We recently dined at Les Ombres, at the new showcase for the tribal arts, architect Jean Nouvel’s Musée du Quai Branly. The views of the Eiffel Tower are spectacular and the interior design soothing with wenge woods and exotic African touches. The menu sensual and spicy, with French dishes such as braised scallops with red-pepper sauce and desserts featuring exotic fruits, chocolate, vanilla, and gingerbread.
27 Quai Branly; 47-53-68-00
Bucolic bliss awards diners at Le Chalet des Îles, the reconstructed 19th-century Swiss chalet that reins over a tiny island in the Bois de Boulogne. A small boat takes visitors across the late to the family-friendly restaurant, where well-spaced tables on a flower-lined deck overlook the water. The menu offers such choices as filet mignon with béarnaise sauce and pommes dauphines for traditionalists. My husband and I went there when we were pregnant with our daughter and I’ve always loved returning there, though all the seasons.
Lac Inférieur au Bois de Boulogne; 42-88-04-69
In the lovely, leafy 17th-century Place des Vosges, André Terail, the twenty-seven-old son of the late, legendary Claude, has given a youthful touch to the family’s Guirlande de Julie, part of the Tour d’Argent empire. In the evening, tables set out under the graceful arcades regain their Parisian clientele after the daytime hurly-burly of tourists has subsided. Enjoy the venerable restaurant’s new-look classics, including shrimp with refreshing guacamole-and-cucumber sauce and lemon tart with vodka sorbet.
25 Place des Vosges, 48-87-94-07
Fantastic with children on a beautiful day, but otherwise filled with Hermés handbag, Louboutin shoes ladies crunching across the gravel, the outdoor restaurant of thearamasalata Musée des Arts Décoratifs, le tout Paris has colonized Le Saut du Loup. The place has a distant panorama of the Eiffel Tower, as well as a view across the greenery of the Tuileries garden. One side of the umbrella-studded installation is a café, the other a full-fledged restaurant, but many dishes are same. There’s a taramasalata starter, melon soup with a Technicolor mint foam, warm foie gras with aniseed sauce and celery confit, and freshly chopped steak tartare.
107 Rue de Rivoli, 42-25-49-55
Colette called the Palais-Royal gardens “ma province à Paris.” It is the most luxurious space in Paris. Right under the writer’s former apartment windows, in this traffic-free, regal quadrangle built by the Duke of Orléans in the 1780s, the Restaurant du Palais Royal offers some of the most enchanting plein-air tables in town. Such dishes as crunchy crab with Thai spices, sea bass with olive oil-potato purée and sole cooked in lightly salted butter are beguiling.
110 Galerie de Valois; 40-22-00-27
