Eating
and drinking
are among Paris's chief delights, as they are in the country
as a whole. The capital offers a tremendous variety of cuisines
as well as regional French cooking, notably from the southwest,
you can sample Senegalese, Caribbean, Thai, eastern European
and North African cuisine, among others. There's also a huge
diversity of eating and drinking establishments: luxurious
restaurants in the traditional style or elbow-to-elbow bench-and-trestle-table
jobs; spacious brasseries and cafés where you can watch
the world go by while nibbling on a baguette sandwich; or
dark, cavernous beer cellars and tiny wine bars with sawdust
on the floor offering wines by the glass from every region
of France. You can take coffee and cakes in a chintzy salon
de thé , in a bookshop or gallery, or even in the confines
of a mosque. Bars can be medieval vaults, minimalist or postmodern
design units, London-style pubs or period pieces in styles
ranging from the Swinging Sixties to the Naughty Nineties.
It's
true that the old-time cheap neighbourhood cafés and
bistros are a dying breed, while fast-food chains haveburgeoned
at an alarming speed. Quality is also in decline at the lower
end of the restaurant market, particularly in tourist hotspots.
Yet, however much Parisians bemoan the changing times, you'll
find you're still spoiled for choice, even on a modest budget.
There are numerous fixed-price menus ( prix fixe) for under
€12.20, particularly at lunchtime, providing staple dishes;
for €22.87 you'll have the choice of more interesting
dishes; and for €30.49, you should be getting some gourmet
satisfaction.
The
big boulevard cafés and brasseries are always more
expensive than those a little further removed, and addresses
in the smarter or more touristy arrondissements set prices
soaring. A snack or drink on the Champs-Élysées,
place St-Germain-des-Prés or rue de Rivoli, for instance,
will be double or triple the price of Belleville, Batignolles
or the southern 14e. Many bars have happy hours , but prices
can double after 10pm, and any clearly trendy, glitzy or stylish
place is bound to be expensive.
We
list the different eating and drinking establishments by area.
They are divided into restaurants , including some brasseries,
and bars and cafés , incorporating snack bars, ice-cream
parlours and salons de thé.
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