Affordable eats, Paris edition
9+ excellent and not-spendy and bites.
One day, your oldest friend will call you and ask if you feel like taking meeting her in Paris for a long weekend. The answer should be yes. While I am now blessed with PTO for the first time in years, flight costs for a month in advance for a holiday weekend was almost enough to make me rethink the whole thing. But then I remembered credit card points exist, (shoutout Chase! here if you want to sponsor me!) and because I’m always buying groceries I was able to reduce the cost by more than half. That’s enough for me to call it a deal. Perhaps you’re considering a trip to Paris sometime soon, and are looking for some less-spendy meals to offset the rest of the journey? For what it’s worth, every one of these $30-or-less bites were just as good as the meals we shelled out more for.
Jambon Beurre. The most simple and perfect ham and butter sandwich, with grainy mustard and cornichons. They’re all over the city, but two standouts for me: $5.65 from Mamiche (go for the sandwich, stay for the other baked goods, like the roulé cannelle, and bread); $5.89 at Le Petit Vendome (there were also tiny cocktail onions in this one! mostly worth waiting in line for 30+ minutes, but definitely go on a weekday.)
Viennoiserie. Start with croissants, duh. And always make sure it’s a croissant au beurre, not croissant ordinaire, the former may be slightly more expensive but that’s because it’s made with all butter and no other fats. More flavor! Or just go with a pain au chocolat. Others: roulés cannelle, or cinnamon buns, but twisted like Swedish cardamom buns; escargots with chocolate and pistachio (popularized by Du Pain et des Idées, but popping up at other spots); brioche; savory fougasses. There also seemed to be a lot of babka around, but I live in New York and we have plenty of babka here. I don’t think I ever spent more than $4 on a single item, usually much less. Some great boulangeries to hit: Sain, La Painfacture, Leonie Bakery, Ble Sucre, Le Pain Retrouvé, Pain Pain, Pontochoux Cafe (that’s more of a pâtisserie than a bakery, but if you’re walking around, grab a financier and a coffee. Dine in for a more special dessert, or head next door for Japanese curry while you’re there.)
Falafel Sandwich. L’as du Fallafel is an institution in Paris’s Jewish quarter, aka the Pletzl, in the 4th arrondissement. While I don’t think it’s worth waiting in line for more than 30 minutes, it is very good. If the line is insane or it happens to be closed, like it was this past time for me, walk back down the block to Chez Marianne; their standard falafel pita was $11.77, the one with kofta and falafel was $14.70.
Cookies. Paris has really embraced the “American-style” cookie (large, slightly underbaked, flaky salted), which I obviously love, but can walk 15 minutes in any direction of my home or office to get one of those, so I wasn’t really seeking them out on the trip. I will, however, always stop for cookies made by Moko Hirayama and Omar Koreitem, the owners of the growing Mokonuts empire. The first time I had their small, perfectly round, chewy-centered cookies was in 2019, when I was lucky enough to snag a lunch reservation at the original location. No such luck on my recent trips, but thankfully they have since opened two more restaurants. $3.53 each, we got a classic chocolate chip, matcha coconut, and sesame. Taken to go and eaten in the Luxembourg Garden.
Lunch at Mokochaya. Speaking of not getting a reservation at Mokonuts, the $27 brunch formula at Mokochaya was not only wonderful, but perhaps the best deal I encountered. Included in the Saturday meal: A hot and cold drink (get the oolong cooler or thyme lemonade, and the sobacha, or it’s well worth the $1.18 extra for the best hojicha latte I’ve had thus far in my little life); a composed salad which had a Japanese-style potato salad and sesame-dressed mushrooms; an entree, we got one chicken and rice donburi (possibly my favorite bite of this whole trip?) and one chirashi bowl with seabream and mackerel. We also added on a miso soup for $3.50. If you go on a weekday, they do à la carte breakfast, and a $17 bento lunch. (I have not yet been to their third restaurant Mokoloko, which is a dinner spot, but hopefully it’ll still be open on my next trip.)
Ice cream. When I was in Portugal last year, it seemed like 5 of the 6 after-dinner desserts we went for was gelato. I haven’t had the same love affair with ice cream in Paris, except for Folderol, a natural wine and ice cream shop. A single scoop (I got hazelnut) is $2.90.
Strawberries. I have been in Paris during strawberry season on three separate occasions (a brag!). They are perfect. Every time I eat one think it’s a fluke; it’s not. At the supermarket we got a giant container of stunning specimens for $3.40; and was obviously willing to spend a few dollars more at a marché the next day for smaller container of even better berries. I’m still thinking about them.
Wine and snacks. Honestly you can walk into any bar in Paris and get a very, very good glass of wine for like $11. I’ve already written on this very newsletter about my love for La Buvette. We stopped in for apéro before dinner at Le Servan (not exactly budget-friendly, but well worth the experience). For two very good glasses of wine, a large wedge of triple-crème, jam, and several pieces of bread, we paid $29. That would maybe cover one glass in Brooklyn. If you’re in the mood for another great option, definitely hit Septime Cave, and have a pizza from Louie Louis delivered to your table.
A market-shopped picnic. I certainly can’t be the first person to tell you one of the most affordable and delicious meals you can assemble in Paris is a little picnic with bites secured from farmers markets or little épiceries. For this one, we grabbed cheese and fruit from a larger indoor market, Marché Alimentaire Saint-Germain; cured meat from a nearby grocery store; rotisserie chicken and potatoes, plus bread from Marché Biologique Raspail. We ate in a park next to some of the largest pigeons I’ve ever seen. Simply the best.
One More Thing!
If you do find yourself in Paris, take a walk through the newly renovated Notre Dame. I’m not really a church girl, but it’s absolutely beautiful. I appreciated the “shhhhhhhh” audio that plays over a loudspeaker every now and then. (Tickets are free, but you need to reserve a time.) Afterwards, stroll over the river to Shakespeare & Co. and let me know if they actually ordered a copy of Galette! to add to their cookbooks section?
