Is This The Best Food Tour In Paris 2025?

Over the years, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with eating in Paris. On my first trip 15 years ago, I was blindsided by how hard it was to find a good place to eat in this city. For the capital city in a country known for their cuisine, there were just so many tourist traps.

My Parisian friends have mixed feelings about this. Paris has amazing food, they say, you just need to know where to go. And they are right.

Since then, my love/hate relationship has slowly turned into a love relationship once I figured out how to avoid the tourist traps and found where the local Parisians go to dine.

Off the top of my head, I’m a big fan of the lively Bouillon Chartier and Bouillon Julien. And the Cafe de l’Empire is a gem disguised as an ordinary bistro right in the heart of the museums district.

Joining A Secret Food Tour

Until recently, I had never been on a food tour. I always took pride in finding random places on my own and felt like they’d be taking me to spots that are already well-known. I mean, it’s hard to keep things a secret nowadays.

On a last trip to Paris, I wanted to challenge my preconceptions about food tours to see if I was wrong.

I went with Secret Food Tours since they’ve been organizing food tours in many major cities for a long time. Most of these tours last 3-4 hours and focus on eating and drinking in one particular neighborhood with an actual local guide from the city.

We were staying in a charming apartment in the 6th arrondissement, so I wanted to lean into exploring more of the St. Germain area.

Saint Germain Food Tour

We met our guide, Aurora, at 11 am outside the Mabillon metro station where she gave us a brief introduction about Paris and the St. Germain neighborhood. I enjoy little facts about neighborhoods from locals because you sort of get the ‘important’ facts online, but the random tidbits are overlooked.

Our first stop was just around the corner, stepping into a confectionary shop to sample some salted butter caramels and fruit jelly. The chocolates looked amazing, so I made a note to come back.

Our second stop brought us to a tart shop to try the St. Tropez pastry made famous by Brigitte Bardot in the 1960s. Later, I searched for stories written specifically about this place and Mrs. Bardot’s iconic history with it – and yet in my first-pass research of Paris, I hadn’t stumbled across either of these places.

The third stop was a dessert place where we sampled macarons. Honestly, I’ve never really understood the whole obsession with macarons. I find them overpriced for what you get and there are many other pastries I’d crave before macarons.

In any case, we got to choose from a large number of different flavors, and they were by far the best I’ve tasted. The sweetness in the filling did not taste artificial and the cookie was light and flavorful.

We also did some jam tastings, but I was fixated on how the desserts were so beautiful, I felt bad about biting into and breaking the design.

Aurora told us about the owner of the place is one of the best chocolate and pastry craftsman in all of France and was awarded the title of Meilleur Ourvrier de France for the Patisserie category. It’s the equivalent of winning a gold medal in France’s Olympics for craftsmen. Once every four years, one person is given the title of Best Craftsman in France in his category.

When It’s More Than Just About The Food

Stories. This was what’s missing from just wandering on my own. As a storyteller, I recognize that a good backstory can enhance the experience of visiting a place, especially when it comes to food.

Aurora explained that the idea is not to try everything in every place, but to give you some recommendations and tips so you can come back. And I did come back to do just that.

For our fourth stop, we popped into an award-winning boulangerie for Aurora to pick up a few different baguettes.

You can literally smell the butter coming from this boulangerie down the block.

I’ve been to so many bakery in Paris, and this was up there as far as taste and there were no lines or exorbitant prices. When we left, they were cooling some galettes and my only disappointment was that it was not part of the tasting.

You might be wondering why I haven’t named the locations of our stops. Part of it is to not give away all the names on the food tour, as requested.

The other is to highlight that it wasn’t just about where we stopped, but more to get an understanding of why we were going to these places. For example, our fifth stop was to the Marche Saint Germain to get our cheese.

The market is not a secret. It’s a place many guidebooks and hotels will recommend it if you are in the area. But it’s really about knowing what to get and from which merchant.

Walking through the market, we stopped by this truffle place called Balme. We didn’t sample anything there, but Aurora pointed that the scrambled eggs with shaved truffles is something I should personally come back to taste.

Breaking Bread With New Friends

Between the ‘oohs’ and ‘wows,’ I also enjoyed chatting with the other people on the tour as we shared our mutual amazement at some of the culinary delights we were seeing and trying.

For our final stop, we came to a tasting room to sit down together and enjoy the spoils of Aurora’s earlier purchases along with other prepared French staples like foie gras, terrine de trois poivres, a selection of cured meats and a full course of roasted duck with the creamiest and cheesiest potato puree I’ve ever had.

With everything that was presented, we were given a little story or facts to go with it, from the process of making foie gras and Roquefort to talking about the terroir of wine and what makes a Beaufort cheese a Beaufort cheese.

In my travels, one thing I cherish the most is sharing a big meal with friends, old and new, sitting around one big communal table.

We’d drink from random vintages, pick at the charcuterie board, and pass around cheeses before collectively pausing for the centerpiece roast or pot of stew.

This had a very similar feeling and not something I expected from a tour. It was lovely.

At 3:30 pm, everyone realized we had gone well over an hour past the expected tour duration. Even Aurora lost track of time with the conversations and food.

Unbelievably, every bit of food and drop of wine was gone. We all left full and a little inebriated and I was ready go on a long walk along the Seine to digest.

So Who Is This Tour For?

I think that there are so many things to do in Paris and unless you’re living there, you’ll have to use your time wisely.

The tour was an unexpectedly good way to dedicate some time to explore and appreciate just one neighborhood while learning a bit more about Paris and its food scene.

It’s a perfect couples daytime activity and a great gift for the traveling foodie or gourmand on holiday.

If you are into finding places on your own, it’s probably not for you and there’s nothing wrong with that – I’m usually in that camp. And I still immensely enjoyed this tour.

I think this is an ideal activity for your second day in a city, and especially one like Paris.

It’ll give you a sense of the neighborhood you’re exploring and you’ll be able to discuss food tips and recommendations with your guide and other guests for the rest of your trip.

I personally got a great recommendation from an English couple about a place that served a great côte de boeuf near the Louvre and I made sure they knew to go pick up some Buerre Bordier before leaving Paris.

Updated on July 11, 2025