Week of Dining in Paris (Epicure, Alliance, Frenchie, Le Rigmarole and more)

Hi all – I recently took a trip to Paris to visit my sister who had just moved there and decided to turn this into a week of some of the best dining in the city (with some help from the community on helping me select spots). I’d like to thank the community for suggesting spots that served some of the best food I’ve ever had and I wanted to share my experience with the community in case it helps anyone else visiting Paris. Apologies if the descriptions below are quite long, as I am just so excited by my experience. Not sure how I’ll be able to top a week of eating like this again but I’m just grateful to have been able to experience it. The below is a mix of some classic fine dining along with some more casual spots mixed in, which I find helpful to break up some of the more extensive tasting menus. Happy to provide more detail or answer any questions as helpful!

Abri Soba – This is the perfect spot for lunch to switch it up and have some great soba, hot or cold. The duck with leeks and cold soba along with the hot broth on the side has delicious umami flavor and for 6 euro more, you can make it a lunch set with 2 massive pieces of fresh maki, fried chicken karaage, and a salad (this is how you get really full. The shrimp tempura with hot soba was also very hearty and tasty. The lunch set of choice of soba with the maki, chicken, and salad was 26 euro and less depending on accompaniments to the soba.

Les Papilles – This is one of the spots I will go every time I’m in paris. It’s such a homey, welcoming bistro with a tiny kitchen (be sure to take a peek) that has a 4 course set menu. The front of house explains each dish in incredible detail in both French / English. In my multiple trips here, you quickly realize they really specialize in their soup course. They always start with a soup that will cure the soul before a full-bodied, family-style meat main course. This is followed by a cheese course and then a small dessert. At 45 euros with this flavor and this amount of food, this just has to be one of the best deals i’ve found in paris. This time, they started with the soup course of sweet potato mash, sweet cream with olive oil, breadcrumbs, and spicy chorizo in a sweet potato broth. This was followed by the main course, a veal breast braised for 4 hours with breadcrumbs, tarragon, carrots, fresh peppers, snap peas, fresh thyme, and garlic. They ended with a blue cheese d’auvergne with a prune confit and then a chocolate panna cotta (the panna cotta was only dish I didn’t love but not bad by any means).

El Nopal Taqueria – This is a small spot on a side street that serves some classic meat tacos. You can just sit on the street and keep ordering as much as you please while sipping a cold beer. The chicharron taco was by far my favorite, as the others were solid but nothing crazy. The sauces there really elevate the tacos and the spicy green sauce was so good (it should be sold in markets). The pork quesadilla with the green sauce was also delicious.

Le Colimacon – This is a bistro with a regularly changing a la carte menu. We started off with one of their main recommendations, their “snail chips” which were burgundy escargots made with garlic, butter, and parsley. They were in these chips made to look like the escargot shell that you could eat in one bite and truly was one of the best takes on escargots i’ve ever had. They then continued the strong start with an absolutely divine dish of a french toast topped with foie gras, pan fried smoked duck breast, sliced poached fruit, honey and cumin sauce, and a salad of young shoots and olive oil vinaigrette. The fattiness, sweetness, and acidity blended together here to create a near perfect dish. These two starters are worth the trip here alone. The beef sirloin tartare and seabass carpaccio for the mains were very solid, but just were not on the level of the starters. I think duck is where they truly shine here. We also ordered the organic leg of lamb from Sologne which was solid but definitely forgettable. Next time I come, I’d go with more duck or the Iberian black pork if on the menu instead. Overall, it’s a very quaint spot and would highly recommend.

Chez Aline – Sandwich spot that will always have a line but moves quick and is worth the wait. Very fresh, constantly changing sandwiches on incredible baguette where if you don’t speak French, you can point to the items you want in their sandwich that the chef makes that day. Lots of vegetables and salads. I ordered the jamon beurre which when toasted is ridiculous and also got the chicken salad sandwich, which is light and oddly refreshing which I rarely get out of sandwiches. Perfect casual sandwich spot with one chef behind the counter handling everything.

Frenchie – This was a pretty special meal and my first tasting menu of the trip. I have seen some of the mixed reviews but had a lovely time and was blown away by several dishes. The green asparagus with tarragon sorbet, tarragon puree, and gin caper sauce they introduced to the menu two days before dining there was refreshing, acidic, texturally complex, and just perfect, one of my favorite dishes ever. The pigeon with artichoke, guanciale, and brocoletti course and the skate wing with clams, lemon, asparagus and wild garlic course were also phenomenal with the pigeon being a bit richer and the fish before being so light and perfectly cooked, balancing each other out so well. The ravioli with anchovies, chicory, and mustard seeds were in a delicious, earthy broth but this was my least favorite of the mains. The kiwi parfait glacé dessert with sweet/sour/citrusy kiwi sauce was one of my favorite courses of the whole meal. The banoffee dessert with dulce de leche, banana, and pecan nuts also shined. The only area they actually missed was on the amuse bouche (one of them tasted like cardboard and got me a bit worried for what was to come, thankfully there was no need to be worried).

