Even before you travel you can benefit from some GLK Travel Therapy to get you over the humps of planning your travels in France.

When you’re suffering from a case of Paris-envy, Francophilia, Normandy-mania other regional-minded afflictions, a session or two of GLK Travel Therapy by phone will help lay the groundwork for a worry-free trip. GLK Travel Therapy is also the perfect tailor-made travel gift for your traveling loved-ones.

How do you know if you need GLK Travel Therapy?

Some of the symptoms to watch for:
– You’re restless.
– Your minds wanders frequently to thoughts of Paris and elsewhere in France.
– You’ve been spending hours searching for travel ideas about France rather than doing something useful such as improving your French vocabulary.
– You believe that you have to visit Paris exactly the same way that a friend of yours from work did years ago even though you have nothing in common.
– You dream of food (cuisine, you’d call it)
– You imagine yourself surrounded by great monuments, wandering through unknown neighborhoods, pressing your nose against pastry-shop windows.
– You imagine setting down not to food but to cuisine.
– You see yourself as “belonging” in the heart of café culture.
– You’d rather plan a rendez-vous than any ordinary get-together.
– You panic at having choose between Normandy, the Loire Valley, Provence, the Riviera and all those other places you’ve read about on France Revisited.
– You speak of burgundy as though it were more than just a color.
– You say “baguette,” “boutique,” “macaron” and “champagne” as though no English words for them exist.
– You frequently long to be wished “bon voyage” and to wish others “bon appétit.”

If you or loved one has two or more of these symptoms then you/he/she may have a case of case of Paris-envy, Francophilia, Normandy-mania other regional-minded afflictions that could benefit from GLK Travel Therapy.

The best self-help a traveler can get

A session or two of travel therapy with moi, Gary, Paris’s premier travel therapist (and the editor of your trusty and uncommon web magazine France Revisited).

Your therapy session(s) will take place by phone when I call you from Paris (or wherever I may be) whenever you feel a bout of Paris-envy or Francophilia coming on. That typically occurs in the weeks or months before you travel abroad but could be a matter of days.

As a professional, I’ll help you turn the dreams of your visit to Paris and/or your travels in France into an exciting and delicious reality by providing the advice and the self-help tips that will enable you to:
– plan your itinerary,
– choose the lodging and the restaurants that are right for you,
– understand the logistics of your upcoming trip, and
– make the most of your vacation time.

I’ll further provide you with personalized tour ideas, child-friendly travel advice and other discreet remedies not found on WebMD.

A 50-minute phone session

As a France specialists, I recommend starting your travel therapy before entering the hellish spiral of spending countless hours searching online for tours, hotels, restaurants and itineraries and before letting your friend who once spent three days in Paris five years ago tell you exactly how you should live your dream of travel abroad.

Treat yourself (or your friends or loved ones) to a 50-minute session of travel therapy with Gary for only 65 euros.

If you or they have got a severe case of Paris-envy, Francophilia or multi-region-fantasies, consider purchasing two sessions for 120 euros.

And for that special someone on your holiday list, humor their Paris fantasies by offering them one of the unique and personalized tours listed here.

Get informed and you’ll suffer no longer from indecision

So don’t just sit back and suffer (or let your loved ones suffer) from Francophilia or Paris-envy or Normandy-mania and other regional-minded afflictions. Get on track to the trip that’s right you with a session or more of GLK Travel Therapy with me by phone, or in person. Yes, you or they can have travel therapy in Paris over café or wine.

Write to me personally at gary [at] francerevisited.com to arrange a session of travel therapy or to purchase a travel therapy gift certificate for your friends who may be suffering from Paris-envy.

Be kind to yourself, get travel therapy with a professional Paris-based travel specialist.

Gary

Gary Lee Kraut
Editor, journalist, travel therapist
gary [at] francerevisited.com

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That’s quite a small number considering the breadth of the Paris restaurant scene.

Imagine, you spend countless hours compiling names from newspapers, magazines and blogs, questioning friends and colleagues about their recent trip to Paris, then cross-checking with guidebooks and Tripadvisor. You’ve finally drawn up a selection of a dozen restaurants intended to be a reflection of your personality, taste and budget, yet it’s nearly the same as that of every other list-making American visiting Paris. Unbeknownst to you, you have compiled the current American Paris Restaurant List.

I know this to be true because I receive dozens such lists each year from travelers seeking my help in whittling it down to a few choice selections and I notice that about 70% of every list is the same. High-end travelers will add a few more stellar restaurants (always the same few) and budget travelers will add a few more cheap eats (always the same few) but the mid-list is largely the same, give or take a few selections from American Paris Restaurant Lists of years past.

