New Paris France Dairy Free and Vegan Food Options
This will be the third time I am writing a preview to the dairy free restaurants and food stores in Paris, France. I keep writing anew because (a) I find new places each time I plan our upcoming trips (some of which honestly already existed the last time we were there), and (b) the number of options has grown exponentially each time. That is certainly the case now, with so many promising restaurants and dessert places that I won’t be able to name them all. But I will give you the ones that sound most promising to me (at this point, for some I don’t know much more than the title, but I will share with you what I know). These are the ones that we will most likely visit when we are Paris in June/July (we will be making Rouen our base for the weeks we are in France, but we will be back and fourth to Paris 2 or 3 times at least).
Restaurants
If you can speak a little French, or visit a restaurant in the touristy neighborhoods (where your server is likely to speak some English), you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding food that is dairy free on a menu. I find the brasseries are the easiest, with their focus on grilled meats and so forth. Paris is also full of Asian restaurants, whose cuisine is usually largely dairy free. And then of course to be safest of all, vegan restaurants are the place to go, and Paris has some good ones, and more are opening up all the time. The ones below are mostly vegan or vegan-friendly (thanks to Yelp’s page of Paris vegan restaurants and the parisrental.com blog’s page on eating out vegan in Paris – I have mined those two sources for much of what follows, although as I continued to search, I found that many of the restaurants they mentioned showed up in other sources as well).
1st arrondissement
If you are a first-time visitor to Paris, you are likely to visit Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre Museum on your first day. Conveniently located on a side street just a couple blocks from Paris’s most famous museum is Spring, a restaurant that is vegan/dairy free-friendly. They are only open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday, so you will want to make a reservation. They don’t really have a menu – they prepare a 4 course meal based on what ingredients are available – if you tell them about your dietary requirements, they are known to be very good at accommodating them.
2nd arrondissement
Just north of the 1st, and therefore not far from the center of everything in Paris, the second is home to attractions like the Paris Opera (with its quite lovely restaurant), tea house Fee Nature and promising gluten-free “epicerie” (bakery/delicatessen) Noglu.
3rd and 4th arrondissements
The Marais neighborhood which encompasses these two districts is where we spent most of our time during our last visit to Paris, and we found it very friendly, walkable and fun. Down on the Rue des Rosiers are several falafel shops (which are always great for getting some easy, cheap and filling vegan fare). A number of the new establishments I have found are in the 3rd arrondissement, like Cuissons, Bob’s Kitchen, Cafe Pinson and Le Potager du Marais. We will probably spend some time in this neighborhood when we are in Paris, soaking up its old Paris vibe, and I would bet we will try at least one of these restaurants when we are there.
5th arrondissement
With this district we move for the first time south of the Seine River that dissects Paris in half from east to west. Here there is a very well-regarded vegan bakery named, appropriately enough, Vegan Folies. The word out, though, is that you will not find vegan croissants there (rats, I am still looking for those!), but rather American-style baked goods like brownies and cupcakes.
6th arrondissement
Home to the Sorbonne and the iconic Cafe Deux Magots, this district also is where you will find some intriguing dairy free desserts, in establishments that are otherwise full of dairy. So beware if you travel to Grom, an ice cream shop that sells an awesome dark chocolate sorbet, or Pierre Herme, a bakery where you can get your French macaron dairy free if you ask them for the one with the sorbet in the middle. Maybe not worth a special trip, but then again, I guess it depends on how much you love chocolate sorbet!
7th arrondissement
Restaurant Mariette in the 7th serves conventional French cuisine, but they seem to be very sensitive to food allergies, including serving us dairy free folks. A cursory examination of their menu reveals several dishes that might work very well dairy free, although dessert as usual could be difficult – the chocolate sorbet profiteroles probably won’t work, but the figs in red wine syrup might be just the thing.
8th arrondissement
If you are like me, your mind is never far from thinking, “where is the chocolate???” Well, Jadis et Gourmande, a chocolate shop in the 8th, sells some dairy free dark chocolate, and also offers jars of a Nutella-like spread that is dairy free (I have heard – don’t know exactly what it is called, though). Also in this district is a coffee/tea cafe called Trendblack that is a great place for lunch – they label their dishes according to food allergies, including gluten and dairy free options.
11th arrondissement
I will round off my restaurant discussion by mentioning gluten-free bakery Chambelland.
Organic Groceries/Health Food Stores
Paris has a wealth of health food store chains that have locations all over the city, like Naturalia, Biocoop and Bio C Bon. I’m sure if I run into one of those, I will stop in and see what they might have in the way of whatever I can’t find in Rouen (vegan cheeses and dairy free milks are always high on my list). The place I will be making at least one special trip to is Un Monde Vegan. They are known for their packaged vegan goods, like vegan meats and cheeses. I can imagine making a plan where I stock up at Un Monde Vegan, and then head to the train station with a couple of full grocery bags to head back to Rouen.
As you can see, there are just a wealth of options for us dairy free folks in Paris this days. Pretty much any district you find yourself in is going to have either a vegan restaurant or a bakery or chocolate shop that has some dairy free offerings. Or they might have all three, and more!
The post New Paris France Dairy Free and Vegan Food Options appeared first on The Dairy Free Traveler.
