Let me be completely honest with you: I went to Paris thinking I’d come home with a new wardrobe and a handful of Instagram photos. What I actually came home with was a croissant-shaped hole in my heart and an embarrassingly long list of foods I’ve been trying to recreate in my kitchen ever since. Unsuccessfully, every single time.
Paris doesn’t just feed you. It ruins you. In the best possible way. Every street corner smells like butter and warm bread. Every café window is stacked with pastries that look too perfect to eat. And then you eat them anyway. Twice.
If you’re planning a trip and you’re serious about eating your way through this city (and you absolutely should be), then this is the guide I wish I’d had. These aren’t the tourist-trap picks. These are the dishes that genuinely stopped me mid-bite and made me put my phone down. That’s how you know something is truly, deeply good.
Before you dive into the food, it helps to have a solid Paris itinerary in place so you’re never scrambling between arrondissements on an empty stomach. Trust me, hungry and lost in Paris is not the vibe. So whether you’re planning your first Paris trip or your fifth, here’s everything worth eating. From buttery breakfast staples to late-night bistro classics that taste like a scene from a French film.
1. The Croissant
The one that started it all
I know, I know. You’ve had croissants; you think you know what a croissant is. You do not. I was that person too. I grew up buying them from coffee shop cases and thinking they were perfectly fine. Then I had one in Paris and got all the questions about why it’s the finest food to eat in Paris.
A proper Parisian croissant is a whole different creature. It’s deeply golden, almost lacquered on the outside. When you break it open, it shatters into a thousand buttery layers, releasing a warm cloud of steam that smells like toasted heaven. The inside is soft and pillowy, slightly chewy, wildly rich. There’s no filling. There doesn’t need to be. The croissant IS the experience.
Go on a weekend morning when they’re still warm. If you’re not sure which part of the city to wake up in, this guide to the best things to do in Paris will help you plan your mornings well.
2. Steak Frites
Because sometimes dinner just needs to be perfect
There’s a particular kind of magic that happens when you sit down at a zinc-topped Parisian bistro, order a glass of Bordeaux, and watch a plate of steak frites land in front of you. It’s not complicated food, and it’s not trying to be, and that’s exactly why it’s so impossibly satisfying and one of the best meals to have in Paris.
The steak, typically entrecôte or bavette, is cooked at a blistering heat, usually served rosy pink in the middle, resting in its own juices alongside a mound of golden, impossibly crispy frites that make every fast-food fry you’ve ever eaten seem like a sad imitation. A pool of béarnaise sauce on the side. That’s the whole story.
What makes Parisian bistro steak frites feel like more than a meal is the setting. The worn banquettes, the low lighting, the waiter who’s been working there since before you were born. Picking the right neighbourhood bistro matters, and having a good travel map guide on hand makes finding those hidden local spots so much easier.
3. Crêpes: The Street Food That Owns Paris
Sweet, savory, and made right in front of you
The moment I smelled a crêpe cart near the Seine River, I knew I was done for. There’s something so deeply joyful about watching a crêpe being made. The batter swirling across a wide, flat griddle, the edges crisping up in seconds, the whole thing folded into a neat triangle and handed to you wrapped in paper like a little gift.
In Paris, crêpes come in two varieties: sweet and savory. The savory ones, called galettes, are made from buckwheat flour and typically filled with ham, Gruyère, and a perfectly runny fried egg. Eating one standing up on the street on a rainy afternoon is, I’m convinced, one of life’s best experiences, and one of the best eating experiences in Paris. Speaking of rainy afternoons, if the weather turns on you, there’s a whole list of wonderful things to do in Paris indoors that are just as memorable as anything outside.
But sweet crêpes have my heart. Specifically, the classic: a thin crêpe slathered with slightly salted butter and good sugar, folded hot into your hands.
4. Macarons
Delicate, ridiculous, and completely unforgettable
I’ll be honest: before Paris, I was lukewarm on macarons. The ones I’d had back home were always slightly stale, too sweet, weirdly chewy in a bad way. I bought a box of Ladurée macarons, mostly for the photo and fully expected to be unimpressed.
