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Frenchie (5, rue du Nil, 33-1-40-39-96-19)
This tiny bistro has people reserving three months in advance. Gregory Marchand’s 35€ prix-fixe changes nightly. Says one local: “You may start with a fig, prosciutto, green-bean, and Parmesan salad, which leads you to a butternut-squash risotto with lamb confit.” Moans another Parisian: “It’s full of Americans.”
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La Régalade Saint Honoré (123, rue Saint-Honoré, 33-1-42-21-92-40)
Bruno Doucet’s branch-off of his venerable 14th Arrondissement restaurant. “A bit more traditional than Frenchie. Last time I had pumpkin soup and chicken stuffed with foie gras.”
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Saturne (17, rue Notre-Dame des Victoires, 33-1-42-60-31-90)
Dinner reservations must be made well ahead of time at chef Sven Chartier’s cavernous space (in the stripped-down Scandinavian style), though lunch is more like a few days. “The night I went, I had marinated raw scallops and gnocchi that were like fluffy pillows of love.”
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One Frenchman suggests breaking out of the pricey French-cuisine matrix entirely and going to Aki (11, bis rue Sainte Anne, 33-1-42-97-54-27) in the 1st for okonomiyaki, delicious grilled Japanese omelettes filled with vegetables and/or seafood.
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Le Baron (6, avenue Marceau)
A club that’s still what the Beatrice Inn once was to New York—a tiny, slightly tatty room pumping with punky dance music and off-limits to all but a socially interlocked crowd of malnourished-looking artists, musicians, models, and fashion people.
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Le Pompon (39, rue des Petites-Écuries), a cab ride away, is a newer place in an old synagogue that a lot of the Baron crowd has been migrating to. “A reasonably stylish New Yorker can get in.”