gras, sauternes and cassoulet I'd recommend checking out some of the small, specialized Japanese restaurants near the Opera for a change of pace. These are really good and a great contrast to the lower quality (relative to the best in the US) of the Parisian Chinese cuisine.
One final suggestion -- small French restaurants are much more likely to have a decent, moderately priced red that's properly aged than most non-Michelin level places in the US. Take advantage of this and enjoy with dinner.
Posted by: John N at Feb 26, 2006 11:19:28 AM
More sights.
1. The Marais district; start from the amazing City Hall and make your way up through the old narrow streets. Excellent walking itineraries are available in the Michelin Green Guide for Paris (Barnes & Nobles carries it).
2. Ile Saint-Louis : the small island next to Ile de la Cite on the Seine. You can walk on the banks all around it and enjoy the best views of Notre-Dame. Also home to the excellent - and expensive - Berthillon ice-cream.
3. Close to Montmartre and not very well known is the Musee Gustave Moreau. Housed in the artist's studio, it is full of paintings and sketches. A very nice break from the touristic hustle and bustle of the area.
4. If you want to do a bit of trading with the locals, the Saint-Ouen flea market is nice and old-fashioned. Metro Porte de Clignancourt.
5. For a bit of green, the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont is a classic; it's not big but it will remind you of those parts of Central Park where you least fill in a city : http://perso.wanadoo.fr/anthony.atkielski/ButtesSuspensionLarge.jpg
6. Rue Mouffetard and surroundings : lovely neighborhood, great open market and old cafes : http://www.parisdigest.com/photos/Rue-Mouffetard.jpg.
7. Of course, the Quartier Latin across from Notre-Dame; probably the oldest neighborhood remaining, pedestrian streets with lots of nice and affordable ethnic foods. Touristy but fun.
Posted by: Sylvain Galineau at Feb 26, 2006 12:19:06 PM
"Balzac or for Techies, the Arts et Metiers."
That's a good suggestion. The Arts et Metiers was also renovated a few years ago, quite well, including it's gothic chapel. And the area around the Balzac is lovely, if the weather is nice. The art nouveau buildings of the sixteenth are nearby.
The Butte aux Cailles and the Square René Gall are worth a side trip. Charonne (the quarter rue St-Blaise), too. The stuff near Notre Dame that I think is the most interesting is that along the Seine in the Fourth, from Gervais-et-Protais and east. What's left of renaissance Paris, and it ain't much. (Thanks, Haussmann and Napoleon III.)
Posted by: Brian C.B. at Feb 26, 2006 2:09:10 PM
What is your impression of the Arab problem? Is it obvious? Or is it truly hidden away in the banlieus?
Posted by: Raw Data at Feb 26, 2006 4:38:00 PM
I cast a second vote for Apicius, although I am leery of their December 2004 move upmarket from the outskirts of the 17th arrondissement to an hôtel particulier in the 8th. I've eaten in the new digs only once so far, but on that visit I missed the informal, warm ambience of the old location on avenue de Villiers.
Posted by: Art Wong at Feb 27, 2006 1:17:55 AM
Arab problem is largely in the banlieues (suburbs).
Regarding non-French cuisines, one should follow the rule of former colonies:
the best restaurants of a formerly colonized nation's cuisine outside of itself
will often be found in the capital city of its former colonial master. Thus,
Indian is good in London; Indonesian in Amsterdam.
In Paris this means Vietnamese or North African. Japanese is not especially
better than in other big cities; it just happens to be probably the world's
best cuisine after French, period. A great old Vietnamese restaurant is
Tan Dinh, although it has lost its Michelin star a few years back.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Feb 27, 2006 3:47:47 PM
There's a great restaurant called Chez Papa that serves southwestern French cuisine to a mix of hungry students, locals, and tourists who've heard about it by word-of-mouth. The magret de canard was amazingly good -- duck together with potatoes cooked in duck fat -- and I heard great things about the giant salads, too.
http://www.eng.cityvox.fr/restaurants_paris/chez-papa-espace-sud-ouest_3915/Profil-Place
Posted by: Christopher M at Feb 27, 2006 5:38:16 PM
If you're a smoker, don't ever light up on the street. You'll become a lightning rod for moochers of all ages and dispositions. Before you know it, you'll be surrounded by people aggressively trying to bum cigarettes from you. I've never experienced anything like it.
Posted by: Rube at Mar 1, 2006 8:52:10 AM
As a student looking for free internet access I found several McDonald's (or MacDos as the French say) with free WiFi. There's a little sticker or sign on the door at those locations. My favorite was the MacDos just off Saint Germain in the Latin quarter. It's three stories and packed with students.
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