A Parisian More / Less for 2026
Some wishes from me and a few Paris-based pals for the upcoming year
Personal resolutions are nice but what about our wishes for the year ahead in our city? I didn’t publish one of these at the start of 2025, likely because I was heeding my own advice and spending time off the computer (in Venice, if only that were possible at the top of every year!), but I’m back with some thoughts; thoughts partially informed by a revelatory trip to big cities in Japan. What hasn’t changed since the last edition of this More / Less: I still want leaders with more relevant experience and connection to the people, and less progressive posturing. More actual progress, less lip service from out-of-touch elites.
I’ve also asked a few smart pals for their thoughts, which you’ll find below. Ready for 2026?
👍 More road etiquette. If I stopped cycling on the regular it’s because it doesn’t feel so safe out there! I don’t need anything to spike my stress levels so if navigating an intersection becomes a scene from The Hunger Games, I think I’ll stick to public transport and my own two feet. See also: drivers who think they’re in bumper cars and won’t do much damage if they hit a cyclist. More collective responsibility, please!
🚫 Complaining about the bike lanes and pedestrian zones, particularly the ones along the riverbanks. My forever pet peeve. A group of 40-to-60-year-old ladies I take a mat pilates class with (in the 11th arrondissement, mind you, which they access by public transport) were complaining before class recently about the city’s car traffic. “They shouldn’t have made the quais pedestrian, it’s half empty during the week!” they opined. “It should stay open during the week to cars and be reserved for cyclists and pedestrians on the weekend. That Hidalgo did a number on this city, good thing she’s leaving soon.” Because this brief and irritating back-and-forth happened upon my return from Japan, I didn’t start a debate. I was drawing on my newfound reservoir of patience. But if you’re married to your car or the idea of giving priority to cars in these times, you might want to consider moving out of Paris.
👍 More well-crafted, meaningful goods with transparent and ethical supply chains and production volume. By extension, more commercial spaces reserved for shop-owners committed to producing or selling such wares. It is a choice to allow brands manufacturing cheap, plastic goods to take up space in a city once reserved for artisans.
🚫 Slapping Maison onto a brand or company name to confer an air of prestige or luxury. When everything is Maison whatchamacallit, the word means nothing.
👍 More independent restaurants and shops built on quality and strong ideas. This also means more bank loans and customer support for such endeavors.
🚫 “Concepts”. I received a press release the other day for a make-your-own crumble shop in the 9th arrondissement. Le concept (the owner’s words, not mine): You choose your fruit, the crumbly bits go next, and then you can add any number of toppings and sauces. I wager this will fizzle within a year, like the avo-toast cafés. Very few single-product shops have staying power (Popelini is the rare exception). I’d also love to see more intelligent use of the word concept. It should not, for example, be used to refer to shops or restaurants whose ambitions are not to become full-fledged brands or chains. As a very talented chef told me when I dined at his first solo restaurant before the holidays, “we are a restaurant. There is no concept. I cook. But French journalists want to know what our concept is! Help!”
Related: I’d love to see the proliferation of extremely mediocre coffee shops, with flavored drinks and interiors pulled from Pinterest, reigned in. The whole point of the specialty coffee movement was to emphasize fair-trade sourcing and quality from farm to cup. The majority of new spots conveniently disregard this, surfing instead on a successful format rather than upholding a commitment to quality. And my personal gripe: UHT (shelf-stable) milk. I understand the financial benefit of using it (and if the bulk of your business is black coffee /pour-overs, fine) but it tastes terrible and has an awful texture which, in turn, takes away from the flavor and complexity of the coffee . (Want my recommendations, updated regularly? Get my digital guide!)
👍 More in-person events, opportunities to gather, engage, discuss and disentangle ourselves from our screens. In my ideal world, this involves books. And it just so happens…
I’ve got one such opportunity in the works outside of Paris!
Women in (and on) Provence with me at La Gonette
Retreat dates: September 28 to October 04, 2026
One of the highlights of my year was the inspiring, delicious, and intellectually stimulating week at La Gonette with literary sessions led by Michael Cunningham (and getting to spend time with and learn from Ruth Reichl among other brilliant minds!). I am over the moon to work with the novelist Alice Nelson, who took over this incredible spot on the edge of the Luberon, to put together a literary and culinary week in early autumn.The week will be centered around the theme of Women in (and on) Provence —talking about Provence as a muse, exploring why it has endured this way for generations of women and what that looks like for women today. A week of reading, storytelling, food and craft. We’ll be discussing writers like Diana Henry, M.K. Fisher, Julia Child, and meeting local artists, producers and restaurateurs. More information to follow, applications opening: February 2026
🚫 Attending events, meetings or parties when you’re sick enough to be at home in bed. Sniffle? Fine. Coughing incessantly, blowing nose, low-grade fever? Stay home. Time to remove all need for greetings like, “j’ai la crève, je ne te fais pas la bise1.”
Christine Doublet, co-director of Le Fooding, writer of Skip the line
👍 More places where “everybody knows your name”. I’m dreaming of the Parisian equivalent to the restaurant below me in New York, where I am right now. The food is not the best in the city, but it’s reliable and tasty enough, there are large cozy booths and seats at the bar and they make a mean martini. More importantly, it’s a neighborhood café, no one is trekking across the city to get there. You run into the same people you see at your local park, your local greengrocer, your local subway stop. Less destination dining, more comfort dining!
