Ethan and I love Paris. When we were very newly dating, we found a great deal on airfare and hotel for a weekend in Paris ($250 per person) and that was the first trip we ever took together.  We have been to Paris three times together and several times without one another before we met. When we were planing our travels for this year, Ethan said that he has always wanted to do “April in Paris.” As we had heard so much about the exploding vegan scene in Paris, we decided to add it to out travel list this year. We got April in Paris in just under the wire, on the last weekend of the month. On our last visit, 10 years ago, Ethan was a new vegetarian and I was still a full-on omnivore. During our previous visits, we enjoyed some truly great meals, and we were excited to experience Paris as vegans.

Before getting into the details of our trip, I must first acknowledge that we are spoiled by having Delice & Sarasin for vegan French food and ABCV to meet our pain au chocolât needs here in New York, as well as having had the amazing croissants and pastries from L’Artisane Creative Bakery in Miami and croissants from Lagusta’s Luscious Commissary in New Paltz, NY  near Woodstock Farm Sanctuary. Therefore, the bar was already set very high. It pains me to say that overall, we were not impressed with most of the meals we had in Paris.  We did have some good meals, but the majority were nothing noteworthy. That is not to say everything was bad, but based on what we had heard, we went with high expectations and left terribly disappointed.

We opted to stay in the Marais neighborhood, the center for gay life in Paris with are many vegan restaurants nearby. We arrived at out hotel before our room was ready, so we left of bags and walked a few blocks to check out Cloud Cakes for a quick breakfast. This small coffee shop offers a selection of cakes, cupcakes, croissants, sandwiches, soups, and bowls. We each got a croissant and a hot beverage – coffee for Ethan and chocolât chaud (hot chocolate) for me. The croissants were not outstanding. When one is in Paris, one expects to have wonderful croissants. While we are glad to know these vegan options exist, a non-vegan would not enjoy them. Because of the proximity to our hotel when we slept later than planned one day, we did pay another visit to Cloud Cakes for a quick bunch. This time we tried the avocado toast, and the grilled cheese sandwich. The toast was good – it is hard to mess up avocado toast. The grilled cheese is made with violife cheese and contains sauteed mushrooms that give it some umami. We also had slices of the carrot cake and the chocolate cake. They were both tasty, however, they were not as sweet as we expected. I suspect that is an American palate thing. Most baked goods in the US are sweeter than in Europe. While I would not necessarily make a Cloud Cakes a destination, if you are in area, it is worth checking out.  They do have a decent looking breakfast menu that includes bowls and pancakes, and the lunch menu does have a daily bowl of beans, grains, and veggies. Seating here is very limited, so you might have to get your order “pour emporter” – to go.
Cloud Cakes
6 Rue Mandar, 75002

VG Pastisserie is THE vegan patisserie (pastry shop for those of you who do not parle français). Everyone we spoke to told us THIS is THE place for pastries. As soon as we saw all the pastries in the window and display case, our mouths started watering. We went right in for the pain au chocolât. It was decent, but it was not as good as we expected. We thought that because it was later in the day, they might have been a little old, so we came back early the next day, but they were the same. I have the feeling that while everything is made in house, they aren’t necessarily made fresh daily. The pastry was a little soggy and not as flaky as one would want. The plain croissant is definitely better than the one from Cloud Cakes. We did not try any of the other pastries offered. The staff here is very helpful and happy to give guidance about other vegan places in Paris.
VG Pastisserie
123 Boulevard Voltaire, 75011

A few blocks from VG we found Grounded, a small coffee house offering a small selection of baked goods, toasts, soups, and bowls. As it was morning, we opted again for avocado toast, coffee, and hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was one of the better ones I had on the trip. The toast was pretty standard. However, we treated ourselves to a chocolate babka for dessert – why do we not have dessert with breakfast all the time? We loved that unlike babkas in the US, which are large cakes and servings are cut from it, these were made as individual serving sized cakes. These were quite good, although we would have liked more chocolate in them (but when isn’t more chocolate wanted?).
Grounded
101 Rue de Charonne, 75011

