Discover the city through its flavors: a friendly, sustainable, and cost-effective tour that promotes local artisans while offering an unforgettable experience.
WHY IS A FOOD TOUR A SPECIAL PART OF YOUR STAY IN PARIS?
A food tour will allow you to discover products that tell the local story of French gastronomic heritage, as well as the history of the neighborhood we will be exploring, with stories related to the architecture of the area and the historical figures who lived there. It is therefore both a moment of culinary pleasure and cultural sharing.
WHAT DO WE OFFER?
Your guide is both passionate about French cuisine and will introduce you to the best places to eat, not necessarily the most famous, but those with a little extra soul, which is important when it comes to food. They are also a state-certified tour guide and will share the history of the important places we visit.
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We offer four tours corresponding to four Paris neighborhoods, so you can choose a tour where you will taste more sweet treats (pastries, chocolate, macarons, etc.) or more savory items (cheese, charcuterie, etc.), or a mixed tour. You can also make your choice based on the neighborhood in order to combine history and taste. On the map, you can see the four locations: A, B, C, or D.
The gastronomic part will be quite varied: between cheese and charcuterie for the savoury part, we will discover a young baker who makes incredible breads, and for the sweet part, we will visit a French artisan to taste chocolates, caramels and fruit jellies. We will also visit Popelini, who has revisited the recipe for cream puffs. If you want to stick to sweet treats, you can sample jams or discover a meringue maker.
For the cultural part, we will stroll through the Paris neighbourhood now known as SOPI. South Pigalle is at the bottom of Montmartre, and we can talk about Rue des Martyrs, which gave its name to Mont des Martyrs (Montmartre), but also the somewhat scandalous life of the Lorettes and high-class courtesans. We will pass by one of these brothels and, of course, the artists who lived there, such as Géricault and all the Romantics. We will discover the place where Père Tanguy had his shop, one of the few who believed in Van Gogh, who painted his portrait. You can continue your walk by going to the top of the hill to see the basilica and the Place du Tertre, where painters set up their easels.
The gastronomic part will be rather mixed. We will start a little further away from the ‘mass tourism’ of the food tours on Rue Montorgueil, as you will discover a small street called Rue du Nil and a whole series of ‘terroir d’avenir’ artisans who offer products from small-scale farming and sustainable fishing. If you like chocolate, you will be delighted to discover a manufacturer, where the shop and workshop are in the same place, and the smell will transport you as soon as you enter. We will finish in one of the most beautiful shops in Paris, Stohrer, where I will show you where the rum baba was invented.
For the cultural part, we will walk around the Les Halles district. Emile Zola, the great French writer, called this neighbourhood ‘the belly of Paris’. Imagine huge glass and steel buildings, Les Halles Baltard, where everything that feeds France passes through every night. The smell of blood mingles with the smell of fish, and the men who work there are known as the ‘strong men of Les Halles’. This neighbourhood has its own laws and was already a market in the Middle Ages, but also the site of the pillory. We will walk up these streets from the old Cemetery of the Innocents (for fans of Assassin’s Creed, you will recognise the place) to arrive at our little secret street, Rue du Nil (but in Paris, not Egypt).
The gastronomic part will be full of discoveries. After a few minutes, we will arrive at what I consider to be the best chocolatier in Paris, Jacques Genin, where we will also sample some caramels and fruit jellies. We will pick up some charcuterie on the way to the Marché des Enfants Rouges, where you can discover these typical French markets, which is also the oldest in Paris. We will sample some cheese there. On our way to the Place des Vosges, we can stop at Ladurée for a macaron, and so on until we reach the Place des Vosges for a coffee of your choice, depending on the day, perhaps at Carette or, if time allows, at Victor Hugo’s house.
For the cultural part, we will stroll through the Marais district to discover this neighbourhood so rich in French history, from the storming of the Bastille to the establishment of the Jewish community, where is located the Shoah memorial passing by the most beautiful square in Paris: Place des Vosges. We will begin our tour at what was once the Cirque Napoléon, now the Cirque d’Hiver, and pass by the incredible National Archives building and the Hôtel Salé, now the Picasso Museum. So much history to share between our tastings!
The gastronomic part will be a fair balance between sweet and savoury, so you can really choose the flavour profile you prefer for this tour, depending on your tastes.
If you prefer savoury, we will start our tour at Place Saint Germain and enjoy a traditional French quiche, then head to L’Avant Comptoir de la Terre for a French-style tapas break tailored to your tastes, with homemade bread, unlimited butter and a glass of wine of your choice. We will make a sweet stop to taste a macaron at Pierre Hermé, then we will go to an incredible cheese shop, the one that has been supplying our presidency for many years, and we will finish with what is, in my opinion, the best chocolatier in Paris and, as a bonus, a caramel and a fruit paste.
If you want something sweeter, we will start at the Odeon and you will be able to compare the two best macarons in Paris. We will start with Pierre Hermé’s and later in the tour we will taste Ladurée’s, so you can decide which one you think is the best. During our tour, we will make important stops, such as at Maison Leroux, an incredible chocolatier that also makes fruit jellies and caramel, and we will also taste a pastry aptly named ‘un merveilleux’ (a marvel). We will have a savoury stop for some sausage and cheese, and then, depending on your preferences or the day, we will discover cooking oils also for salads, with an amazing quality, and you will learn why they do not have the same colour or even flavour, or we will do a coffee tasting at the best roaster in France. So, as you can see, there is a world of taste discoveries to be made.
When it comes to culture, the name of the neighbourhood alone evokes culture, the Left Bank, universities, artists, the Academy of Fine Arts, and more for all Parisians. It is the birthplace of the Roaring Twenties with Hemingway and Picasso, the heart of Paris after the end of the Second World War with the existentialists (Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, etc.), but also Boris Vian and, of course, jazz, with the greatest musicians and singers who frequented the cellars. The two most famous cafés in Paris are Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore. And alongside this intelligentsia are some of the most important religious buildings in Paris, such as the Church of Saint Germain des Prés, a paradox between ‘the pen and the sprinkler’.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
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