Five days in Paris
Built for a pair of seasoned travelers in their 70s unhurried and unbothered. The shape can adjust to whoever is traveling, e.g. more wine and food, more museums, less walking, a day out to Champagne.
Pricing depends on hotel and flight class, and does not include dining.
Where to stay
Rosewood Hôtel de Crillon (Luxury) — one of the most iconic buildings in Paris. Historically notable guests stayed here and have rooms named for them, including Marie Antoinette and Karl Lagerfeld.
Cheval Blanc (Luxury) — one of the newest five-star palace hotels in Paris. Great location, several award-winning restaurants inside. LVMH-owned, so high-touch luxury service throughout. Connected to the newly restored La Samaritaine department store.
Sofitel Paris Le Scribe (Great value) — Sofitel is an everyday brand in the rest of the world, but in France, national pride takes precedence. This one sits by the Opéra in a comfortable neighborhood.
Sofitel Paris Le Faubourg (Great value) — same brand, one alley from the Crillon. A few doors down from the US embassy, so the street is watched around the clock. Unglamorous reason to feel safe, but it works.
Where to eat
Restaurant Kei — in Paris they say you don’t get 3 stars without a Japanese chef. Kei Kobayashi is the epitome of that saying. The lunch menu is the way in.
La Scène Thélème — another one-star entry in the Japanese-chefs-cook-French tradition. Pared-back room, and at midday it fills with French office workers, which tells you something about how seriously the French take lunch.
Frenchie — If a “foodie” could materialize a restaurant out of thin air, it would look like Frenchie. Chef-owner Gregory Marchand says he built it to feel like home, and he has.
OGATA — high-end Japanese dining in le Marais, the bohemian heart of Paris. It occupies a 17th-century building reworked by Shinichiro Ogata, and the tea room deserves as much of your time as the food.
Le Tout-Paris — inside the Cheval Blanc, and the best view in the city. The terrace takes in the Seine, the Eiffel Tower and Notre-Dame in one turn. Bistro cooking. Go at lunch.
Le Comptoir du Relais — a fantastic expression of classic French bistro food. All the staples are here: Onion soup, snails in garlic butter, crisp pig’s trotter. Tables are close together and the room is loud, which is the point.
La Tour d’Argent — historic, and one of the contenders for oldest restaurant in France. Duck is the reason to come, and they will hand you a card commemorating the n-millionth duck you have just eaten.
Le Grand Colbert — a relic of a dying breed, one of the last 24-hour restaurants in Paris. The seafood tower is as classic as the restaurant and highly recommended.
Day 1 — The Paris of Renaissance
Morning. Arrival, hotel check-in, rest. Private transfer. The train from the airport is a long haul with a change in the middle, and doing it with luggage on the first day starts the trip badly.
Lunch. Free.
Afternoon. The Louvre with a Chinese-speaking guide, on a chosen route: antiquity, then the Renaissance, then the Mona Lisa. Nobody finishes the Louvre. Two focused hours with objectives beats six hours of wandering, and leaves you enough stamina to enjoy dinner.
Protip. Enter at Carrousel du Louvre or Porte des Lions. Not the pyramid. The pyramid queue is the one in the photographs, and it can eat an hour of your afternoon.
Dinner. Loulou, in the Tuileries beside the museum. The garden tables look toward the Eiffel Tower. Menu leans Italian, and it has been busy since the day it opened.
Day 2 — The Paris of Modern Aspiration
Morning. La Samaritaine. The most beautiful department store in the city, shut for sixteen years and reopened after a long restoration. Jay Chou shot a music video here. Make sure you check out the ironwork and glass roof.
Lunch. Le Tout-Paris. Best view in Paris. Sit on the balcony if the weather allows.
Afternoon. Free. Optionally wander down to the banks of the Seine
Dinner. Apéro at Cravan in the 6th, then dinner at Le Comptoir du Relais. The drink before dinner is its own event in Paris rather than a warm-up for the meal, and building an hour into the evening for it is pivotal to eating like you live there. If you want something newer, Avant Comptoir next door is the younger sibling much more adventurous and high energy.
Day 3 — The museums Parisians visit
Morning. Musée d’Orsay for Toulouse-Lautrec and the Impressionists, or Musée Rodin. One or the other. Both are small enough to see properly in a morning.
Lunch. Free.
Afternoon. Free. Optionally do some pharmacy shopping (I can recommend a list of what’s worth carrying home) and find a local cafe or bar to rest.
While you’re there. Order a Picon Bière, a wonderfully interesting drink for its ubiquity in France and complete absence out of France.
Dinner. Ducasse sur Seine. Dinner on the river with cooking that takes itself seriously.
Day 4 — The Eiffel Tower
Morning. Trocadéro on the Right Bank for photographs, car both ways. The view is from across the river because the one place you can’t see the Eiffel Tower from is the Eiffel Tower.
Protip. It went up for the 1889 world’s fair on a twenty-year permit and Parisians hated it. What saved it from demolition was the antenna on top for radio broadcast. Today, there is some debate about whether to put Olympic rings on it to commemorate the 2024 Olympics. Again, many Parisians HATE the idea for what it does to purity of the architecture. This Irony is also: very French.
Lunch. Restaurant Kei. Three Michelin stars, and the most prominent of the Japanese-chefs-cook-French cohort.
Afternoon. Free.
Dinner. Something light. Pho Banh Cuon 14. Vietnamese food in Paris isn’t a novelty. It arrived with the colonial connection, the 13th arrondissement has been cooking it for generations, and it’s some of the best you’ll eat outside Vietnam.
Day 5 — Left Bank shopping, and out
Morning. Le Bon Marché and La Grande Épicerie. This department store is a good look at what a city actually buys as opposed to what it sells to tourists.
Gift ideas. Picon, olive oils, tinned fish, Nuxe body oil with a roller.
Lunch. Eat at La Grande Épicerie, or I can book something nearby.
Afternoon. Free time and packing.
Evening. Airport transfer, or an early dinner if the flight allows.
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