This friendly wine bar and bistro is the perfect place to find excellent French comfort food and a great bottle of wine without the hassle of booking three months in advance. Scottish wine merchant and longtime Paris expat Tim Johnston founded the restaurant; today, his daughter Margaux runs the dining room while her French partner, Romain Roudeau, runs the kitchen. The pair orchestrate a Gallic gastronomic experience that lives up to their motto: “We always deliver the goods.” The menu follows the seasons, but the kitchen displays its style with dishes like celery soup with cockles, chives with whipped cream, sauteed wild mushroom with egg yolk and prosciutto cream, duckling filet with Swiss chard and chestnuts, and scallops with leek, baby potatoes, and parsley cream. Located in the 1st arrondissement.

Right in the heart of the city, midway between the Opéra Garnier and the Louvre, you’ll find a cluster of Japanese and other Asian restaurants along Rue Sainte-Anne and adjoining streets. Stop by the very popular Menkicchi for some gyoza and a bowl of some of the city’s best ramen. The regulars love the Le Speciale ramen, which comes with handmade noodles in rich pork bouillon, a marinated egg, a slice of pork breast, and seaweed. Located in the 1st arrondissement.

Young chef Eugénie Béziat’s debut as the chef of Espadon, the Hotel Ritz’s headliner restaurant, represents a daring departure from the conventions of luxury hotel restaurants in Paris. Instead of foie gras and truffles, Béziat’s very personal cooking references the flavors and produce she knows from her childhood in West Africa, even as she shows off her supreme mastery of French culinary technique. The chef’s signature dish is her refined take on chicken yassa, which combines French and Senegalese flavors in an heirloom fowl from Houdan in the Yvelines. Located in the 1st arrondissement.

From the moment it opened in 2021, this bistro à vins in the Marais has been packed to the gills by a crowd who love propriétaire Sarah Michielsen’s hospitality, sommelier Bastin Fidelin’s wine list, and the delicious cosmopolitan modern bistro cooking of chef Julien Chevallier. The chalkboard menu evolves constantly but runs to dishes like baby clams steamed with herbs and shallots in white wine, vitello tonnato, braised beef cheek in breadcrumbs with beef jus and baby vegetables, and tiramisu with toasted hazelnuts. This stylish comfort food is exactly what Paris is hungry for right now, especially paired with charming service and a great selection of wines by the glass. Located in the 3rd arrondissement.

Occupying a narrow space lit by skylights in the Upper Marais, chef Manon Fleury’s restaurant is one of the most buzzworthy spots in Paris for good reason. The mostly female staff is exceptionally attentive, and Fleury’s vegetable-leaning cooking is subtle and sensual. The menus evolve regularly to follow seasonal produce and the chef’s imagination, but memorable dishes have included a tribute to grains consisting of corn velouté, corn flan, and a corn-multigrain beignet; raw shrimp dressed with cream of fermented rice, peaches, and shiso; and cuttlefish and zucchini spaghetti with Parmesan and fresh almonds with a skewer of barbecued pork. Located in the 3rd arrondissement.

In his new restaurant, Aldehyde (the name of molecules that give cilantro its characteristic flavor), young French Tunisian chef Youssef Marzouk cooks some intriguing autobiographical dishes that make his dual nationality edible. With a pastry chef father who specializes in North African pastries and a mother who owns a restaurant, Marzouk grew up as a food lover and decided to become a chef after getting a degree in chemistry. Now, after most recently working in the three-Michelin-star kitchen of chef Arnaud Donckele at Cheval Blanc Paris hotel (“I was fascinated by his sauces”), Marzouk has his own place in the 4th Arrondissement, with a prix fixe menu that evolves regularly and runs to vividly original dishes like a Roman-style flash-grilled artichoke with figs; a duck-filled ravioli in a luscious sauce Phnom Penh, Marzouk’s take on Cambodian cooking; and lamb with an espuma of mechouia, a Tunisian cooked salad of tomatoes, peppers, onions, and garlic.

As long as you accept it’ll be noisy, you’ll have a great time at this popular, narrow Marais bistro with a marble-topped bar. Enlivened by friendly owner Édouard Vermynck, this place feels like a party, where conversations, fueled by a great wine list, leap between tables. Book a table during the second service of the night so that you won’t feel rushed, and look forward to dishes like irresistibly rich pork rillettes from Perche in Normandy, oyster mushrooms sauteed in finely chopped garlic and parsley, and andouillette (chitterling sausage) and chicken with morel mushrooms in cream sauce. All mains are served with sides of hot crispy frites, portions are huge, and the chocolate mousse is required (though the tarte Tatin with raw cream is excellent too). Located in the 4th arrondissement.

