Emily in France 🇫🇷 The Real Fishwives' Guide to Paris
We've eaten a lot of mediocre food so you don't have to
Last week, I shared a new venture I’m extremely excited about and proud of. The Real Fishwives of Paris is a new food and wine podcast I’m launching with Caroline Fazeli of Lyon Wine Tastings in September. (Subscribe now so you don't miss a thing!)
In collaboration with this podcast (and, let’s be honest, to fund it), I’ve pulled together the fruits of over a decade of dining out in the French capital to bring you…
The Real Fishwives Guide to Paris!
This downloadable guide contains 80 restaurant and dining recommendations in 16 different categories, all guaranteed to be free of tourist traps. Whether you're looking for fine dining or cheap eats, beautiful views or places where kids will be both welcome and happy, this guide has it all.
While I’m the one who contributed the spots to this guide, we have Caroline to thank for the gorgeous layout. Optimized for phones, this guide isn't just easy on the eyes – it’s also easy to use, thanks to integrated Google Maps and an interactive table of contents taking you straight to the section you want.
You can grab the guide here for just $25. I really hope you enjoy using it as much as we enjoyed building it!
Cheese of the Week
Soureliette is a tomme-style cheese from Lozère, and it represents everything I love about sheep’s milk cheeses. Sheep’s milk boasts the highest fat content of any milk you’ll find – including water buffalo. As a counterpoint to all that richness, it also offers a barnyardy, lanolin funk – think Manchego.
My favorite sheep’s milk cheeses have a creaminess that means there’s no need for bread to enjoy them. As you let them melt on your tongue, a full panoply of aromas hits one after another after another. This cheese is all that and more, with grassy notes and a hint of fresh hazelnut. Its name, which comes from the Occitan Sourel (sun), is apt: It truly tastes like a summer day!
To discover more of my favorite cheeses, be sure to follow me on Instagram @emily_in_france, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and tune into the Terroir Podcast, where Caroline Conner and I delve into France's cheese, wine, and more one region at a time.
What I’m Eating
Le San Regis is less ostentatious than some other palace hotels, lending a coziness to its nevertheless luxe goûter – a French play on a high tea. This experience is priced at 65 euros per person – 85 if you opt for a coupe of Champagne – and to my mind, it’s worth far more thanks to the professional yet friendly service and, of course, pastry chef Jessica Préalpato’s sheer genius in the kitchen. More on the blog.
Where I’m Going
1. To see Passeport, a play by Alexis Michalik, whose Le Porteur d’histoire I already saw (twice!) and loved.
2. To Chez Alain, to try the sandwich that used to get folks lining up out the door at the Marché des Enfants Rouges (now it’s just across the street with a bit more space!)
3. To a secret podcast studio in the heart of Paris to film eight new episodes for this season of the Real Fishwives of Paris… including one about my mother’s favorite vegetable. (Tune in to find out which one!)
What I’m Doing
TERRE/MER is a ceramics and culinary retreat I co-host in the Mediterranean seaside town of la Ciotat. This long weekend is governed by creativity and terroir, encompassing a 10-hour ceramics workshop, three locally-sourced meals a day (prepared with love by yours truly), hands-on cooking workshops, a cheese tasting (bien sûr), and more.
We'll be welcoming our next small group September 4-7. Book your spot now!
What I'm Writing
1. The Loire Valley is known for Renaissance châteaux, tumbling vines of the Sancerre and Quincy appellations, and of course, goat cheese. A whopping five of the 16 AOP chèvres produced in France come from this region. I’ve profiled the ten – AOP or not – you need to try. For Culture.
2. Protein is the macro du jour, if you ask health and wellness influencers. But more isn’t necessarily better, when it comes to protein. And here’s what those influencers won’t necessarily tell you: an excessive intake of this essential macronutrient could end up having negative repercussions on your health. For Organic Authority.
3. From the archives: Many a French summer holiday-maker in the 1950s, stuck in an un-air-conditioned backseat on their way to the coast, would grow gleeful over an odd but charming sight: windows rolling down to welcome the wares of (car)door to (car)door nougat salesmen, peddling the confection along the infamous seven-hour traffic jams congesting the Nationale 7 trunk road—N7 for short. For Atlas Obscura.
FAQs
With the goal of bringing you the content you crave, I'm soliciting your help. What questions can I answer for you? Drop them into the newsletter chat, and I’ll answer as many as I can!
What I'm Reading
1. At its best, Junie rang with everything I love so much about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: a precarious girl growing up in the ‘20s engages with her urban environment, her alcoholic parent, her creative impulses, and brushes with her community. Individual passages of this novel, particularly surrounding Junie’s art and discovery of her queerness, are like beautiful poems laced through the prose, but overall, I found myself disappointed by the story itself. Ultimately, Junie lacked much of the emotional resonance and strength of character that Tree has, and the chorus of women who tell the story often felt disjointed, with not enough tension to hold the story together.
2. I am typically firmly in the anti-TV-while-dining camp, but this essay opened my eyes to how comforting such a ritual can be. In Vittles.
3. This funny, insightful conversation between Phil W. Bayles and Phil W. Bayles about the power of writing longhand. (With a Nantes Writers’ Workshop shoutout!) In Phil W. Bayles.
A bientôt !