Included in the explosion of vegan restaurants popping up in Paris are a number of vegan fast food places. Located right across the rue from our hotel is Hank Pizza. The pizza here is not what we typically think of as round pies. Instead, these are all large rectangles that are then cut into smaller rectangular slices. The crust is also thicker than the New York slice we used to. That said, these slices are very good. The menu here is small, and pizza is not made to order. Instead, Hank offers 4 different pizzas (they are the same every day, so if you really like one, don’t worry about it not being available another day). One of the pizzas is topped with the Beyond Burger! You can easily make a meal here with their special offer of 2 slices + 1 drinks and 1 dessert or salad for 13€. Or, do what we did and get 2 drinks and 2 slices for a mid-afternoon snack.
Hank Pizza
18 Rue des Gravilliers, 75003

A few blocks from Hank Pizza is Hank Burger, which, not surprisingly, is owned by the same people as Hank Pizza. As its name suggests, this is a burger joint. Like Hank Pizza, Hank Burger offers to prepare your burger in one of 5 pre-designed ways. Of course you can always have something left off if you want. They also do a 13€ combo for a burger, side, and drink. Or for 15€ you can add dessert. We each ordered L’Allume burger, fries, drinks and dessert. The burger was nothing outstanding. If you something more substantial, you can have a Beyond Burger patty for an additional charge. The fries are not acutually fried, but rather oven baked, we didn’t opt to top them with cheese sauce, but perhaps we should have. If do get dessert, the brownie comes highly recommended. In fact, they were out of them when we got there. We tried a cookie and carrot cake. Skip the cookie it is very bland. The carrot cake was pretty good.
Hank Burger
55 Rue des Archives, 75003

By the way, in case anyone is wondering who Hank is, Hank isn’t a person. HANK stands for Have A Nice Karma.

If you are really in the mood for a burger and fries, we recommend a visit to East Side Burgers. While not 100% vegan, but rather vegetarian (they have dairy cheese and the mayo contains eggs), everything on the menu can be made vegan.  East Side Burgers offers 3 burgers daily and the selection changes every day. In addition to burgers, they have fries, onion rings, and all the desserts are vegan. They also offer the Beyond Burger in place of their own patty for an extra 2€. Unlike at Hank, here we recommend sticking with the in house patty. The fries and onion rings are great. It is worth a visit just for the fries and onion rings.
East Side Burgers
60 Boulevard Voltaire, 75011

The last of the fast food places we checked out was Hot Vog, a vegan hotdog restaurant. This is a grab and go place as there are only 4 stools at one counter. However, it is a block from Luxembourg Gardens, so you can get your meal and dine in one of the most wonderful parks in Paris. The hotdogs are good, nothing spectacular, but if you are wanting a vegan hotdog, you should check them out. You can either choose from their pre-designed styles or choose from a variety of toppings and condiments to create your own personalized hotdog.
Hotvog
10bis Rue Vavin, 75006

Prior to our trip, we had asked for dining recommendations and did a fair amount of research into vegan dining options in Paris. One restaurant we read unanimous raves about was Le Potager du Marais. After looking at the menu, we couldn’t wait to eat there. Sadly, this was probably our most disappointing meal of the entire trip.

We began our meal with the French Onion Soup. The broth was very heavy on thyme and had no real depth of flavor; even a little bit of salt would have helped. As for the onions, it seems like they simply boiled them in the broth rather than slowly caramelizing them first.

For our main course, we tried the Seitan Bourgogne with potatoes gratin. The entire dish was very poorly seasoned and quite bland. Much like the soup, a little salt would work wonders on this. While the portion is very generous portion, the seitan itself was inconsistent in texture, some pieces were very tender while others were really tough. Moreover, the seitan itself is very peppery, too peppery in fact, and it doesn’t work at all with the sauce. The entire dish just did not work.

We wanted to leave without getting dessert, but we felt the need to have a complete meal. The Apricot Creme Brûlée had the crispy topping we expected and an excellent vanilla flavor. However, all the sweetness in the dessert comes from the sugar topping as there is  no added sugar to the custard itself. The Chocolate Mousse was the best thing we eat here. The mousse had a rich chocolate flavor, but oddly is almost too sweet. The texture very light and airy, but almost too much so. It could be a little denser.

