How to Avoid Tourist Traps and Eat Like a Local
I’m sure part of your Parisian experience means you want to eat well. You want to have typical French cuisine in a beautiful, Instagrammable place. The problem is the same as in other very visited cities in the world: it’s full of tourist traps. In this article, I’ll give a few hints to spot those tourist traps and avoid them. You can also use these principles for other trips.
There are a few problems: you don’t know where to start, and touristic areas have tourist traps. I’m going to start from the most obvious to the sharper tips.
In my very first European trip, when I was a child, my grandpa guided us in the local food of Spain and France, and I loved it. As I grew up, when I heard of people that made a Euro-trip and only ate at McDonald’s because “that’s the only thing they know,” even as a teenager I found that mentality nonsense. If the only idea you have of a trip is staying at a big resort, going to the chain restaurants you already know, and going shopping in the stores that you can find in every big city, this is not the blog for you. But if you are willing to learn how to spot good places to eat, please keep reading.
Airports are expensive all around the world, so that’s the only place where I recommend you eat in a chain fast food or coffee shop. Why? Well, those chains have standardized prices depending on the country, and the prices at the airports will be the same, or just a little bit higher than the same establishment in the city. On the other hand, if you want to go to a cute bar in the airport, it will be overpriced.
This also works for the train stations. I never recommend eating in a restaurant that’s just in front of the train station. Same as for the airport, most of the clients are people that are on the go, just passing by, and will never come back. So restaurants can allow themselves to have bad food, bad prices, and very bad service, and they are always full. These restaurants are not trying to build loyalty with their clients; they are counting on the power of first-timers. Once you get out of your train, try to walk a few blocks deeper inside the city.
So, you are visiting museums and monuments. The places to eat close to those touristic spots have a bad quality/price ratio. The closer you are to the Eiffel Tower or the Sacré-Cœur, the more probable it is you’ll fall into a tourist trap. Once again, widen your perimeter once you get out of that monument. The closer the restaurant is to a monument, the higher the rent they have to pay. To be able to afford that, they charge a lot to their clients.
To attract tourists, restaurants use different visual techniques. There’s this trend of covering cafés with a bunch of artificial flowers. It looks beautiful indeed. Just ask yourself if you want to make an Instagram post or eat a decent meal. If you want to take pictures, go pay for an overpriced cappuccino, and then move on to a real restaurant. Other restaurants hire a bunch of handsome waiters. They are at the terrace of the restaurant waving a cloth napkin, they are smiling and in a very charming way they are hunting their clients. They even do this in English, Spanish or Chinese, which takes me to the next point.
If you see the restaurant has the same menu in seven languages, it’s a tourist trap. I’m sorry, but that’s a statistical fact. I know that when you travel to a foreign country, it’s hard to deal with the language, and you’d rather read signs, announcements, and menus in your language. Unfortunately, restaurants that put a lot of effort into that do not do it with the food. Usually, a good restaurant has the menu written in French, and maybe with English subtitles under every dish. That’s it.
I highly recommend doing like the locals and eating where they eat. If you see that the restaurant, café or bar has mainly people speaking the language of the city, it means it’s less touristic. If your hotel or Airbnb is in a non-touristic area, there’s a chance you could find good quality and a good price around the places where the neighbors eat. You can always ask for recommendations from the receptionist, the owner of the apartment, or your tourist guide. If you are in one of my tours, at the end I will recommend you my favorite restaurants and bars. Whenever I travel by myself, I ask for advice from people of my age, and you should do the same. It is most probable that someone your age has a similar lifestyle to you.
I’ll give you other hints to spot restaurants that are not that good. Not necessarily tourist traps, but please pay attention to the following red flags.
If the menu is kilometric and has dozens of dishes, it means many of the things they are offering were frozen; even some ingredients could come out of a can, especially if they are off-season. High-quality restaurants adapt their menu to the local products, or even better, to the season. Usually they have the “today’s special.” With the menu: less is more. That works exactly the opposite for the wine menu. More is more. If a restaurant only has five wines, that means they don’t care about it, and in France that’s a terrible sign.
Here in France we have many local cuisines. If you travel to the Southwest it is one type of cuisine, different from the one in Strasbourg or Brittany. If the restaurant has oysters, raclette, crêpes, and foie gras all together, it’s not a good sign. If you want a really good crêperie, go to one that says Crêperie Bretonne (from Bretagne). If you want a really good raclette or fondue this winter, choose a place specialized in the products of the region of Savoie. If you are looking for duck and foie gras, try a restaurant that specializes in the region of Périgord.
Paris has a wide offer of international food; you can find food from everywhere. That doesn’t mean it’s authentic. For example, if you want to eat real Mexican food and you cross a Mexican place, first ask if the owner is Mexican, same as for Italian or Chinese restaurants. This is not a hundred percent guarantee, but it is a good parameter.
Remember you can always follow the advice of a guide whose taste you appreciate, like Michelin or Fifty Best. There are other web tools like The Fork, TripAdvisor or even Google Maps to find opinions of real people. I hope my advice is useful in your Parisian trip and in other holidays.
Here are a few of the french restaurants I have tried and liked.
- Chez Gladines, Food from the French Basque Country. Inexpensive, friendly ,delicious and huge dishes.
Butte aux cailles: 30 Rue des cinq Diamants, 75013 Paris - Café de l’industrie: Excellent place for diner with good wine. You’d feel in the time of Edith Piaf.
16 Rue St Sabin, 75011 Paris - Village Madeleine: If you want to escape touristy or pricy restaurants near the Opera neighborhood, without compromising taste and class, this is the place for you.
14 Rue Tronchet, 75008 Paris - Bistrot Victoires: Lovely décor, great food, fair prices. The best quality-to-price ratio in the Louvre area.
6 Rue de la Vrillière, 75001 Paris - La Jacobine: This is an underrated spot in Saint-Germain-de-Prés. It is inside the charming Passage of Saint André-des-arts, and has great desserts.
59-61 Rue Saint-André des Arts, 75006 Paris - Bouillon Pigalle: Bouillons have been historically, places where you could eat for small prices. Still today, you can taste authentic French food for a low price.
22 Bd de Clichy, 75018 Paris