In spite of its enduring popularity with tourists, the Left Bank doesn’t make it easy to find a great French meal. For a memorable Gallic feast that isn’t insanely expensive, book at chef Antonin Bonnet’s restaurant. The funky decor is eclectic in a way that reads as very Rive Gauche (Left Bank) in French eyes, and everyone loves Bonnet’s cooking for its focus on the best French produce, cooked with a deep respect for natural flavors. Beef comes from the organic farm of Anne-Laure Jolivet near Angers, and France’s best catch-of-the-day and seasonal vegetables are treated with an exalting subtlety, as seen in the Breton lobster with beet pickles or the veal sweetbreads with truffle cream. Located in the 6th arrondissement.

With excellent handmade pates, sausages, and terrines, award-winning charcutier and chef Arnaud Nicolas has revived an ancient branch of French gastronomy. The space, on a leafy avenue in the silk-stocking 7th arrondissement, is decorated with exposed stone walls, a beamed ceiling, and battleship-gray moldings. Roasts and meat pies, Gallic pleasures that date back at least to the Middle Ages, figure as first courses, before an evolving menu filled with seasonal produce. Nicolas shows off his style with turbot cooked with cep mushrooms, salmon coulibiac for two, beef cheek braised with carrots in red wine, veal sweetbreads with girolles mushrooms, and a luscious chocolate soufflé. Located in the 7th arrondissement.

Chef Christophe Pelé helms this two-Michelin-starred restaurant in an elegant 19th-century townhouse just off the Champs-Élysées. The house belongs to Prince Robert of Luxembourg, owner of the Château Haut-Brion outside Bordeaux, and its sumptuous tapestries, oil paintings, crystal chandeliers, moldings, and paneling serve as an unexpected foil for Pelé’s witty, iconoclastic 21st-century French haute cuisine. The tasting menus change regularly, but are composed of dishes like langoustine ceviche with elderflowers and black sesame, elvers (baby eels) with lamb’s brains, grilled red mullet with beef marrow and ginger, and rice pudding with sorrel and apple. Service is amiable, and there’s a notably great wine list. Note: The lunch menus are a more affordable way to access Pelé’s cooking. Located in the 8th arrondissement.

Often acclaimed as the best vegan restaurant in Paris, Faubourg Daimant aspires to deliver high-level gastronomy regardless of its animal-free restrictions. Dishes show off the kitchen’s precise technical skills and culinary imagination, including items like carrots glazed with barbecue sauce and tofu croquettes meant to resemble pig’s trotters. The tiled dining room is a beautiful place for a meal, and there’s also a pleasant courtyard for outdoor dining when the weather agrees. Located in the 10th arrondissement.

Paris has dozens of North African restaurants serving couscous and tagines, but what sets this cheerful Moroccan restaurant apart is the outstanding quality of its produce, making it a favorite among Parisian chefs. The couscous is made with fresh seasonal vegetables and succulent baby lamb from the Pyrenees. The kitchen also bakes bread and North African pastries in-house, while the wine list features an interesting selection of mostly natural wines. The atmosphere is vivid but avoids cartoonish indulgence, with mosaic-topped tables, lanterns, and candles. Located in the 11th arrondissement.

Young chef Maxime Bouttier first got noticed for his cooking at Mensae in the arty Belleville district of northeastern Paris. Now he’s gone out on his own with a stylish restaurant in a loft-like white duplex in a former textile factory in the 11th. At Géosmine (“odor of the soil,” as in a freshly plowed field), Bouttier works to enunciate the natural flavors and textures of produce. On a recent menu, artichokes barigoule (braised in white wine and herbs) were wrapped in fine ribbons of lardo di Colonnata (fatback) to create a contrast of earthy tastes and textures, while green asparagus was slathered with pistachio cream and chickweed to similar effect. Don’t miss the baked-to-order cake of chocolate, vanilla, praline, and fleur de sel. At dinner, Géosmine serves a prix fixe menu, while lunch is a la carte. Located in the 11th arrondissement.

