PARGuide
The Best Restaurants Near The Eiffel Tower
photo credit: Wenkang Shan
The Eiffel Tower gets over 6 million visitors a year, and where there are tourists, there are tourist traps—a lot of them. The 7th is home to countless bistros unabashedly microwaving croque monsieur and factory-like crêperies piling industrial grated cheese on galettes that have been sitting around since morning.
So let us help you avoid them. In this guide, we’ve zeroed in on the best of the neighborhood’s top French restaurants, including the legendary Le Jules Verne in the actual Eiffel Tower. If you need a break from yet another cream sauce, there are also standout sandwiches and warming bowls of noodle soup. And despite most of the city’s dining rooms shutting down from 2:30-7pm, there are even some all-day spots worth crossing the city for.
THE SPOTS
photo credit: Jessica Vosges
The smoky scent of roasted beef draws you into L’Ami Jean’s packed dining room, where locals and tourists raise their voices to be heard over the chef’s booming baritone. It’s the best kind of sensory overload and a preview of the food’s intense flavors. Wild game is the way to go: Seasonal grouse is roasted with thyme, oregano-marinated duck breast is perfectly char-grilled, and the wild boar stew arrives in a generous vat that’ll convince you that small portions are a Parisian myth. While saving room for their incredible riz au lait might be impossible, you should order it anyway. The rice pudding becomes a top contender for the most memorable dessert in Paris once you add the salted butter caramel sauce and housemade nougatine.
photo credit: Wenkang Shan
You’re so hungry that you mistook Invalides for a cream puff. Now it’s mid-afternoon, and restaurateurs are only halfway through their siestas. Birdy to the rescue. The all-day joint serves a banger of a beef, chicken, or falafel burger, topped with cheese, pickled onion, jalapeño, or housemade sauce, depending on your whims—yep, in a land where you can't usually swap salad for fries, customizing your burger at Birdy is totally kosher. Go after 3pm for a better chance at scoring one of the few seats, or take yours to go alongside housemade fries seasoned with slightly spiced salt. You’ll make everyone on the Champ de Mars chewing on a stale, overpriced sandwich jealous.
photo credit: Wenkang Shan
It’s worth the extra steps across Invalides to reach Café des Ministères’s sleek, modern dining room complete with a black-and-white statement wall. It's the perfect setting to dust off old-school French classics and season them with a bit of 7th arrondissement refinement. Golden towers of flaky puff pastry vol au vent are generously filled with veal sweetbreads simmered in cream, but not before they’re lined with a sautéed spinach base to keep the pastry crisp. (That’s the whole point of vegetables, right?) Innards aside, the menu also features a delicious egg-mayo and some of the prettiest in-shell scallops ever. Sip a digestif from the drinks cart or an espresso before a walk along the Seine a few steps away.
photo credit: Milagro
French food gets a slight New Mexican makeover at this lively restaurant that walks the line between fine dining and bistro. It’s where you should bring someone who’s a small plate skeptic and wants their own entrée. Start with the fish of the day topped with crispy corn nuts in a bright leche de tigre, followed by a rack of lamb subtly kissed with hatch chile. Even the vegetarian dishes don’t feel like afterthoughts, like the celery root that’s roasted until caramelized before being bathed in a curry-spiked cream sauce with capers and herbs. The best time is lunch, when the atrium-like façade fills the dining room with light even on the greyest Paris afternoon, and the two- and three-course prix fixe (€27-€30) is an absolute steal.
photo credit: Wenkang Shan
A gust of wind nearly blew you off the Eiffel Tower—time to warm up with a bowl of ramen at this tiny step-above-casual spot full of office workers and in-the-know tourists. You have a choice of three chicken-based broths and a vegan option, though it’s hard to beat the chef’s special sakaï, a favorite since the mini international chain’s founding two decades ago. The seven-hour chicken broth is topped with chicken breast and duck slices, plus minced red onion, chive, and precisely two bits of grilled onion for a smoky, barbecued-like flavor. You should level it up with the €2 extra soy-marinated egg with creamy yolk.