If you are making vegan versions of non-vegan food it has be be at least as good as the original. We want to show omnivores that we will not miss any of the flavors we love when we go vegan. One of the criteria for us when we review a restaurant is whether the restaurant is a place we would bring an omnivore. Le Potager du Marais gets a resounding no. Simply being a vegan restaurant isn’t good enough. As our friend Miyoko Schinner of Miyoko’s Creamery says, it has to be “phenomenally vegan.” Perhaps being open since 2003 , Le Potager hasn’t had to up its game and relied on being the vegan option. Well, it’s been 16 years. We all know what RuPaul would say to them.

If you want a great French Onion Soup or Chocolate Mousse, give our recipes a try. If anyone from Le Potager du Marais is reading this, feel free to use our recipes.
Le Potager du Marais
24 Rue Rambuteau, 75003

Another restaurant that looked great in reviews is Le Faitout. The name literally translates to “Dutch Oven”. While I am sure they mean the cooking vessel, the American slang meaning is much more appropriate. The restaurant looks like a classic French bistro, but serves Middle Eastern and Mediterraneen inspired food. When we sat down, we saw the people at the next table eating a cheese platter that looked delicious, and we were very excited to try it. The platter contains an assortment of hard and soft cheeses. The hard ones are very waxy with no real flavor. Despite looking different, from one another, they all tasted the same. The soft cheeses were slightly better than the hard ones, but that was not hard to do. Again, we may be spoiled by having access to shops like Riverdel and Orchard Grocer where we can get amazing vegan cheeses.

For the rest of the meal tried the Panisse (chick pea fritters), Kefta (meat balls) and Taramas (their version of taramaslata). The Panisse were a little pasty in the middle, but overall pretty good. The Kefta were nicely seasoned and had a ground meat texture, however they had too much (read any) cumin in them for me. The Taramas was actually quite incredible. It truly tasted like the omnivore fish based spread. If we didn’t know it was a vegan restaurant, we would swear it was fish.

While not a great meal, it certainly wasn’t the worst one we had in Paris. However, Le Faitout is not a place we recommend.
Le Faitout
23 Avenue Simon Bolivar, 75019

I want to end this review on a high with the three best places we ate. Topping the list is Janine Loves Sunday. This all vegan French brasserie is wonderful and should not be missed. Sadly we found it on a Sunday afternoon and it is closed on Monday’s so we could only try the Sunday Brunch menu which is an abridged version of the regular menu. The brunch menu features pizzas, burgers, salads, and desserts. We each ordered a pizza for our meals and loved them. They use “sheese” vegan cheese on them and it is very good. We also treated ourselves to waffles a la mode for dessert. If you come to Paris, do not miss eating here. It is only a block or two from Cloud Cakes – if only we had walked just a little further.
Janine Loves Sunday
9 Rue Montmartre, 75002

Right behind our hotel we found the tiny Love Juice Bar. This juice bar is great for bowls, smoothies, toasts, etc. When you want a quick breakfast, it is just the place. I was happy to have my usual breakfast acaï bowl which came topped with banana, blueberry, cacao nibs, and coconut flakes. Ethan got the peanut butter toast which is topped with banana, cacao nibs, pecans and golden mulberries. The menu is very small, and the shop is a neighborhood juice stop. It is not a place to make a trip to try, but if you are in the area, it is worth a visit.
Love Juice bar
26 Rue Chapon, 75003

Our final meal in Paris was also one of the best we had. Riz Riz is a rice restaurant that turns simple rice into extraordinary meals. To start our meal we had the Shared Plate, a platter of risotto balls, sweet potato waffles, hummus, guacamole, and a salad with a mustard vinaigrette. The portion is enough for a satisying meal for one, or a generous appetizer for two to share. Everything on the platter was delicious. It is a wonderful combination of flavors and textures.

For my entree, I chose the mushroom risotto with tofu. Although I found it a little salty, this dish was superb. The risotto is rich and creamy and the tofu is seasoned and cooked perfectly. Ethan chose the Spinach Dal Bowl for his entree and loved it. The dal is a mix of lentils, spinach, garlic, and onions and is served over a bed of black and white rice. The entrees and very large and after the appetizer, neither of us could finish them.
Riz Riz
221 Rue Saint-Martin, 75003