This popular Singaporean coffee shop — one of many examples of Paris’s constantly expanding global culinary scene — does great all-day breakfast and coffee. The menu is stacked with lovingly prepared Singaporean comfort foods like satay brochettes, shrimp and chicken laksa, chicken rice with bouillon, beef curry, and fried chicken with coconut rice, peanuts, and sambal. Don’t leave without tasting the pandan chiffon cake, and consider buying a jar of the excellent house-made sambal. Prices are reasonable, and the shop is open every day of the week. Located in the 11th arrondissement.

At this cafe-turned-modern bistro, inventive restaurateur Florent Ciccoli shows off just how well he understands the tastes of creative young Parisians. The regularly changing menu features fresh food with a creative touch, like the delicate but flavorful tartelette of crabmeat, tarama, fava beans, celery, tandoori spices, and trout roe. Other recent dishes have included vitello tonnato with artichokes; barbecued rib steak with Catalan chicory, anchovies, and pommes Dauphine; and rhubarb millefeuille. There’s a great natural wine list and a couple of tables out front on the sidewalk. Located in the 11th arrondissement.

Paris is filled with cafes du coin, or corner cafes, but very few of them serve such good food at such reasonable prices all day long. Run by trendsetting restaurateur Florent Ciccoli, this cheerful, popular place in the super bobo 11th arrondissement changes its chalkboard menu daily, but you’ll likely find dishes like freshly baked pizzettes, caillette (a caul fat-wrapped, herb-filled sausage garnished with pickled mustard seeds on a bed of potato puree), and blood sausage with roasted corn and guindillas (pickled green peppers from Basque country). Don’t miss the lemon tart for dessert. Located in the 11th arrondissement.

Chef Bertrand Grébaut’s seafood bar is perennially one of the hottest places in Paris. It does not take reservations, so if you want to beat the line, try to go right when it opens, at 7 p.m., or late, after 10 p.m. The menu changes daily, but offers dishes like smoked shrimp with roasted red pepper and white beans, tuna tartare, ceviche, oysters, crab fritters, and more. It also boasts terrific platters of raw seafood like clams, shrimp, sea snails, and other delights. Located in the 11th arrondissement.

Chef Adrien Cachot’s restaurant is the most tongue-wagging recent opening in Paris. The blind tasting menus are an intense and deliberately disorienting experience of cutting edge 21st-century French food. The austere dining room, furnished with white pedestal tables and black chairs, sets the scene for the chef to push diners’ limits. From an open kitchen clad in stainless steel, audacious dishes emerge featuring strange, stunningly inventive, and almost unfailingly delicious combinations of ingredients. Memorable dishes from a recent meal included mochi “cachot e pepe” prepared like a risotto with pepper and citrus; sweet potato with lentils cooked with anise and sea crab; and veal prepared three ways (tongue, intestines, and brains with various sauces). Vaisseau isn’t recommended for timid or fussy eaters. Located in the 11th arrondissement.

Formerly a blogger and food critic, now-chef Bruno Verjus has a careful eye for the very best seasonal produce from his personal network of suppliers. Verjus likes to interact with guests, who sit on sea-foam green chairs at a counter facing the open kitchen, as he prepares dishes like white asparagus from Alsace, veal sweetbreads with lobster jus, and wild salmon (from the Adour river in southwestern France) in olive oil sabayon. If it’s on the menu, finish up with the signature chocolate tart with caviar. Located in the 12th arrondissement.

If you’re up for an experience, check out this bona fide Paris bistro like they don’t make them anymore, frequented by an older local crowd of habitues. The dining room — paneled, tile-floored, complete with red-and-cream jacquard tablecloths and napkins — is run by the theatrically grumpy Michel Bosshard, aka Bobosse, who babies friends with snifters of prune de Souillac (plum liqueur) and teases everyone else. The succulent, hearty, old-fashioned French cooking includes a house-made terrine de campagne, stuffed cabbage, and a textbook blanquette de veau (veal in cream sauce). Cash only (and it’s a bit pricey). Located in the 12th arrondissement.

Tucked away in the largest of Paris’s Asian neighborhoods (with a community hailing from China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos), this busy Vietnamese restaurant is run by chef Te Ve Pin. Come here for an excellent bo bun composed of freshly made nem (deep-fried spring rolls) and sauteed beef on a bed of rice noodles with an umami-rich sauce. The namesake pho is very good, too, but the pho satay with beef, garlic, and peanuts is what the regulars rightly order. Located in the 13th arrondissement

Even as the French diet evolves away from meat, many Gauls still have a soft spot for really good steak frites. So where’s the beef in Paris? Ex-butcher William Bernet’s clubby, wood-paneled Left Bank dining room is the ultimate answer, with a simple menu of beautifully aged cuts of beef and dishes like steak tartare, sirloin, rib steak, and more. Since portions are large, skip a starter and have some cheese (the Saint Nectaire is perfectly aged) or dessert (the creme caramel is house-made). There’s an outstanding wine list, too. Located in the 14th arrondissement.

