Paris is a city where we can easily plan an entire day around what we want to eat next. Over several visits, we’ve collected a mix of places that reflect what we enjoy most: ambitious but relaxed restaurants, serious specialty coffee, wine bars with personality and a pastry scene that is almost impossible to resist. This isn’t an attempt to cover everything — just the places we’ve personally enjoyed and would happily return to.
Best Restaurants in Paris
Pluto
Pluto is located inside Lafayette Anticipations in the Marais, but calling it a museum café hardly does it justice. Chef Thomas Coupeau serves creative dishes designed for sharing, bringing together different influences without making the cooking feel overly complicated. We loved how playful the food was, especially in contrast with the industrial architecture of the building around it.
Kubri
Kubri brings a contemporary interpretation of Lebanese cooking to the 11th arrondissement. Chef Rita Higgins works with the flavours and ingredients of her Lebanese background in a modern format, with generous sharing plates, plenty of vegetables and particularly good sauces and seasoning. This was one of those dinners where even the simplest vegetable dishes stayed in our minds afterwards.
Maslow
Maslow is entirely vegetarian, but that never feels like the main point of the restaurant. The focus is on making plant-based cooking generous, playful and accessible rather than presenting it as a compromise. We originally came for lunch and especially liked the sharing format, which makes it easy to try several different things.
Breakfast & Lunch in Paris
Café Singuliers
Café Singuliers is the kind of neighbourhood café that works at almost any point during the day. The menu moves between breakfast, lunch and sweet things, with a strong focus on seasonal cooking rather than standard brunch dishes. We liked that it felt genuinely food-focused while still having the relaxed atmosphere of a café — and yes, the cookies are very difficult to ignore.
La Sabicherie
La Sabicherie is built around the sabich, the Iraqi-Jewish pita traditionally filled with fried aubergine, egg, potatoes, tahini and plenty of fresh and pickled flavours. The concept is straightforward, but the sandwiches are anything but restrained. We loved how generous and satisfying it was without becoming another generic street-food concept.
Marché des Enfants Rouges
Marché des Enfants Rouges has been operating since 1615 and is the oldest covered market in Paris. Hidden behind the streets of the Marais is a mix of produce stalls, delis and small counters serving cuisines from around the world. Rather than coming for one specific dish, we like it as a place to wander around and decide what looks good that day.
Best Bakeries & Pastries in Paris
Sadaharu Aoki
Sadaharu Aoki brings Japanese flavours into classic French pâtisserie with an incredible level of precision. Matcha, sesame, yuzu and tea regularly appear alongside traditional pastry techniques, giving the display a completely different character from the classic Parisian pâtisserie. We particularly like that the flavours tend to feel refined rather than overly sweet.
Odette
Odette is entirely dedicated to choux à la crème, served in a tiny historic building near Notre-Dame. The choux come in a range of flavours and are deliberately small enough to make trying several very tempting. It is a simple idea executed very well — and one of the more charming pastry stops on this list.
Mori Yoshida
Japanese pastry chef Morihide Yoshida applies an almost obsessive level of precision to French pâtisserie at his boutique in the 7th arrondissement. The creations are elegant and technically beautiful, but what we remember most is the balance: layered flavours without everything becoming excessively rich or sweet. One of the pastry shops that impressed us most in Paris.
Chapon
Chapon is technically a chocolatier rather than a bakery, but its chocolate mousse bar earns it a place on this list. Different chocolates are transformed into fresh mousse and served almost as if you were choosing flavours at an ice-cream counter. Rich, yes, but also surprisingly light in texture — and a very Parisian way to turn chocolate into an experience.
Maison Aleph
Maison Aleph was founded by Myriam Sabet and combines French pastry techniques with flavours rooted in the Levant and Mediterranean. Pistachio, orange blossom, sesame and nuts are used with far more delicacy than in many traditional Middle Eastern sweets. The result is pastry that looks incredibly refined while still having a very distinct identity of its own.
