Sweetie, we have Paris at home...

A goodbye to my first love (gastrotourism)

Despite my best efforts, Paris hasn’t ever charmed me. Prior to this summer, I had only traveled there on two calamitous occasions: When I was 12, and when I was 21. On my first visit, I freaked out because I got my period at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and then almost fainted in the crush of sweaty tourists at Versailles. On my second, I returned with two of my study abroad friends, and we tried to go to a Champs-Élysées club; the bouncer took one look at us shivering on the street — we had left our coats at home, because who wants to deal with a coat while dancing? — and said an emphatic “Non” that transcended language, while making the sign of the cross to ward us away. As a result of these compounded indignities, Paris has for a long time seemed to me a snooty place, somehow both too hot and too cold, and definitely not worth revisiting.

Marinated lamb and roasted garden vegetables at Elmer

Yet this summer, Paris was inescapable for me. I was set to attend a writers’ retreat in the South of France (under the tutelage of the fantastic

Karen Karbo

and my fabulous MFA professor

Ann Hood

), with no reasonable way to get there except by way of Paris. Also, there were these constant propagandistic messages I keep hearing — a society-wide Gregorian chant about how Paris is the city of love, the birthplace of all modern cooking, and the most inspiring place for every writer who has ever put pen to paper in the course of all of history.

The food argument was a sticking point for me, of course. Had I eaten well when I was in Paris before? I couldn’t recall. But as a child I was picky, and as a college student I was cheap. Now, I love food and am willing to fork out for it, on occasion; now, I am a writer, like the many who came before me; now, I can force my generous boyfriend to come with me on trips. Maybe all of those factors combined meant that, like a croissant proofed over a long night, I was finally ready for what Paris had to offer.

Breads of various sorts at Mamiche

And I must admit: I did, indeed, eat exquisitely in Paris. I was served luscious cuts of meat; I ate grilled vegetables straight from the garden; I slurped up oysters as my boyfriend kindly pretended not to notice the noises I was making. I had my fill of buttery, flaky viennoiserie, averaging 1.5 per day for the last 20 days or so. (Do not tell my doctors about this.) I sat curbside in wicker chairs and watched people scamper by. All this, I’m led to believe, is the essence of Parisian eating.

But at the end of my trip, I had to ask myself: Was any of it special?

White asparagus in hollandaise at La Méditerranée

Here’s where I should disclose that I am obscenely spoiled. I’m from New York City, and I’ve lived here most of my life, so I’ve had a front row seat as our food scene has become more and more sophisticated. In the NYC of my not-too-distant youth, there were countless shitty Cantonese restaurants and zero omakase bars; I had never had an exquisite croissant.

But the bar has risen considerably since I was a child. I had my fifth birthday party at the original Shake Shack, which was then a cool, hip, in-the-know burger spot. Now, Shake Shack has become ubiquitous, almost akin to McDonald’s, and you can get black truffle sauce on your burger in every airport.

Tuna at Le temps des cerises — I can’t dock points for style

And it’s not just the quality that’s risen; it’s the quantity, too. According to Gothamist, in the 1999 census, NYC boasted a mere 5,109 restaurants. By contrast, as of March 2025, there were 17,619 restaurants in the city, according to Snappy data; that’s two per every 1000 people who live here. (I should also note that this already-preposterous number was much higher — over 25,000! — before restaurants were decimated by the pandemic.)

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since the publication of this very cool article from the NYT on the last 25 years of food in NYC, which revealed to me how (relatively) new restaurant coverage is. Nobody was really reporting on our beloved city’s food scene before 2006! It’s maybe a bit of a chicken/egg situation — I’m not sure whether restaurant criticism responds to or engenders achievement in cooking — but either way, since then, the city’s culinary scene has seen turbo-charged innovation.

And guess what we have as a result? French restaurants. Really, really good French restaurants, in fact.

Oysters at Clamato

I am used to organizing all my travel around food. Every year of my childhood, en route to our actual family vacation, my father made a habit of driving significantly out of the way to have New Haven pizza for lunch and Providence’s Al Forno’s baked pasta for dinner. In my adult life, I’ve mirrored his emphasis on gastrotourism: I’ve gone to Bilbao for pintxos, to Lisbon for pasteis de nata, and I broke my ever-so-brief vegetarianism when I went to Istanbul for döner. I’ve always considered travel something to do solely because it will allow you to eat something special — something you’ve never experienced before, and can’t get anywhere else.

Filet de bœuf at Chez Mademoiselle

Yet, in retrospect, I didn’t need to go to Paris to have steak frites. I could have just gone around the corner from my apartment to Chez Moi, or French Louie, a couple blocks further. If I wanted crepes, I could have gone to the Little Sweet Cafe; if I wanted to people watch on a pleasant residential street corner, I could’ve gone to Anaïs. These are all squarely mid-tier French restaurants in downtown Brooklyn — hardly the crème de la crème of what our city has to offer — and they’re every bit as good as where I ate in Paris.

In fact, the only meal I had in Paris that I couldn’t have eaten in NYC was the cheapest and most inelegant of them all: A fresh baguette, a hunk of brie, and a pat of butter, served with some messy cherries on the ground in the Place des Vosges. (And that’s just because they don’t sell good-quality butter in thin, oblong pats here.)

Usually I’m cuter than this

I don’t think this points to my Parisian restaurant choices being bad. Rather, it’s a symptom of culinary homogenization, a byproduct of the fact that French techniques are now the solid basis of high-quality culinary arts everywhere. Sure, French food might originate from France, but that doesn’t guarantee that the authentically-French version is better. If you ask me, no traditional French dish is still special enough that you need to travel there to eat it. Instead, American lust for French cooking has turned the whole genre ordinary — these days, we have Paris at home.

Things to be excited about

• Pizza is on my mind right now! I just heard that Lucky Charlie, which comes to us from the owner of Williamsburg Pizza and Coniglio’s, is opening on Friday in Bushwick; I also learned from

  Andrea Strong
  ’s latest missive that Greenpoint’s Paulie Gee’s is taking over the old Ample Hills location in Gowanus, which has stood woefully empty for too long. I’m also finally heading to Jules in DUMBO tonight, which opened in October 2024. These are three very different types of pies, but pizza has a high floor and a high ceiling, so I’m excited for all of them.

• Selune, a new natural wine and oyster bar that looks like it has aspirations, opened in Bed-Stuy on June 17. (My point about Paris proves itself over and over…)

• And since the world is getting ever smaller, we also just got Lisbonata, a Portuguese bakery in Crown Heights which seems to exclusively serve pasteis de nata and opened on May 16. Guess I don’t need to go back to Lisbon, either.

• I’ve been patiently awaiting a chance to visit Dolores, a taco-and-cocktails spot owned by the folks behind Winona’s and serving up fare straight from Mexico City in Bed-Stuy. I got a chance to sample their tacos back in April, and they’re serving this pork situation that is to die for, but the website still says “Abrimos pronto.” I’m hopeful that this one is just around the corner…

• Okay this is the last time I will mention Bed-Stuy in this letter: I really really want to go to the relatively-recent Disco Birdies soon. Champagne and fried chicken sandwiches? Dancing? I don’t get it but I want to experience it. Who’s with me?

Okay bye!

xoxo

Hannah