Eating Like a Parisian: Markets and Artisans

The least well-kept secret of Parisian gastronomy: it does not play out in restaurants, but at the artisans'. And a month-long stay is exactly the time it takes to adopt the ritual that structures our weeks: the market, the morning tradition loaf, the Sunday cheese.

Our markets. On the Marais side: the Place Baudoyer (Wednesday afternoons, Saturday mornings), compact and impeccably kept, and the inexhaustible Enfants Rouges, where you shop between two lunch counters. On the Invalides side: the rue Cler, Tuesday through Sunday mornings, which functions like a village. The golden rule everywhere: go in the morning, taste whatever is handed to you, and ask THE question — "What's good right now?" The greengrocer who answers you, keep him: he is worth every guidebook ever written.

The baguette, now. Ask for "une tradition," never "une baguette": the Tradition is protected by a 1993 decree — flour, water, salt, leaven, nothing else. It should be chosen from an artisan who bakes on the premises; several winners of the Grand Prix for the best baguette in Paris work within minutes of both our doors — the names are in the guide. Cheese is bought from the affineur, specifying when you will eat it: "for tonight" and "for Sunday" do not yield the same Camembert. And wine is asked of the caviste, budget in mind, without a trace of embarrassment: advising you is his pride, and your best bottles of the stay will cost less than twenty euros.

It all ends at your place: our kitchens have a dishwasher, an oven, induction burners, and even a gratin dish. A market chicken roasted on a Sunday, the table set beneath the beams or facing the silent courtyard: several guests have written to tell us it was their best memory of Paris. We understand them completely.