Travel Tip: Eating Out In Paris On A Budget
To get to it, take the Métro to Odeon on Boulevard St Germain de Près and walk through Carrefour Odeon and then up Rue Monsieur le Prince to number 41. It is not a flashy frontage and easy to miss. The unisex toilets are very probably a historic monument.
After eating a literary lunch, go back down to St Germain de Près and turn left. You will shortly come to three great Paris institutions: Aux Deux Magots, the Café Floré and Brasserie Lipp. It was at Aux Deux Magots in 1964 and 1965 Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir held literary court.
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You can have a glass of wine or a tea, typically with lemon, or a coffee and huddle over it for hours without disturbing the waiters of Aux Deux Magots, who have seen it all.
Always and ever you will see some tables occupied by Parisian lovers. They lean forward over the table with their spines concave, their buttocks jutting and their legs intertwined under the tables. Looks damned uncomfortable, but they do it by the hour. In Aux Deux Magots there was a dark-haired couple - both handsome – who were seemingly frozen eternally in this posture of adoration.
If you are on a tight budget, there are many restaurants which serve better than acceptable food at ludicrously low prices.
One example is Chartier, in Montmartre, which is at 7 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. Take the Métro to Montmartre, come out into Rue Montmartre and take the first turning on your left.
Paris: shop - eat - sleep
This is an immense restaurant, which looks like a set designer’s idea of a waiting room for the Orient Express – always crowded, always noisy. In the old French tradition, the waiter writes your order on the paper table-cloth. At dinner for two, one had fish soup (great), the other fresh shrimps (likewise), followed by veal (better than good) and shashlik (dreadful). To go with this, a bottle of Côtes de Provence rosé and some cheese to follow.
Total price 28 euros, under $40.
If you are on a very tight budget the answer is to picnic. Start off with a loaf of bread. These are called baguettes, cost three francs each, and were the glory of France. Sadly, they have in recent years deteriorated because the bakers do not like working through the night to make fresh batches. So they make them the day before and deep freeze them. Another black mark to progress. Baguettes, nevertheless, are still better than any other bread.
To buy it, head for a boulangerie. Easy to find – they are everywhere and emit a glorious smell of warm bread. If you want the best baguettes, head for the shop with the biggest queues, Parisians know their bread.
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