Le Jules Verne inside the Eiffel Tower is no tourist trap. You’ll breeze up the private elevator on the west side and into one of three dining rooms tastefully decorated in shades of gray, bringing the Invalides and Sacré-Coeur views into full focus. The exquisite French food matches the views. It’s a playful, unstuffy prix fixe meal featuring all the rich sauces and emulsions a spot of this caliber is pretty much obligated to serve, balanced with touches of bitterness and acidity. Expect truffle everywhere, including in the cheese course—instead of the traditional gilded cart, you’ll get just one zhuzhed-up baked cheese that’s worth the €35 supplement. There are five- and seven-course tasting menus at lunch and dinner, but the move is the weekday €160, three-course lunch—more like eight, with all those amuse-bouches, pre-desserts, and mignardises—served at a pace made for luxuriating.
Bistrot des Fables delivers massive portions of classic French food in a homey setting with a zinc bar, tiled floor, and chalkboard menu. The charming wooden staircase at the back of the room leads to a slightly less charming upstairs space—plead with the servers, flirt if you need to, for a seat on the ground floor. The slow-cooked boeuf carottes is a must, falling apart at the nudge of a fork and big enough for two, and the escargot fricassée is a nice departure from the butter-soaked classic, pairing snails with pork belly and roasted peppers. Prices are almost criminally reasonable for the area, especially if you opt for the weekday lunchtime prix fixe of €24 for two courses and €27 for three. While most of the city’s restaurants are near-militant in their 12-2, 7-10 service, this spot serves from noon to 11pm daily.
photo credit: Wenkang Shan
If you believe radish flowers and grape clusters are charcuterie board distractions, turn to Arnaud Nicolas. At the upscale French restaurant, the sausages, terrines, and pâtés are the true stars. They welcome you from their case by the entrance; head past them to the airy dining room where diners enjoy, in reverent near-silence, the privacy offered by the ample elbow room between tables. Sip a complimentary splash of white wine as you consider the ten-ish options on the charcuterie-dominant starters list, like savory poultry pâté baked in buttery golden pastry or rillettes that are so rich in pork fat. Can’t choose? The discovery plate is the obvious choice, with three surprise options like foie gras-laced terrine paired with apple compote or the espelette pepper-seasoned pâté.
If you must eat on a boat in Paris, make it this one. The fancy two-hour voyage begins and ends across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, during which you’ll dine on approachable fine dining menus for those who like the idea of fancy tuiles and flowers but don’t want to have to Google every ingredient. You can choose from a three- or four-course set lunch (starts at €105 per person) or four- or five-course dinner, and pay when you book. Once onboard, it’s hard to forget where you are. You’ll sit on a chair cushion emblazoned with a greyscale city map underneath the ceiling’s silver wave motif. Despite the tweezer-applied flourishes, flavors are familiar, like the roast guinea fowl with mustard jus that has all the comfort of roast chicken in gravy. The wine is ludicrously expensive, but it’ll be hard to say no to a glass of Champagne. After all, you’re dining on the Seine.
photo credit: Wenkang Shan
There are two locations of this pastry shop from the team behind Septime, Clamato, and La Cave: the original spot in the 11th, and another on the Left Bank. You can pop into either if you’re just looking to grab and go, but if you’re hoping to sit down, head to the one near the Eiffel Tower—there’s a terrace and a tea salon with proper seating (the one in the 11th only has an outdoor ledge), plus some heartier savory snacks. The sweet maple syrup tart is a signature dessert at both addresses, but there are always new seasonal specialties worth trying, like a ricotta and blueberry mont blanc or a pretty sumac pavlova with poached peaches and rose syrup.
There are plenty of bistros within walking distance of the Eiffel Tower, but if you just can’t eat another steak au poivre, head to Jais. In addition to traditional French plates like pâté en croûte studded with pistachios, they have a handful of international-leaning dishes like a great tuna carpaccio topped with a bulgogi sauce and zucchini flower tempura with stracciatella. Wherever you land, save room for the lemon pie with sky-high meringue.
