What is an expensive restaurant? The answer is entirely relative. In the region, it is quite possible to eat very decently for around fifteen euros. In Paris, it’s more complicated, even more so in the upscale neighborhoods, and even more so with inflation. Those who offered menus for 20 euros just a few months ago had to increase their prices to 25 or sometimes 30 euros.
We crisscrossed the capital to find the best places to have lunch at a reasonable price, while only keeping seasonal offerings. Little hidden gem (Le Véro-Dodat), bistronomy infused in Normandy (Le Rigodon), affordable Korean treat (Mojju), Lebanese vegetarian feast (Qasti Green), royal pasta at canteen prices (Sugo) or cutting-edge pizza (La Riposte )… Here are fifteen tables which are all wonderful surprises, with committed chefs at the helm who brilliantly brave a complex economic context.
The Véro-Dodat
It’s a little gem of a restaurant that you don’t discover by chance. Between the Louvre and the Bourse du Commerce, you must first take the (uncrowded) Véro-Dodat passage. This gallery decorated with wooden windows, paved with black and white diamonds, has the appearance of a time warp that takes you back to the year of its inauguration, in 1826. Between the art galleries, the workshop-boutiques (including that of Christian Louboutin) and a violin maker, stands the narrow restaurant building on two floors. We have lunch upstairs in an eye-catching futuristic decor: a tiny midnight blue room dotted with luminous archways and mirrors, hosting a handful of marble tables. We detect the good taste of an aesthete, Bertrand Cazenave, who was a dancer at the Opera before reinventing himself as a restaurateur.
The lunch option is reasonably priced for the area (24 euros starter-main or main course-dessert, 29 euros for a trifecta). There we find quality game meat (worked by the specialized company Nemrod), like this beautiful wild boar sausage with wild garlic, and lovely more vegetable finds, like these leeks topped with red onion, deviled egg and dill. The homemade focaccia that accompanies everything is as soft as a high-end mattress. But it is above all the pastry creations that attract attention: the Véro-Dodat, designed above all as a tea room, offers sweet gems every day such as shortbread tarts bursting with fruit or rum babas made to order.
The Véro-Dodat19, Véro-Dodat gallery, 1er borough. Such. : 06-30-85-34-45.
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