Before fall fruits got away from us, I made a buttermilk panna cotta (recipe from Ready for Dessert) with roasted figs and a few dozen tiny purple plums that were rolling around at the bottom of an almost-empty box at the produce store. I scooped them up, brought them home, tasted one…and it was one of the best plums I ever ate. No wonder they were almost gone!
While purple plums are rare in Paris, panna cotta isn’t. These days you’ll find more dessert menus with panna cotta on them in Paris (ditto with Pavlova) than crème brûlée. The upside of panna cotta is that it’s really easy to make. It also pairs well with many things, such as strawberries, peaches, and blueberries in the summer; oranges and kumquats in the winter; and figs, plums, and grapes in the fall. If you do make the recipe in the book, I revised it slightly. (See more here.)
I’ve been baking a lot this fall, with the new book out, as well as getting another one finished up. But I’m also doing my best to honor my pledge (to myself) to go to more restaurants in Paris, which also involves revisiting some favorites.
Favorite Paris Restaurants
While Paris has no shortage of bakeries, the bakery scene has exploded as well, with young people really ramping things up, focusing on the quality of ingredients, using grains from small farms to make breads, and taking cues from other cultures. There are the well-known names, such as Cédric Grolet, with 13 million Instagram followers, and lines of people waiting between red velvet ropes for a piece of his trompe l’œil fruit. But I’m more drawn to neighborhood bakeries, like Sain, whose rustic, fruit-filled chaussons (turnover pastries) may not be as IG-friendly as €18 faux fruit are, but are really scrumptious, coated with crusty sugar and puddles of caramelized fruit juices crowning the edges.
And let’s talk about ice cream. Shortly after I moved to Paris, I wrote The Perfect Scoop, a book of ice cream recipes. Since then, my dream has been to open an ice cream shop in Paris, but was dissuaded from doing so. For one, people in Paris don’t eat ice cream in the winter. And two, several friends who have restaurants here talked me out of it due to the challenges of running a business. So I let my dream fade.
Fast forward to now, a handful of new ice cream places have opened up, and ice cream is a “thing.”
And after a so-so lunch at a local wine bar, rather than risk dessert there (although I think they should have offered it on the house…), we headed over to JJ Hings, where Julia Bell is churning an array of ice cream flavors. The French don’t usually add mix-ins to their ice cream, but Julia, who is originally from New Zealand, does, and does it so well, there are lines out the door. Fortunately (for us) on a brisk fall day, we didn’t have to wait too long and I absolutely adored the scoop of black fig-peanut butter ice cream made with toasted brioche in the custard to mimic a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, of sorts. Even French customers, who aren’t fans of peanut butter (although that, too, is now becoming a “thing” in Paris), were lapping it up.
Get Drinking French!
Every October, there’s an annual get-together of the Les Fous de Chartreuse (People Crazy for Chartreuse), an event that anyone can attend. You buy a special glass for €10 and you can sample different cuvées and types of Chartreuse, all poured from oversized bottles called jéroboams. I’ve gone the last few years and also wrote about it in Drinking French.
A highlight is that every year, the monks produce a very special cuvée for the event, available for purchase—while supplies last. There’s a limit of two bottles per person, one full and one half-size.
This year I thought, “I’ll go when they open and get a full bottle for myself and a half-bottle as a gift for my friend Paul, in San Francisco, who is a major Chartreuse collector and expert.” (Also as nice as the gesture would be, he was going to get the half-bottle. I’m not that nice.)
But alas, arriving at 10am, when they opened, the line went down the sidewalk and around the block. I’m not into gatekeeping, but in this case, I probably shouldn’t have written about it. A friend who did wait agreed with my assessment that likely quite a few of the people were probably there for reselling it. Dejected,* wearing my Chartreuse-branded baseball cap and Chartreuse-branded socks, I rode my bike home.
As much as I like the stuff, and even though I found out that “line-stander” is now a job (I’ve already accepted that “Influencer” is also a job nowadays…), I’m not ready to go there. But I did go back early in the afternoon, well after the special cuvée bottles had been depleted, and had a few sips of Chartreuse with the crowd because I’m still crazy for it. Just not crazy about the lines.
Eating My Way Through Japan
I’m taking a break and traveling in Japan, eating everything I can, but I’ve got a few guest posts lined up from friends that I hope you’ll enjoy. (Commenting is closed for this post but will be open for their posts, so you can chat with them.)