This is not to say that the selections on The List are bad or that you will not enjoy a meal there (if you’ve reserved well in advance). But I’d like you to broaden your sense of worthy restaurants in the great if battered food city of Paris.

Why is everyone’s list be so similar?

As list-carriers are well aware, the American Paris Restaurant List isn’t about high gastronomy as might be ranked by Michelin stars but about the promise of an exceptional meal or atmosphere or character in other categories of restaurant, often in the upper mid-price / lower high-price range.

Though some outstanding selections will earn a spot on The List in a given year, what especially gets a restaurant onto it is its buzz, or the echo of its buzz of years past. The buzz generally starts off when a few major publications or journalists known for their food writing applaud a champion. Other journalists, travel writers and bloggers, some knowledgeable, some not, then echo that applause. From higher up on the bleachers then comes the loud roar of approval from your close and trusted friends on Tripadvisor. Superlatives get abused along the way, and soon a restaurant appears in your research to be unique and in a class of its own—incontournable, to use the French adjective that describes something that can’t be overlooked.

The passage of a celebrity may push a decent if unexceptional restaurant onto The List (for a while there everyone’s list suddenly included the restaurant where the Obamas ate even though it had been around for years). Meanwhile, far too many travelers are taking as gospel the restaurants listed under such clickable titles such as “Top 5 Bistros in Paris,” “10 Must-Eats in Paris,” “Where to Find the Best [Name Dish] in Paris” or “10 Great Paris Restaurants that Food Writers Keep to Themselves,” even though those restaurants may have been compiled by list-makers unlikely to have extensive direct knowledge of the Paris food scene. Put these all together and The American Paris Restaurant List is born.

Travelers wishing to know which restaurants and wine bars currently have the loudest buzz and the largest English-speaking clientele are therefore well served by The American Paris Restaurant List. (I insist on the Americanness of the list because other foreign visitors to Paris have their national lists as well.)

Do all of the restaurants on the American Visiting Paris Restaurant List truly stand out beyond the rest in terms of quality, atmosphere or class?

No!

Well, some on The List may indeed be excellent choices in their category, one or two may be truly unique or have something exceptional to offer, and others may be quite decent dining options. But the Paris restaurant-scape is too vast to limit yourselves to the same handful of choices as everyone else… and then to feel disappointed when you can’t get a reservation at one of them.

Furthermore, by virtue of being on The List those restaurants require reservations further in advance than what most Parisians would consider reasonable. (Anything more than 72 hours is unreasonable from where I sit.)

Cynics will say that what many list-carrying travelers really want is to be able to tell friends back home that that they ate at one of the year’s “it” restaurants in Paris. While that may be true for some travelers, I believe that most list carriers fall into three other categories:

1. Foodies and gastronomes who are truly curious to discover first-hand what makes the (American) headlines, whether or not it scores them points with friends back home.

2. Novelty seekers. (Novelty seekers are, however, hereby warned that the American Paris Restaurant List contains a heavy dose of old news from the point of view of hipsters, gastronomes and neighborhood explorers living in Paris).

3. Visitors looking for a memorable lunching or dining experience who don’t know where else to turn than to the consensus recommendations represented by The List.

To all of those I say: Don’t throw away The List, but do take it as just one piece of the large and personal puzzle of your enjoyment of the Paris restaurant adventure.

The traveler’s dilemma

I sympathize with the dilemma that visitors from afar have in selecting restaurants in Paris, particularly for dinner. And I understand the concern of those who don’t want to miss out on a meal at a hot property. As I say, The List does indeed contain many worthy selections, so enjoy the research if that whets your appetite—after all, part of the fun of this trip is the planning.

Over-planning can, however, be counterproductive; a bit of serendipity will actually enhance your enjoyment of the Paris restaurant adventure. Fretting about not having a reservation for every evening is unnecessary. For all the advice I give throughout the year, travelers, whether list-carriers or not, will often write to me after their trip to tell me about some great little restaurant they discovered (through a knowledgeable friend, on their own, from a blog, perhaps through me) that was not on The List. That, it turns out, is what most of us truly want: the memorable restaurant that we entered without great expectations, the one that we didn’t reserve more than a day in advance, the eatery that was not extensively described, decorticated and photographed for us in advance, “the nice local/little bistro” that wasn’t even on The List. (“The nice local/little bistro” is actually the type of restaurant that nearly every traveler, whether upscale, downscale or in between, asks me to recommend.)

A list beyond The List

It would be unfair of me to cast doubt upon The List without adding some suggestions to broaden it. I’ve therefore asked six Paris-based French and American foodies, gastronomes and food writers—Alexander Lobrano, Michel Tanguy, Corinne LaBalme, Allison Zinder, Alain Neyman and Randy Diaz—to suggest eateries that they’ve enjoyed recently that may not be on the current buzz list. To their 15 suggestions I’ve added 10 of my own.