🚫 Running to your assigned seat. It makes me completely insane that at train stations in Paris people will full on sprint to their seat. I can only assume it’s to get the best spot for their suitcase. Traveling with French people2 in general is very frustrating, as they have very little regard for anyone else’s situation but their own (see: people watching videos without headphones/Facetiming without headphones/taking the window seat and falling asleep and then being offended if you ask them to move/standing up and getting ready to get off the train twenty minutes before arrival, disrupting the natural flow of front to back exiting… I could go on).
Shelby Chambers, Franchement
👍 What my heart really wants more of for Paris in 2026 is consideration for others. Make space for people getting on the metro, give your spot up to a mom with her arms full, clean up after your pet, brake for piétons. But if that’s too much to ask, I’d love more big interesting salads with lots of grain and veggie and protein options, all for a reasonable price.
🚫 Fewer establishments that market with content bait. Mirrors outside restaurants, the faux flower façades, trendy fonts without any substance inside. Maybe also fewer patrons who are there for content, too.
Phineas Rueckert, journalist, Becoming French
👍 This might be an unpopular opinion because of [construction, noise, inconvenience, insert other complaint here], but Paris still needs more bike lanes. More bike lanes! Wider bike lanes! Protected bike lanes! It might seem like we’ve come a long way, and we have, but large, mostly western swaths of the Paris capital (cough cough neighborhoods where Rachida Dati has been mayor) remain very car-forward.
🚫 Fewer people sleeping rough. Every French president since Sarkozy has said he’d end homelessness yet this number has only increased. Since the beginning of Macron’s second mandate, the number of people experiencing homelessness has increased by 25%3. Will a left-wing coalition led by Emmanuel Grégoire requisition unused homes to address this problem head on? Keep your eyes out as activist groups like Le Revers (a new collective with a unique and fresh voice) try to bring this issue to the center of the upcoming municipal elections.
Jane Bertch, Prompts From Paris by Jane Bertch
👍 More centers where entrepreneurs can come together—places where we can work side by side, connect, share ideas, and truly expand one another. In that same vein, I’d love to see a cozy version of a ‘day bar’ (similar to a co-working coffee spot, but a place that serves wine and opens early. If Cambridge Public House opened a few hours earlier, it would be perfect). Lunch has become the new dinner for me, so a place to slip into mid-afternoon, enjoy a glass of wine, and have a deep, meaningful conversation with someone in my community would be a lovely thing.
🚫 I’ll echo Lindsey’s point here: I’d like fewer cookie-cutter coffee shops, all doing something very similar. It feels like we’ve reached a point of oversaturation.
Emily Monaco, Emily in France and The Fishwives of Paris
👍 More transformative green spaces. I love my neighborhood in the 10th, between the Canal and the Gare de l'Est, even more since a small side road was transformed into a pretty, tree-lined square, and I was thrilled with how the newly green parvis in front of Hôtel de Ville turned out. Paris has been known for its parks since Haussmann’s renovation, but adding even more quiet havens is making the city even more pleasant to live in.
🚫 Massive tourism companies buying up reservations at must-visit museums and monuments like the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, making it nearly impossible for individuals and families to visit them without planning months in advance.
🚫 Storefronts permanently dedicated to pop-ups to the detriment of small businesses catering to locals. (Luckily, the city of Paris has already taken steps to grant my wish!)
Elaine Huntzinger, facialist, acupuncturist, writer of Saving Face!
👍 More foreigners (living in Paris) learning French rather than assuming everyone speaks English.
👍 More money spent on the upkeep of parks and roads.
👍 More availability of affordable organic/locally-sourced products
🚫 Fewer matcha/viral cafés, more cafés with better customer service rather than focusing on being viral!
🚫 Less violence— micro-conflicts among strangers on the streets and yelling, specifically. More smiles and eye contact!
Ajiri Aki, author of Joie and writer of Notes on JOIE with Ajiri Aki
👍 More keeping Paris, Paris: marrying the past and present with taste, not gimmicks
👍 More people moving here to actually learn French and fall in love with French culture
🚫 In turn, fewer people moving here purely to monetize “Paris” as social media content
👍 More saying, “I love this!” when you mean it
🚫 Less of the eternal pas mal + faux nonchalance
👍 More of the art of the long Sunday lunch at home, like Paris used to do so well with les recettes de grand-mère, good wine, mixed generations, and zero rush
🚫 Less paying for hype restaurants where the interiors and PR outshine the food
AMEN.
I have a bad cold/I’m super sick so I won’t kiss you.
Christine is also French
Thank you for all these Mores and Lesses! I enthusiastically agree with Shelby about faux floral facades, both in Paris and New York. They were a cheerful antidote during the height of Covid, but it's time to say goodbye to all that plastic.
I would appreciate it if picture-taking was banned from museums. If someone likes the work, buy the book or the postcard in the shop, and instead, think about enhancing the experience and the appreciation of the art for everyone in the house.