Chef Mory Sacko has become a star of French gastronomy for the originality of his intriguing African French Japanese cooking in Montparnasse. The son of Malian immigrants to France, he grew up in the suburbs eating his mother’s African dishes and American fast food. After a job at a big Paris luxury hotel, he worked with chef Thierry Marx (who has achieved two Michelin stars), a Japanophile who taught Sacko to love Japanese ingredients and techniques. Expect dishes like lobster in miso sauce with smoked pepper and lacto-fermented tomato, sole seasoned with togarashi shichimi, and lovage cooked inside a banana leaf and served with a side of attieke, a couscous-like preparation of dried fermented cassava pulp. The name of the restaurant derives from the names of the chef and one of his heroes, Yasuke, an emancipated Mozambican slave who became a samurai in 16th-century Kyoto. Located in the 14th arrondissement.

This intimate, casually elegant Michelin-starred restaurant in eastern Paris is regularly recommended by Paris food writers for a special night out that doesn’t break the bank. Canadian chef Noam Gedalof cooks suave, inventive French cuisine and his wife, sommelier Etheliya Hananova, runs a wine list that features well-priced, lesser-known bottles from around the world. The menu evolves regularly according to Gedalof’s latest inspiration and the seasons, but don’t miss dishes like sea bream tartare with buttermilk vinaigrette; risotto with beurre blanc, butter-poached lobster, and caviar; organic Corsican veal chop; and chocolate soufflé for two. Located in the 16th arrondissement.

The lively young Batignolles neighborhood of the 17th arrondissement is often overlooked by visitors to Paris, but this great-looking, friendly, good-value bistro is reason enough to check it out. Among beautiful flea market finds — old posters, prints, faience, and other objects curated by notably hospitable owner Thibault Sizun — you can have an excellent meal of artfully seasoned, traditional French dishes by chef Soda Thiam. The Senegalese chef hails from Italy, so pasta dishes are also a highlight, like agnolotti stuffed with blood pudding and ramps in cider sauce. Otherwise, expect dishes like cream of cauliflower soup with herbs and pumpkin seeds, rabbit escabeche with tarragon mayonnaise and grilled cabbage, pork-and-duck stuffed cabbage with onion puree, and a made-to-order apple tart for two. Located in the 17th arrondissement.

A working-class neighborhood on the northeastern edge of Paris (and the birthplace of Édith Piaf), Belleville is one of the most interesting food neighborhoods in Paris. There, brother-and-sister team Léa and Louis-Marie Fleuriot run this very affordable modern bistro in a former corner cafe. While she works the kitchen, he runs the dining room, and together they offer the kind of market-driven cooking that exemplifies the area. The petroleum-blue facade has big picture windows, which let light in on the indigo, zinc-topped service bar, open kitchen, and wooden tables laid with cloth napkins and Opinel knives. The chalkboard menu changes daily but runs to dishes like mussels in creamy, saffron-spiked bisque, haddock in coriander court bouillon with mushrooms and potato puree, and egg-rich, caramel sauce-lashed creme caramel. Located in the 19th arrondissement.

Since it’s so popular with young Parisian creatives, including chefs, Belleville continues to be one of the best places to eat in Paris. With a fire engine-red facade and a bare-bones decor, Le Cheval d’Or is a local favorite for the modern Asian bistro cooking of chefs Hanz Gueco and Luis Andrade. The menu evolves regularly, but look for dishes like red tuna tartare with watermelon and egg yolk; pork belly Tatin garnished with red pepper, rhubarb, and pearl onions; and orange marmalade cheesecake for dessert. Located in the 19th arrondissement.

When Paris chefs want to unwind they head for this little wine bar in Belleville where Argentine-born self-taught chef Raquel Carena serves up some of the most deeply satisfying food in Paris. The chalkboard menu changes constantly, but Carena loves offal and fish, and her palate favors tart and sweet-and-sour flavors, as seen in dishes like mackerel tartare with smoked vinegar, tuna steak with black cherries, and rabbit and mushroom ragout with red wine sauce. The bohemian soul of rapidly gentrifying Belleville has taken refuge here. Located in the 20th arrondissement.