You’ll find all of them in Part 2 of 25 Paris Restaurants: A List Beyond The List.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

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• L’addition, s’il vous plaît, with or without air writing, means “The bill, please.”

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The French often choose either rosé and à point, which are typically translated as medium rare or medium, but are closer to what we would consider as rare and medium rare. You may therefore wish to say bien cuit, literally “well done,” to have meat served to the American notion of medium or medium well. In order to assure that it’s well done specify très bien cuit.

Duck and game are frequently served rosé (medium rare to rare), so you must specify if you prefer them otherwise.

It is also not unusual for a Frenchman to order beef saignant, literally meaning bloody and thus truly rare, or even bleu, which gives it no more than a quick flip on the grill. Beyond that there’s steak tartare, uncooked lean ground beef mixed with raw egg yolk, to which capers, chopped onions and parsley are added to make it appear less Neanderthal.

Waiters in Paris actually often ask “Medium?” when trying to help English speakers through carnivorous confusion. But your waiter’s sense of medium and your sense of medium may be an ocean apart. (I must add from the reverse point of view that four time of five when I order beef medium rare in the U.S. it emerges overcooked.)

Finally, Americans are accustomed to eating grilled meats that are easily taken back and thrown on the grill for an extra minute or two. But French sauces, not to mention French waiters, make doing so a more awkward proposition.

You may have to suffer through a learning curve on this one.

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• Le Menu. The French call the fixed-price menu le menu. Two-course menus (starter + main course or main course + dessert) or three-course menus (starter + main course + cheese or dessert) are often available at lunch. Most menus for dinner consist of three courses.
• La Carte. The bill of fare that we call “the menu” in English is called la carte (literally, the card) in French. A la carte, therefore, refers to choices and choosing outside of the fixed-price menu. When ordering à la carte you may naturally order whatever courses you want. Descriptions on this site sometimes indicate the average range of prices for three courses selected à la carte (also noted here as ALC). Exceptionally higher or lower priced dishes have been excluded in that average range.
• Menu/Carte. The term menu/carte indicates that the restaurant’s bill of fare comes to a fixed price whatever you chose for three courses. In other words, aside from several dishes that may have a small supplement, the starters are all the same price, the main courses are all the same price, and the desserts are all the same price.

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The Hollywood Sitcom Writer’s Handbook instructs writers that one sure way to show your character to be an ordinary, fun-loving guy is to place him and his girlfriend, wife or in-laws in a French restaurant, direct the waiter to look down his nose at the guy, have someone say “Grey Poupon,” then turn up the laugh track. Yuck, yuck. Everyone loves to make fun of French waiters, but some travelers seem to get special pleasure from returning home with stories about rude maitre d’s and pompous waiters, stories that they hold up as certified proof that the French hate Americans.

Bad or snooty service is indeed the most common complaint from overseas travelers in Paris. I’ve got my own horror stories. But travelers who repeatedly find themselves in such situations have to share the blame: either they haven’t figured out that they’re not at Hooters or they’ve been following the wrong restaurant advice.

This isn’t an apology for either surly service or for the waiter who ignores your table, just a warning that the American notions of good service and the French notions of good service are not the same. Understanding the fundamentals of French, more particularly Parisian, service – efficiency, discretion, professionalism – is the best way to benefit from rather than clash with it.

Efficiency. Efficiency means nothing more nor less than this: Dishes are properly served and cleared and if you want something the waiter will get it for you, without undue hesitation.

As a foreigner you will naturally have more questions about dishes than the average French person would, besides which you may be asking them in English. Answering questions is naturally a part of the waiter’s job, and many waiters are indeed accustomed to responding in English. But from the point of view of a waiter striving for efficiency the foreign client can come across as slow and demanding, even if he’s simply a client in need of assistance. Your waiter may or may not enjoy the frustration of trying to explain the difference between an entrecôte, a faux-filet, and a rumsteack. In either case, since French waiters are not good at faking a smile, yours may not have the facial reflex to hide his impatience.

An efficient waiter has nothing against you taking your time when ordering, he just doesn’t like you taking his time, and so he will be quick to leave your side so that you can reflect on the issues of the day without him.

An efficient waiter isn’t necessarily friendly, charming, or cheery, nor will he stop by frequently or even occasionally to see if everything is alright. As a general rule, if you need an efficient waiter he will come, if you don’t need him he will not come, and if you need him too often he will ignore you.

