Eat, See, Shop & Do in Paris

A few favorites this autumn

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It’s that time of year when gift guides pushing us to consume to excess have infiltrated our inboxes, and that includes French-themed gift guides. I worked on one such piece for Condé Nast Traveler, should you be searching for a more robust selection of French-ish things, but I won’t be doing that here in any traditional sense. The things I’d buy—books, vintage homewares, more books, book-related paraphernalia, food and wine, maybe some artwork or a piece of jewelry—are what I’m more keen to recommend. Furthermore, based on the kinds of questions I’m receiving from readers, what most of you are after are food and wine focused experiences or atypical momentos! So with that, a few recent favorites and a few ideas:

SOMETHING TO EAT

Mokochaya
Moko and Omar’s beloved 11th arrondissement restaurant Mokonuts remains as good as it was when it first opened. But through my reporting and my profile of Moko in The New Parisienne, I have, along with so many others, contributed to some of the attention it has received—to the point where the waitlist for a table is months-long and the clientèle skews very anglophone. Luckily, they followed up that project with Mokoloko, a canvas for guest chefs, and most recently, Mokochaya, a sprawling all-day café down the street from Mokonuts. There, you can get breakfast, a bento for lunch (or brunch on Saturday), pick up some of Moko’s legendary cookies, and a few pieces of Japanese tableware to take home.

11, rue Saint-Bernard, 75011

Recoin, Paris

Recoin
The ultra-chill neighborhood bistro par excellence with constantly changing dishes of the day and a solid wine list. I’ve returned three times in the last two months and it’s been delightful and different each time. This kind of entrée-plat-dessert quality for less than 30 euros is hard to beat.

60, rue Saint Sabin, 75011

PleinCoeur, 75017. Photo Credit.

PleinCoeur
One of the most talented pastry chefs working today is Maxime Frédéric, whom I first met when he was quickly becoming the reason to splurge on a food experience at the Four Seasons George V (rumor has it, chef Christian Le Squer didn’t like being upstaged by the sweets guy). He moved on to the Cheval Blanc Hotel and the Louis Vuitton Café across the street where he and his team (and it really is a team effort) have created some of the most exquisite and jaw-dropping chocolates, confections, and even breads of any shop or hotel in the city. It was only a matter of time before he launched something of his own. And much like Cédric Grolet, the social media showman who has his own staggeringly successful pâtisserie while still fulfilling obligations to Hotel Le Meurice, Frédéric opened PleinCoeur in Batignolles (17th arrondissement) and will remain very active at the Cheval Blanc. That’s where the similarities between the two men end, however— Frédéric is the heartwarming, family man to Grolet’s slicked back man bun and celebrity elbow-rubbing. He runs the boulangerie-pâtisserie operation with his wife and sources ingredients from his native Normandy (including the eggs which comes from his own family farm).

64, rue des Batignolles, 75017

THINGS TO SHOP