Alliance – Thank you to all members of the this community who recommended this spot, as it truly does fit a 2 star level as a one star spot. The service was the best I’ve ever had, largely due to Shawn who serves as the front of house and who also helped open the restaurant. We ended up being the last table in the restaurant and Shawn came and sat with us for an hour to have some cocktails and converse about how he came to open Alliance with the chef Toshitaka Omiya, the gastronomic scene in paris, and his favorite spots to frequent in the city. Pivoting to the food, each dish was spectacular, with beautiful plating and even more beautiful flavor and balance. I went with a few friends, some of who do not frequently have fine dining, and they were blown away and more than happy to enjoy a 3.5 hour meal here. I would say the only underwhelming bites were the spring roll with cabbage and ginger amuse bouche and the watercress and caviar bite but the potato gnocchi with caviar, cream, and white wine dish and black leg chicken course were perfectly rich and balanced in texture and flavor. These were two of the best dishes I’ve ever had. This onion pie amuse bouche I wish I could have had 10 more of and paired really well with the rice crisp with steak tartare bite and came with a crispy yet soft on the inside cheese gougere with a “spicy stick”. The chef’s use of onion started with the onion pie and really shined throughout the night. An oyster appetizer with fried onions and lemon was another dish that left me speechless, really cool in terms of both soft texture balanced with crispy onions and warm and cold temperatures playing off each other. They replaced one crab dish I couldn’t eat due to dietary restriction with this leek dish with this creamy sauce that I can’t recall the description of for the life of me but was my favorite dish of the night (I had to give the rest of the table a taste who all were taken aback by how delicious this dish was). The John Dory fish course with an extraction of collagen and glasswort and the white asparagus course with passion fruit pepper and dried apricot were light and perfect in the midst of some richer courses. They ended with two awesome desserts, a beetroot, hibiscus, and smoked yogurt dessert and a red, yellow, and green kiwi dessert, along with a lovely cheese cart.

Le Rigmarole – This is the spot I’d recommend the most to anyone visiting Paris that doesn’t necessarily want to pay 2-3 michelin star pricing, as I can say I enjoyed this meal as much or more than most of the michelin star spots I’ve been. I tried writing down each course we had, which were pickled radish, carrots and cabbage, lightly fried asparagus fried in german beer, scallop crudo in olive oil, grilled cuttlefish in spicy yogurt sauce, rockfish with mushrooms,
chicken neck with spices and orange zest, scarpinocc with homemade ricotta and spring garlic leaves, chicken artery / offal (that takes “20 chickens to make”), chicken heart, chicken wing, smoked zucchini with smoked fish roe, bone marrow ragu pasta, chicken “of all parts” meatball with flakey pita-esque bread, and chocolate fondant with oolong ice cream. I was lost for words on so many of the courses and the couple Robert and Jessica who run the spot are so lovely and curate the menu around each individual they are serving, which was awesome as some members of the party were more experimental than others in what they like and some had dietary restrictions. The wine recommendations were also incredible as I love earthy, funky wines and they had a lot of fun selecting some of their funkiest wines. This will be my first stop every time i’m back in paris.

Early June – This is very cool spot in terms of ambience, and I would definitely try a new chef next time as they change regularly, but I really did not enjoy my meal here with the new chef from Napoli who took over the day before I dined with them. The dishes were quite flavorless and seemed to lack any love. This was the only meal I had in paris that I was even slightly disappointed with.

Epicure – (Aside from visiting my sister) This was the main reason for my visit and was the most excited I’d ever been for a meal. Somehow it still surpassed my lofty expectations. This just felt like a masterclass in technique as nothing was something I hadn’t tasted before in terms of ingredients, but they somehow made everything 10x more delicious and exciting than I’d ever experienced them before. From the caviar from Sologne on a potato mousseline smoked with haddock to the burnt grilled leeks with tartare of Perle Blanche oysters, spring onions, and lemon in a seaweed butter (best dish I’ve ever had in my life) to the candele macaroni with black truffle, artichoke, foie gras, gratinated Parmesan cheese, and black truffle juice, they just maintained an astonishing level of consistency and flavor across each course. The Bresse Hen poached in a bladder (they accommodated my allergy to crayfish which I appreciated given this was one of the dishes I wanted to try most) just took the meal to an even more absurd level as I’d never had poultry that was as soft as a perfectly cooked fish. The salmon from Scotland with the tandoori spices, fennel, mint oil, and “rice krispies” completely shifted from the classic French and was so perfectly cooked. I didn’t even know food could be cooked this well… Nothing missed at all or even came close to disappointing me. Every dish made my eyes bulge and my cheeks hurt from smiling at how exciting everything tasted. The textures were mind-boggling as they danced across jellos and purees and temperature contrasts that I had never imagined possible. The service was also immaculate as they quickly adjusted when they quickly realized we were there to truly just soak it all in and have a fun time rather than be very serious. They gave us a full kitchen tour, and we got to meet Eric Frechon’s sous chef who had taken over the kitchen since Frechon’s departure 2 days prior and who kindly wrote a message and signed both of our menus (which they reprinted during the meal to reflect all the changes due to our dietary restrictions). They only do one staggered seating for each meal, so there’s no rush, which became evident in the meal lasting 4.5 hours. This was definitely one of the most expensive meals I’ve ever had but I had no complaints and completely believe the price was justified by the experience. Thanks again to all members of the community for pushing this recommendation.

Le Servan – I’ve seen some mixed reviews but honestly had a lovely experience, and this meal was my first after eating at Epicure the night before. I wasn’t expecting to like much food for a bit after Epicure, but this was really delicious. I definitely went a bit more out there in the dish choices going for sweetbreads, veal brain, and black pudding fried wontons, and they were all cooked extraordinarily well and were perfectly seasoned with nothing overpowering the stars of the dishes.

Faggio – This came as a recommendation from one of the waiters at Epicure as his friend runs this pizza shop and he admitted he might be a little biased but claimed this was his favorite spot to eat in Paris. I wasn’t expecting much given I’ve enjoyed some of the best pizza in New York, Japan, Italy, New Haven, etc., but this shockingly stood among some of the best. It’s Neopolitan style and the sauce and fior di latte they use in their pies made the pizza so light and perfect and just hit on all cylinders. I highly recommend especially to break up a lot of fine dining.