It’s really no secret that I love food. So much so, that I designed an entire trip to France around eating and exploring our way through some of the country’s most amazing culinary experiences. Our journey began on Christmas day with a quick stopover to see some family in Chicago and then an evening flight to Paris where we would rendezvous with some old friends from New York. We planed to stay in Paris for a few days, then TGV to Beaujolais, and finally end up in Lyon, the gastronomique heart of country.
The first part of our journey involved living it up at the Park Hyatt Place Vendome. Thankfully our €800 per night room was covered by some free night vouchers from Hyatt Gold Passport, otherwise our eating budget would have been a bit hampered! As expected, the property was understatedly elegant.
Our room had high ceilings, Rodin-esque sculptures, wonderful linens, and a comfortable bathroom that could be opened to the entire room, but it’s the location in the middle of Place Vendome that commands a premium. The Park Hyatt was nice enough to include breakfast with our room, which otherwise would have been €50 a person, and frankly not worth it by any stretch of the imagination. The property has only 160 rooms spread between a couple of seamlessly interconnected buildings which gives the property a decidedly hushed and private feel. As to be expected, service was was stellar and inconspicuous.
I will spare the details of most of our jaunt through Paris since there is more than enough written on the city, but suffice to say, it was a delightful mix of shopping, sightseeing, a visit to Musee d’Orsay, visiting friends, oh, and EATING!
We spent our first morning wandering around and ended up in the Latin Quarter. While we could have gone to one of the classic tourist cafes for the experience of it all, we decided to try something a little more homey (this was to be our only real unplanned eating experience for some time) and headed to a wonderful bistro called L’Epigramme that I’d read a few things about. I’m not sure I would seek the restaurant out from across the city, but our meal of escargots in bechamel sauce, crisped terrine of foie gras, duck breast, and a lamb stew were delightful, unpretentious, and an excellent entree to eating in Paris.
That evening, we were due to dine at Le Galopin, a bistro run by Top Chef winner Romain Tischenko, that’s gotten rave reviews for being delicious, inventive, and informal. However, somehow the Park Hyatt booked us at another restaurant called Galopin and, unfortunately, realizing the mistake at the last minute, we discovered that the real Le Galopin was closed for the holidays. We would have been better to go get a pizza than dine to the tired old bistro we were sent to. Alas, you can’t win them all and we would have plenty of other amazing dining experiences.
Stay tuned for food porn from Taillevent, Spring, Paul Bert and more!
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