Discretion. Some travelers start off on the wrong foot by trying to get a waiter to laugh at their jokes. Big mistake! Unlike the tight-bunned flight attendant in business class who will open her heavily painted mouth in exaggerated delight to every dull-witted comment an upgraded client may make, Parisian waiters do not laugh. They don’t laugh in French and they don’t laugh in English. Kind and amiable French waiters do exist, but don’t expect even those to be overjoyed to see you or attempt to impress you with their outgoing personality.

Many Americans believe, wrongly, that the lack of expression of a French waiter is a result of their livelihood not being dependant on your gratitude since the gratuity in France is always included in the bill. But tipping is almost equally obligatory in the U.S., the only real difference being that in the US we do the math badly and in France they do the math automatically. So it isn’t exactly the tip that makes French waiters appear or act cold or aloof to us. It’s French culture, one of whose prime tenets is discretion: don’t ask, don’t tell.

Discretion is a guiding force in business and service and neighborly relations in France. Discretion involves a combination of reserve, detachment, disinterest, and politeness. In a restaurant, this implies a certain distance between the staff and the customer. The French restaurant-goer is accustomed to that distance and often demands it. The French waiter is not expected to be a part of the entertainment.

A discreet waiter keeps his distance, speaks minimally, answers your questions succinctly, and takes your order. When he approaches the table he does so in the least obtrusive way, so that you may continue your conversation as he clears or delivers plates. One naturally expects and receives greater attention from waiters as price and space between tables increase, but such attention generally leads to glasses that never empty rather than to increased dialogue with the staff. (Actually, in finer restaurants you will encounter someone interested in an engaging conversation with the table: the sommelier or wine steward.)

Otherwise, forget any preconceived notion that good service means service with a smile. Service with a smile is rarely on the menu here. Do not feel snubbed by your waiter’s lack of expression. Au contraire, discreet French service means gracious dispassion.

Professionalism. In France, waiters are not hopeful actors, part-time students, nurses with a second job, job-hunters who haven’t yet found something better to do. French waiters are professionals in the restaurant business. Their career ambitions likely involve owning or managing their own restaurant or café. And they get employee health coverage. Sometimes their very professionalism leads them to approach the table like a surgeon with no bedside manner; you need some veal kidneys, you’ll get veal kidneys.

As a service professional, your waiter expects to serve, but he also expects to be treated like a professional. A request for a waiter’s attention should begin with S’il vous plaît. If you wish to address him by title you would call him monsieur—madame or mademoiselle for a woman.

Your professional, efficient, discreet waiter would like to believe that he is very much in tune with the rhythms of your meal. In theory, then, you should barely have to instruct him at all once you’ve ordered. As the meal proceeds you may then find that your waiter is so accustomed to French rhythms (e.g. coffee served after dessert rather than with dessert) that he may unintentionally (we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt) ignore a request that goes against the cultural grain.

Do not take this (or any of your waiter’s reactions) personally. If you do, and if you approach the French, particularly French service people, with the attitude “If not for us they’d be speaking German,” you may be setting yourself up for a bit more confrontation than is called for.

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If you’d like to experience a top or very popular restaurant, it’s of course advisable to reserve several weeks or more in advance. Lunch reservations in such restaurants are typically easier to come by than dinner reservations. If you’ve got your appetite set on a top restaurant, then it’s likely that you’re staying in a luxury hotel, in which case your concierge will be the best bet for getting the reservation. Having said that, one way to snag an elusive table is to call the day you wish to go there or the day before. Since top restaurants require confirmation the day before (sometimes by noon for an evening reservation) you may luck into a recently cancelled or unconfirmed reservation. There’s no harm in trying.

If you have your appetite set on any other particular restaurant you should at least call (or have the hotel call) before showing up. If you pass by a restaurant of interest during a touring day you might stop by and reserve then. Most bistros, brasseries, and regional restaurants will be able to accommodate you with little or no advance notice.

Lunch is typically served noon to 2 p.m., though you may stay seated later. Aside from brasseries, some bistros, and very touristy or fast food places, restaurants rarely open for dinner before 7:30, and typically not until 8 p.m.

(If you are invited to a Parisians home for dinner the invitation will usually be for about 8. Don’t arrive early unless you wish to see your hosts in a panic to get ready. Arrive 10 minutes after the appointed hour and you’ll find them cool as cucumbers. Dinner is served after the aperitif, and only a nervous host rushes the aperitif.)

The time of the last order in a restaurant, meaning the latest you can arrive or reserve, varies from place to place and often depends on the type of restaurant. In Paris most restaurants will accept new arrivals until 10/10:30 p.m., perhaps later. (In small-town France you may be out of luck after 9:30 p.m.) You can then generally stay seated well past midnight. There is a natural tendency for thriving restaurants to funnel reservations into two dinner seatings, one beginning 8-8:30 p.m., the other 10-10:30 p.m. Citadels of high gastronomy typically have a single seating.

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