Dining out in Paris in August

Adrian Leeds tells us her secrets on how to have great meals in Paris when most of the restaurants are closed for August!
By Adrian Leeds

Every year, the Parisians fly the coop for greener, warmer pastures the month of August and now, more and more, even lots of July. This includes restaurant owners - those momma-poppa bristrots I just love to dine in and write about. You'd think they'd need to stay open and cash-in on the tourist trade, but no, they want their vacation just like everyone else. It's sooo French! And don't we love it!?

Every year, too, I get asked by the readers of the Insider Paris Guide for Good Value Restaurants, what restaurants are open and which are not. This is a tough question without polling almost every single one in the guide. The small independent restaurants so typical in the guide don't make their vacation decisions so far in advance and don't usually post their closing till just before it happens - and in the form of a small notice written by hand and taped to their front door.

Amazingly enough and contrary to what I have just written, each year I find that some of my best restaurant finds happen in the month of August! However, I will admit that they are mostly NOT serving French cuisine - and the owners are not native French! So, while the French are vacationing on the Riviera, the immigrants who are struggling to make a good life here, are keeping their doors open and serving us poor slobs who are still here working, too, not to mention the tourists.

The other restaurants you can count on being open are the chains, and while I don't normally recommend them, there are one or two that stand the test and you can count on for a fair meal at a fair price. Chez Clement is one of these.

Others absolutely open all summer are the big guys - the ones that cater to tourists and have such an enormous overhead that they can't afford to close for even a minute. I don't write often about them, but that doesn't mean you can't have a great meal and a great time there.
Certainly, if you're dead set on finding a sweet little inexpensive bistrot open in August, be sure to call in advance, and don't expect to have an answer or even an answering machine to let you know they are closed. Don't get discouraged if you do -- just dial up the next one and after three, four or five tries, maybe you'll get lucky. I usually do.

Restaurants I KNOW FOR SURE are open in Paris in August:

1) Chez Omar (Omar is a smart cookie who takes only cash and packs them in all Summer long - well on to the sidewalk), 2) Higuma (never closes, never!), 3) Le Vaudeville (the bourse never closes, does it?), 4) Maya (the Jews of the Marais are still hard at work), 5) L'As du Falafel (no way the Israeli's will shut their doors, except on Saturday, of course), 6) Le Bouillon Racine (depends on too much tourist traffic to dare to close), 7) Kiotori (and all the other Japanese restaurants on rue Monsieur Le Prince), 8) Le Bistrot de . . . (the chain of . . . Breteuil, 17eme, St. Ferdinand, but NOT " . . . de 7eme), 9) Chez Clement (of course), 10) Le Palais du Musée d'Orsay (but the crowds will kill you!), 11) Bojangles (just starting out this year and hoping to see lots of Americans), 12) Route du Kashmir (and most of the others on Passage Brady), 13) Chez Paul (they claim to only close for Christmas), 14) Le Moderne (Omar's other hot spot), 15) and Lao Siam (and still busy as ever - this neighborhood does not take vacation).

So you see, you won't starve . . . au contraire!