I ate the entire box in one sitting in the Tuileries Garden. All twelve of them. No shame.
A proper French macaron is a completely different animal. The shells have this paper-thin, barely-there crunch before giving way to a chewy, almost melting interior. The ganache or buttercream filling in the centre is intensely flavoured. Real rose, actual pistachio, proper salted caramel. Not the artificial versions you’ve been tolerating. The texture ratio is so precise it feels engineered, because it is. These pastry chefs are artists.
Try at least three different flavours. The rose and the salted caramel are non-negotiable. the raspberry is criminally underrated. For a deeper dive into all the best Parisian bites, this guide on the best food to eat in Paris is one of my favourite references for planning a proper food-forward trip.
5. French Onion Soup
Deep, dark, bubbling perfection
There’s a version of French onion soup that exists everywhere. The watery, pale, sad kind where the onions clearly didn’t spend enough time in the pot and the cheese is more of an afterthought than a commitment. And then there’s the Parisian version -they are not the same food, I mean it!
The proper soupe à l’oignon gratinée starts with onions that have been slowly caramelised for upwards of an hour until they become jammy, sweet, and deeply brown. They’re deglazed with white wine, simmered in a rich beef broth, then poured into a crock, topped with a thick slab of crusty baguette, and buried under a mountain of melted Gruyère that gets broiled until it’s bubbling and golden at the edges.
You eat it in a warm bistro on a cold night with a glass of something red, and you feel, more than at any other moment, as if you belong in Paris. If you’re wondering whether you’ll actually need that cosy bistro energy on your trip, it’s worth checking out whether it snows in Paris during the season you’re visiting. Winter in Paris is its own kind of magic, and soup season is very much real.
6. Cheese and Baguette: The Simplest Meal That Hits the Hardest
A picnic, a philosophy, and a whole life lesson
This is not technically one dish. But it might be my single most treasured food memory from every Paris trip, and I refuse to leave it off this list. Because here’s what I want you to understand: buying a baguette from a boulangerie, a wedge of something funky and runny from a fromagerie, and maybe a few slices of jambon from the charcuterie, then sitting on the grass near the Eiffel Tower or along the Canal Saint-Martin, is one of the best meals you will ever eat.
The baguette alone is worth talking about. French law governs the ingredients in a baguette de tradition. Just flour, water, yeast, and salt. The crust is crackling loudly when you break it. The crumb inside is irregular and slightly chewy. It’s perfect in a way that feels almost unfair.
Pair it with an aged Comté, a runny Camembert, or a slab of Roquefort if you’re feeling bold. Add a cold glass of rosé. Sit in one of the beautiful parks in Paris and watch the city move around you. This is what eating in Paris actually feels like at its most essential.
7. Escargot
The dish you’ll be nervous about and then immediately order again
I’m going to be upfront: I was terrified of escargot. I stared at the menu item for a solid five minutes, told myself it was a tourist cliché, ordered it anyway because my friend dared me, and then spent the rest of the evening wondering why I’d wasted three previous Paris trips avoiding them.
Here’s the thing about snails in Paris: you barely taste the snail. What you taste is the catastrophically good garlic-parsley butter that the snails are bathed in and then baked in. It’s rich and garlicky and herby, and the snails themselves have a firm, slightly chewy texture, somewhere between a mussel and a mushroom. They come nestled in their shells in a special little metal plate. You use tiny tongs and a small fork. You feel extremely French the entire time.
Order them as a starter with as much bread as possible for mopping up the butter left in the shells. This is not optional. The butter is the point. And if you’re bringing the family along, don’t worry, there are plenty of things to do with kids in Paris beyond convincing a seven-year-old to try snails (though that’s a worthy challenge).
8. Crème Brûlée: The Most Satisfying Sound in All of Dessert
Crack. Sigh. Repeat.
You know the sound. The gentle tap-tap-tap of a spoon breaking through that caramelised sugar crust. The way it gives and shatters into amber shards. The cold, impossibly silky vanilla custard underneath. There is no more satisfying dessert ritual in existence, and nowhere is it executed better than in Paris.