Léonie Bakery
Léonie is a modern neighbourhood bakery with a serious approach to bread and viennoiserie. Everything is made by hand on site, with natural sourdough, carefully sourced flour and long fermentation playing an important role. We originally came for the brioche and almond croissants, but it is a good address for savoury bakery stops too.
Le Comptoir de Madeleine
Le Comptoir de Madeleine has taken one classic French cake and made it the entire concept. The madeleines are baked in-house and offered alongside changing seasonal flavours, making this an easy stop when you want something smaller than a full pastry. We especially liked how such a familiar cake could still feel playful and contemporary.
Union Boulangerie
Union is a contemporary boulangerie where the quality of the viennoiserie immediately caught our attention. The pastry work is precise and beautifully laminated without turning the bakery into an overly polished luxury concept. We originally came away talking about the Paris-Brest, but the entire counter made choosing just one thing rather difficult.
Ritz Paris Le Comptoir
Ritz Paris Le Comptoir is the extravagant end of the Paris pastry spectrum. The boutique takes the precision and luxury associated with the Ritz and turns it into pastries you can simply walk in and buy. The creations are beautifully presented and undeniably indulgent, but visiting feels like an experience in itself.
Best Coffee in Paris
Liperli
Liperli approaches coffee with the same attention to origin and terroir that you might expect from wine. They select specialty coffees from different origins and roast them in Paris, with plenty of opportunity to explore different qualities and brewing methods. We loved being able to take the coffee seriously without the atmosphere becoming intimidating or overly technical.
Coeur Coffee
Coeur Coffee was founded by Erwan Alonso, French Roasting Champion in 2023, and coffee is very clearly the reason to come here. The Montmartre location is compact and focused, serving espresso and filter coffees roasted by Alonso himself. Despite its location in one of Paris’ busiest neighbourhoods, it felt pleasantly local when we visited.
Bel Horizon Coffee Roasters
Bel Horizon is for people who enjoy going a little deeper into specialty coffee. They roast their own beans and work with a rotating selection of origins, with a clean, minimalist coffee bar in the 15th arrondissement. We especially liked being able to order different brewing methods and actually taste how much the character of the coffee changed.
The Beans on Fire
The Beans on Fire is more than a conventional coffee shop. Its collaborative roasting model allows different coffee professionals to use its roasting facilities, while the company also roasts and serves its own coffees. That connection with the production side gives the cafés a slightly different energy from many polished specialty coffee shops around Paris.
Lactem
Lactem combines carefully made coffee with a serious weakness for homemade cookies and other comforting bakes. The concept is deliberately uncomplicated: good drinks, generous sweets and a small, warm café atmosphere. We originally loved the tiny scale of the place, and it remains an easy choice when coffee alone doesn’t quite feel sufficient.
Blondie
Blondie combines a specialty coffee shop with its own roasting operation and has grown beyond its original 9th-arrondissement location. We arrived once in the middle of a large group of runners getting their post-run coffee, which probably says something about the community around the place. Busy that day, but the coffee was worth waiting for.
Torré Coffee Shop
Torré has grown considerably since we first visited and now has several locations across Paris. The team roasts its own specialty coffee and pairs it with house-made pastries and café staples. We originally discovered it when it was still a much newer concept, and it is nice to see that the focus on coffee has remained as the brand has expanded.
Wine Bars in Paris
228 Litres
228 Litres is what we want from a wine bar: a huge cellar without treating the food as an afterthought. The selection runs to more than 500 living wines from France and elsewhere in Europe, while the kitchen serves seasonal dishes that make it somewhere to have a full dinner rather than just a glass and a snack. A particularly good address if choosing the wine is half the fun of the evening.
Soif, La Cave
Soif is a wine shop and bar in Pigalle dedicated to natural and living wines. Alongside bottles, the team serves several wines on tap, and you can stay for a glass with something small to eat at the counter or on the terrace. It feels deliberately informal and is exactly the kind of place we like for an apéro without turning it into another restaurant reservation.
