Emily In France Exclusive 🇫🇷 7 Little-Known Bistro Dishes Worth Trying

It's not all steak-frites and beef bourguignon

On my most recent trip back to the States, my dad asked me a question that, considering my decade-long career writing about food, should not have been so much of a stumper:

“What are the three most emblematic dishes of French cuisine?”

Maybe it’s because I’m so deep in this world that I found it hard to conjure an answer. After all, there are so many ways of looking at the behemoth that is “French cuisine.” Is it the regional dishes hailing from all over the hexagone, the quiche lorraine of the east and the bouillabaisse of the south? Is it the fine dining meals served at Paris’ palace hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants, with tweezer-applied flowers and table-side filleting and flambage? Is it the sauce-heavy dishes masterfully and militarily defined and controlled by history’s first celebrity chefs, Antonin Carême TK and Auguste Escoffier?

After watching me silently sift through my thoughts (perhaps asking himself, in the way only a parent can, if I actually had a job or if I was still playacting at being a grownup), my father thankfully came to my rescue.

“Like… what would you most expect to find on a bistro menu?”

Ah… that I can help with.

Snails at l’Escargot Montorgueil

Bistros have long been a curiosity for me, perhaps because despite being so emblematic of France in the minds of foreign visitors, they're rarely frequented by people who live here.

Lately, bistros have been even more at the forefront of my mind, as I attempt to come up with a list of those that are actually worth your while (especially in view of an exciting upcoming project… but more on that later). And unsurprisingly to me, finding local foodie friends actually willing to deviate from the more modernist, locavore cuisine dominating the Parisian dining scape to take a chance on yet another beef bourguignon has proven… difficult. In no small part, I assume, because, as I reported for Life & Thyme, many of Paris’ bistros are becoming museums of their former selves.

(P.S.: Toss me your favorite bistro addresses whenever you’ve got them! I'm always in the market for a new fave.)

Boeuf bourguignon at Café des Musées

What makes a bistro a bistro is one of those arguments best held at a bistro table, preferably with a large carafe or two of wine. For me, a bistro is more a vibe than a menu, a space that should be homey and convivial, with generous portions of no-nonsense food. That said, bistros do have a pretty standard bill of fare.

I usually expect to find croque monsieur, one of my favorite sandwiches, invented in the sort of bar-bistro that barely has a kitchen (and that, as I reported for France Today, may be on the way to extinction.) I also expect to find a few Burgundian specialties, like beef bourguignon, a slow-cooked specialty most stories say was originally peasant fare enjoyed on special occasions, or escargots, which rose to fame when Napoleon’s wily diplomat Talleyrand, in search of an innovative specialty to serve the visiting tsar Alexander I, put his chef, Anacréon, to the test. The chef, a native of Burgundy, served a dish he had invented 18 years earlier, which saw the common vineyard pest stuffed with a garlic-herb butter and broiled until hot and bubbly.

Fancy steak tartare at La Table du 11

Steak tartare is another of my personal favorites on bistro menus, seeing as I never make it myself. My aunt/godmother/perennial Thanksgiving travel buddy once ordered it in a café, only to have the waiter ask me… “Does she know it’s raw?” (She does. It was delicious.)

French onion soup at Au Pied de Cochon

And of course, French onion soup is a staple of Parisian bistros and brasseries (if you want to know the difference, I’ve got you covered), ostensibly having been invented around the former market area of Les Halles in a time when tipsy bourgeoise revelers and les forts – the strong men – of Les Halles, would converge in the hours between late night and early morning for the stick-to-your-ribs fare they both sorely needed, albeit for different reasons.

But while these specialties are famous around the world, there are also some little-known specialties well worth discovering. Here are the ones that I think should be on your radar.

Oeuf-mayo at Le Saint-Sébastien

1. Oeuf-Mayo

Perhaps the simplest of bistro dishes, egg-mayo is exactly what it says on the box: hard-boiled egg halves (usually three) topped with house-made mayonnaise. But as with so many simple dishes, this one, when done properly, is way more than the sum of its parts. It’s no wonder there’s even an association protecting it– complete with a contest sussing out Paris’ best each year!

Egg-mayo at Bouillon République

While reporting on the rise in popularity of this ultra-simple dish for Food52, I scored some secrets to its success from the then-vice-champion of the contest, Chef Chris Edwards of Le Saint-Sébastien. He first cooks the eggs for precisely 8 minutes and 40 seconds, and he tops them with a super-mustardy mayonnaise he makes by hand.

Egg-mayo at Chez Georges

While Chef Edwards has since absconded to Nice, there are still loads of great spots to test this specialty in Paris, from Le Voltaire in the 7th, where they still cost 90 cents, to Au Moulin à Vent in the 5th, which took 2022’s egg-mayo crown.

Céleri remoulade at Le Bistrot de Paris

2. Céleri Remoulade