A proper crème brûlée should be served almost cold. The contrast between the cold custard and the still-warm caramel crust is essential. The custard should be barely set, almost pourable, quivering with every movement of the spoon. It should taste overwhelmingly of real vanilla. Those little black specks are the tell-tale sign you’re eating the real thing.
I’ve had crème brûlée in a dozen countries and nothing comes close to the ones I’ve had in Paris. There’s a depth and a balance to the sweetness that feels calibrated. Every bite tastes like it was thought about carefully. Because it was. Timing your trip right also makes a big difference for getting the full Paris dining experience, so it’s worth reading up on the best time to visit Paris before you book.
9. Duck Confit: The Most Underrated Thing on Any Parisian Menu
Rich, slow, and deeply, deeply French
Tourists in Paris queue up for beef bourguignon and coq au vin. Meanwhile, the duck confit, the confit de canard, sits quietly on bistro menus being absolutely magnificent and largely overlooked by anyone who hasn’t had it before. This is the kind of dish that makes you understand why French cooking became what it is.
The technique is everything: duck legs are cured overnight in salt and herbs, then slow-cooked submerged in their own fat at a low temperature for hours. What emerges is something almost supernatural – the skin is lacquered and shatteringly crisp. Beneath it, the meat is impossibly tender. It falls apart with the gentle nudge of a fork, rich and dark and flavoured all the way through. It’s served with roasted potatoes that have been cooked in duck fat. Sinful and Spectacular.
Browsing Paris hotel options that put you close to the best bistro neighbourhoods makes a real difference when you’re deciding where to settle in for a long dinner.
10. Pain au Chocolat: Because You Cannot Leave Without One
The perfect ending. Or beginning. Or mid-afternoon feeling.
I saved this one for last deliberately, because I want it to be the thing you walk away thinking about. The pain au chocolat, the chocolatine if you’re from the South of France and want to start an argument, is the croissant’s more indulgent sibling and it might just be the greatest handheld pastry in existence.
Same laminated, shatteringly flaky dough as the croissant. But tucked inside, running through the centre: two logs of dark chocolate that melt in the heat of the oven and set into something dense and slightly bittersweet by the time it reaches you. When you bite in, the pastry shatters and the chocolate gives and there’s a moment, just a brief golden moment, where everything in the world is exactly right.
Have one for breakfast. Have one as an afternoon snack. The French call this le goûter and I fully support this institution. Have one as a last hurrah at the airport before your flight home while already planning your return trip. Just have one. More than one. As much as Paris will give you. And when you’re ready to plan that return trip, checking out the latest flight offers and travel deals is a great place to start.
Best Foods to Eat in Paris – FAQs
Start with a croissant, a crêpe, steak frites, and a classic French pastry like a macaron or éclair.
Most people start with coffee and eat simple meals like bread, cheese, eggs, salads, vegetables, meat, and seasonal dishes.
Look for award-winning bakeries like La Maison d’Isabelle and busy neighbourhood boulangeries early in the morning for the freshest croissants.
Lunch in Paris is often a sandwich, salad, quiche, soup, or a light bistro meal with bread and coffee.
Paris is known for desserts like macarons, éclairs, tarte Tatin, mille-feuille, and chocolate mousse.
One Last Bite
These ten foods are your starting point, your essential Paris food bucket list. But honestly, the best food moments I had in Paris came from wandering into a restaurant because the menu in the window looked interesting, ordering something I couldn’t fully pronounce, and having it turn out to be one of the most delicious things I’d ever tasted.
That’s the real answer to what to eat in Paris. Everything. Eat everything. Start with these ten, and then keep going. And if you want help planning every detail around the meals, from where to stay to how to get there, TravelTweaks has everything you need to pull a brilliant Paris trip together.
You can also browse exclusive travel offers, grab flight discount codes, check out hotel deals, explore travel tweaks hotels, manage your bookings, reach out to customer service if you need help, or visit the TravelTweaks platform directly to start planning.
Paris will feed you back with every single bite.