More Japan Pictures on Instagram
After I get back, I’ll be doing a book signing for the new, revised version of Ready for Dessert at Smith & Son bookshop in Paris (248 rue de Rivoli) on November 25th from 5:30 to 7pm. If you want to pre-purchase a book, or can’t make it and want to have it signed for a later pickup, you can find info on doing that here.
Get Ready for Dessert
See you soon! Or また近いうちにお会いしましょう…as they say in Japan.**
-David
Remembering Charlie Trotter’s legacy of oversized, and delightfully overwrought, cookbooks. (Taste)
How to cut French cheese. (France24)
What the French do well…and what could be better. (Lesley Chesterman of Lick my Plate )
The 21 Best Cookbooks of 2025 - happy to see friends of mine made the list, and me too. (Chowhound)
Can you freeze cheese? (Martha Stewart)
Deb tackles the notoriously multilayered gâteau opéra. (Smitten Kitchen)
Looking for gluten-free recipes for baguettes, croissants, panettone, brioche, and other breads? Baker Aran Goyoaga has you covered in her beautiful new book, The Art of Gluten-Free Bread. (Aran Goyoaga)
New entry system, called EES, now rolling out in European airports. The machines I’ve gone through at the airports in Paris are often slower than humans (or sometimes, not working), so if you’re coming allow extra time for border control. (Paris Airports)
I chat with baker and cookbook author Zoë François about revising my book Ready for Dessert, my favorite baking tool, and tips for newbie bakers. (ZoëBakes)
Get Ready for Dessert Here!
Here are a few places I’ve eaten at in Paris recently…
My friend Jennifer lives on the exact opposite side of the city. For better or worse, I’ve become one of those Parisians who only knows their side of the city and am not as familiar with the Left Bank as I am with my side of Paris. So when we get together and I have to choose the place, I can only suggest ones close to home, so she treks across the city to see me.
But she turned the tables on me, and the last time we met up for lunch, I let her pick the place on her side of town. We met in the middle at Baca’v’. Scanning the chalkboard menu in the cozy dining room, Jennifer was audibly excited about the raw, marinated sardines on the menu, but they’d just run out. I usually see running out of things as a good sign because everything is fresh. (The opposite is that maybe when restaurants run out of things, they only have a few portions left from a previous service and are trying to get rid of them.)
Either way, I was happy to hear that first-of-the-season scallops were replacing the sardines and mine were super fresh and really delicious, perfectly seasoned with some radishes and beets in the mix. It was one of those “less is better” dishes, doused generously with very good olive oil.
Paris Eating & Dining Posts
For a main course, I had the plat du jour (€19), braised duck leg, which came in an oval gratin dish with sautéed mushrooms underneath and a flurry of fresh herbs on top. I wouldn’t have minded a vegetable or something alongside, but the idea of a plat du jour (daily special) is to have something simple, inexpensive, and quick to eat. But I love duck thighs, so I was happy. And Jennifer was happy when I picked up the bones and gnawed on them to get every little bit of meat off them. (Somehow, French people seem to manage to get every last bit of meat off chicken or duck bones using knives and forks, leaving them as clean as if they came out of a dishwasher.)
Jennifer wrote a book on Odd Bits (described as the “less lovable parts of the beast”). She was delighted with her shepherd’s pie with boudin noir, after polishing off a slab of terrine of tête de veau. I’ve been on a profiteroles kick lately, so we ordered those to share, which were the perfect way to end our lunch…until we meet again, whether it’s here or there.
People are often surprised to learn that France is near the top of the list of the most pizza eaters in the world, and there are no shortage of pizza places in Paris, which range from excellent to just okay. So it was interesting when a new place, Peppe, arrived in our neighborhood, helmed by Giuseppe “Peppe” Cutraro, who’s won awards for the best Neapolitan pizza in Naples and the best pizza in the world. I don’t really follow all that stuff and to be honest, I’m not really a fan of Neapolitan pizza. (I haven’t been to Naples yet, but it may be one of those things you really have to eat there.) But it was 10pm, we’d just returned from the theatre, all the restaurants in our neighborhood had stopped serving, we were hungry, and the new place was open. So pizza, it was.
