I have 2 books (Paris with Kids and Take the Kids to Paris) with recommendations of family friendly rest.
Can anyone recommend any favorites?
Also, we%26#39;ll be staying in the 14th District, a few blocks from Denfert Rochereau RER station. Can anyone recommend good take-away places to eat dinner at home (with the baby!)?
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There are Restaurants called...%26quot;Hippopotamus%26quot; around the city.
There is one just off Champs Elysees. Great ,we found for kids!
daveodonnell12@yahoo.com
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With well behaved and well parented children, ANY restaurant in Paris will be %26quot;..family friendly..%26#39;. The problem you may encounter is that most Parisian restaurants open later for dinner--but you may be able to book many for 7 PM, which is probably best with kids. Most restaurants will have menus posted somewhere out in front of the establishment. Many of these will have English sub-titles. It%26#39;s usually a good idea to check these menus first. There will also be Creperies that usually are popular with kids...and adults too.
For great take-out there is La GRANDE EPICERIE in the Au Bon Marche %26#39;grand magazin%26#39; at Sevres-Babylone
http://www.lagrandeepicerie.fr/
The best roasted chicken you ever tasted (well maybe eating it in Paris makes a difference?..but it%26#39;s still pretty darn great) comes from a stall along the rue de Buci daily street market in th 6th-Saint Germain des Pres...just follow your nose. One small bit of market %26#39;..courtesy.%26#39; is that you never handle the merchandise unless invited by the stall owner to do so.
You can also check out any local street markets in the vicinity. For easy dinners, Paris has more than its fair share of ligth Italian/pizza places and Chinese restaurants.
If your kids have any particular favorite snack foods, it might be a good idea to bring some along, rather than searching Paris to fulfill a craving.
And yes I know it%26#39;s Paris. And, yes I know it%26#39;s culinary sacrilege but....when ALL else fails with kids, try %26quot;..American Night..%26#39; with burgers, fries and shakes at McDonald%26#39;s, or pizza followed by dessert at the Hagen Daz %26#39;palace%26#39; on the Champs Elysees.
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Restaurants in Paris pose two challenges with kids.
1) Service starts late for children (8pm)
2) Dinners are events here, and therefore last longer than most children can sit still.
As a result, you will rarely find locals dining out with their offspring, and when they do it is often at lungh time or int he chains like Hippopotamous, Bistro Romain or Tex-Mex. I can%26#39;t stomach those places, so we often end up enjoying picnics or heading out to cafes for dinner.
But you can%26#39;t eat every meal in, so here are a handful of restaurants that our kids particularly enjoy:
La Coupole-this restaurant serves all day, so you don%26#39;t have to keep the kids going until 8pm. The room is enormous (approx. 400 diners) so the kids have more range of volume and the food is pretty good. The place is also swimming in history and atmosphere, without being too touristy (although the Parisians don%26#39;t usually show up before 9pm).
Altitude 95-more for tourists, the food is decent, kids are welcome and what can beat eatting on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower.
Relais de l%26#39;Entrecote - A great steak frites in the St germain des pres neighborhood. Nothing else on the menu, which means service is faster than your average place, but not an option for vegetarians, no fat dieters and picky eaters. A fun energy though, and one of the few restaurants where we run into toher families with their kids.
For take away, you are near a great market street, rue Daguerre and most bakeries have quiche, sandwiches and other savories for a quick meal at home. Try the Moulin de la Vierge near your lodgings, their country loaf is divine.......
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There is one other thing that you need to bear in mind when traveling with kids in Paris. This is that something as simple as a Diet Coke ordered in a restaurant or cafe will be relatively EXPENSIVE---when you get the check, the most frequent comparison is, %26quot;...I could have bought a CASE for this..%26quot;. And when you ask for water in a restaurant, unless you specify %26#39;..une carafe d%26#39;eau..--tap water (don%26#39;t worry its perfectly safe and quite good in Paris) they will bring you bottled water and you will be charged for it. We once were having a drink at Fouquet%26#39;s on the Champs Elysees one warm summer%26#39;s evening and a family group with several kids sat down at tables next to us and ordered Cokes. When we were leaving, they were ordering another round. I suspect that their check when it came, looked more like a mortgage payment in Brentwood, than a bill for a couple of Cokes.
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I laso agree with restaurants chain %26quot;Hippopotamus%26quot;...In my opinion, it is a good way to have good food in an kid-friendly environment ...!
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L%26#39;Entrecote de Paris 29 rue de Marignan, near Fr. Roosevelt metro stop, just off Champs Elysees is open 7 days a week from 11:30 am to 1 am--you can eat early in evening here with kids, and since it is a simple prix fix menu, service is fairly fast, The steak-frites with salad is kid friendly. That is the major, almost only item. But for the adults they also had salmon in sorrel sauce which was some of the best we%26#39;ve had. There are many take out places in Paris with good food--supermarkets often have good carry out and small shop street market areas can be fantastic. The probably of finding these shops near a busy RER/metro transit area like Denfert Rochereau should be very good but I%26#39;m not familiar with the area. Your hotel would likely know the closest markets--small shop and supermarkets. Some places in Paris-- I%26#39;ve also seen shopping malls which have a supermarket as well as small specialty shops--patiserrie, cheese shop, seafood, crepe/sandwhich shop etc. There was one near our apt. hotel near the 16th and on nights when our 5 person family group did not feel like going out after a busy day, I sent them into this mall area to individually pick out their goodies to take back to the apt. hotel.
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One memory I have of Paris is eating in a bistro (attached to the Hotel du Louvre) late at night, at about 10-11 pm. We were sitting near a group of Parisians with young children, about 7 or 8 years old. These kids were the most well-behaved kids I have ever seen. They were not cranky and I didn%26#39;t hear a single complaint from any of them even though it was so late at night.
What a pleasure!
Also I have know of colleagues who have traveled with their young children to Paris and they have told me that if they are waiting to be seated, they will be taken first over others who have been waiting because they have young children with them.
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I%26#39;ve heard of Hippopotomus and Bistro Romain...Thanks everyone for the other suggestions! I will research them! My son is only 18 months, so sitting for long periods of time is an issue. Has anyone seen highchairs? I%26#39;m assuming that most likely he will be sitting on our laps. I guess the big chains that were mentioned would have highchairs?
R. Dagurre sounds quite nice and the best part is that it%26#39;s close to us. It seems as some open air markets are closed on Sunday afternoon and Monday. Does anyone know if this is true for R. Daguerre too?
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