Neapolitan pizza has a lot of crust. I love bread — I eat it all day — but when I eat pizza, I go for what’s inside the crust. (Except at Oobatz, where the crust is exceptional.) A chef friend was eating a few tables away and when I asked him about the pepperoni pizza, he said it could have used a bit more zing. We ordered it anyways because I always want pepperoni on my pizza, and I agreed with him. They were also a bit heavy-handed with the honey, and I might bring them back a bottle of Mike’s Hot Honey next time I go to New York, although one French company is getting into the miel au piment business, too.
Romain needed a new pair of glasses and, being Romain, it was important that he try on a lot of different ones to find exactly the right pair. He finally landed on a pair at a great shop, Dingue de Lunettes, which sells used, reconditioned eyewear. The shop has become so popular that they can only let a few people in at a time (in other words, avoid weekends), but they’re really nice people and they have very interesting eyewear. I even ended up buying new sunglasses.
[Paris is full of eyeglass stores. There’s a running theme in Paris that if a store closes, either a bank, real estate agency, or eyeglass store, will open in its place.]
After trying on eyeglasses for several hours, and offering my opinion on each pair, I sorely needed a glass of wine after saying “Oui…non…non…oui…non…non…oui…non…oui..” So we headed over to Le Verre Volé for lunch.
We shared a first course of smoked trout with beet puree and chervil that was nice, although to make it more distinctive from all the other versions of smoked trout appetizers around town, I wouldn’t have minded a few crispy bits of toasted buckwheat or seaweed to perk it up. I had the paleron of beef, which I always thought was meant to be braised, but here it was seared and quite rare (bleu), which is how beef is usually served in France.
The beef was tasty, but the red Swiss chard stems alongside were barely cooked and I couldn’t bite through them. Swiss chard is one of those vegetables that needs to be cooked more than bleu. There were also shallot halves on the plate that had been browned on their cut side but were raw elsewhere.
I nicely pointed out the chard when they took our plates away (another diner at the table didn’t eat his either), and they said, “Ah, bon?” (“Really?”) …and that was that.
Favorite Paris Restaurants
I mentioned a while back that I was eager to go to Café des Ministères, which has become one of the hardest reservations in Paris. That, coupled with it being — you guessed it — on the Left Bank, I never made it over there.
But a friend visiting from San Francisco was in town and asked about going, but I told her it was booked through the month. Since her hotel was just around the corner, I said to go over there and (nicely) ask if they have any cancellations, to let her know. And sure enough, a coveted table by the window opened up thirty minutes later.
I loved the appetizers, especially the œufs mayo and homemade terrine with pork and chicken livers served with housemade pickles. You don’t see clams on menus in Paris very often, and I love clams, so ordered the cockles with bacon, which were also wonderful.
The portions are huge here and it’s uncommon in restaurants in France to split a main course, but I asked (nicely) and they replied, kindly, “Bien sûr!” (“Of course!”) The stuffed cabbage is famous, and famously large, so I was happy to share it. The dish came with a bombe of crème fraîche, a word I’ve heard used to describe an overly generous mound of something rich, such as crème fraîche. I’m not a big stuffed cabbage fan so I’m the wrong person to ask about it, but yes, there were profiteroles afterwards, which were glorious.
Pastry chefs in Paris are really having their moment, thanks to social media. (In the old days, pastry stars like Gaston Lenôtre and Pierre Hermé just had bakeries.) But I’m thrilled they’re getting a lot of attention, although I’m thinking all those viral puff pastry desserts being torn apart a few inches from the camera screen, with a bombe of filling oozing out, are getting a little tired.
I’m also less wowed by overstuffed and oversized pastries, and I just want something that tastes really good. And at the Brigat’ bakery, the Gianduiotta pastry (above) perfectly fit that bill. Filled with hazelnut praline and a light cream, it was one of the best desserts I’ve had in a long time. They’re also known for their panettone, which I haven’t tried, but I just saw that master panettone baker Christophe Louie is making his preserved lemon and za’atar panettone again, which is another “best ofs” in Paris. So when I get back from my travels, I’m going to put in my order for Christmas.
Speaking of bakeries, I was at a local bakery picking up bread and saw these…
Not sure if I should try one next time I stop in. They look like they might be a bit of a tummy bombe. Then again, I haven’t had a burrito in a while. So maybe I will.
*Romain said I should have asked to cut in line, which, being 50% American, goes against my upbringing. But he’s 100% French, and if he was there with me, he definitely would have. (And I would have gotten one of those bottles of Chartreuse, so it’s clear I need to lean more into my French half.)
**According to Google Translate.
