Where to Find the Most Mouthwatering Treats to Fill Your Wicker Basket
Has any meal looked as relaxingly lush as the one depicted by Édouard Manet in his painting Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe? The cool shade, food spilling from a wicker basket onto their blanket, the picnickers who appear to be caught in flagrante in their afternoon saturnalia. The painting hangs in the Musée d’Orsay, and, because the figures seemed to be saying “Join us!” in their lunchtime, that sacrosanct pause in the French day, it is a call to put together one’s own Parisian picnic. Filling your basket with the best à emporte, “to go,” goods from across the city is something like a gastronomic safari.
If leaving the Musée d’Orsay, and already on the Left Bank, the first stop ought to be Lastre Sans Apostrophe, on Rue de Grenelle, near the Rue Cler markets. The pâté and deviled eggs are both award-winning, so pick up a bit of both, plus some slices of terrine. Cheese is another essential, and nearby is Barthélèmy, on Rue de Grenelle, one of the most picturesque fromageries in the city. A bit of drippy Époisses, and a chunk of Mimolette (extra-vielle) will see you right. If one is willing to walk just a little further, the wonderful Fromagerie Quatrehomme, on Rue de Sevre, also has a wonderful selection of cheeses.
One of the many things to admire about French cuisine is the exactitude of the process and the subsequent simplicity of the end result. A pot-au-feu may seem like a hunk of beef thrown together with a few peeled vegetables and some herbs—and, in many respects, it is—but it’s the ceremony surrounding the food, from the creation through to the ingestion, that makes French cuisine so appealing. It is proof that simple can be wondrous.
Food plays a central role in the loose precision that is French joie de vivre, which in Paris is doled out as a particular acidic politesse. In French, to be very lucky is “Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles,” literally, to have one’s bottom stuffed with noodles, while the term for a single noodle, une nouille, is used to refer to someone who is an idiot. Have too much to do? That’s avoir du pain sur la planche, too much bread on the board. Want someone to leave you alone? Tell them to “Occupe-toi de tes oignons,” or mind their own onions. Should you find yourself ‘capable de manger un curé frotté d’ail,’ or hungry enough to eat a priest rubbed with garlic—and subsequently without the time needed to assemble your picnic basket—make sure to dine at La Plume, located in the garden-like succor of the Madame Rêve Hotel, for a French-Japanese fusion feast of sea bream sashimi and beef filet.
Crossing the Seine, make for the Marais, and Caractère de Cochon, off Rue de Bretagne. This tiny shop has the city’s most vibrant and diverse selection of smoked meats and picnic accouterments—some thirty types of hams, minuscule tomatoes like glistening rubies, and caviar soaked in olive oil.
Of course, bread is the golden chalice. Each year, a boulangerie is selected for the Best Baguette competition. The winner of the 2025 competition was La Parisienne, on Rue du Faubourg Poissonnière. The loaves are delightfully crisp, rising that razor’s edge of salt and butter, but the work that comes with their win—they will supply the Élysée Palace for the year—means they are busy. Squeezing in amongst the crowd braying for bread, buy a few ficelles, narrow baguettes best for making sandwiches.
Pastries, generally, can be hit or miss, depending greatly on the time between when the goods are made and when one shows up at the pâtisserie. It’s no coincidence that some of the best cakes, croissants, and pain du chocolat are found at the breakfasts of the best hotels, being made in small quantities, close to order. If staying at the Hotel Pourtales, a discreet yet luxurious lodging behind the Église de la Madeleine, each morning, a collection of viennoiserie, tarts, jams, and honeys are delivered to the room, allowing one to breakfast with the windows open to the giant sycamore trees, the zinc roofs and flowered balconies across the street. For those who hanker for croissant à pied, Des Gateaux et Du Pain (with two locations, one on Rue du Bac, the other near the Gare Montparnasse) is one of Paris’s most underrated pâtisseries.
Continuing the search, go to Le Comptoir et les Caves Legrand, located in the Galerie Vivienne, the beautiful covered shopping passageway in the 2nd arrondissement. Open for nearly one hundred years, it was recently renovated to include a wine bar, allowing for a bit of sampling before purchase. Grab a couple of bottles—a Chablis and a Claret, say—and kept moving.
If your safari happens to be on a Wednesday or Saturday, stop at the outdoor market held on Avenue President Wilson, across the street from the Palais de Tokyo, for fresh vegetables. An equally good market is Les Terroirs de L’Avenir on Rue du Nil, which brings in fresh and sustainable produce from the countryside. Started by Gregory Marchand, owner of the Michelin-starred restaurant Frenchie, it is a great, if somewhat unpredictable in stock, combination grocer, fishmonger, and butcher.
Finally, you will have everything needed for the perfect picnic: enough meat and cheese to make a fat sandwich, deviled eggs, slabs of terrine and fresh tomatoes to nibble at, and plenty of wine to wash it all down. Now it is a question of where to take it. Paris is filled with gardens and green spaces, all of them ideal for laying down a blanket and setting upon an al fresco meal: the immense Bois de Vincennes, the rowboat-clad water of the Bois de Boulogne, the little Parc Monseau or the sculpture-filled lawn of the Rodin Museum Meudon. There is also the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, with its waterfalls, high-arched bridges, rocky outcrops, and a distant view of the Basilica of Sacré Cœur de Montmartre, like a milk-droplet landing upon the city. Spread your blanket, let the contents of the basket spill out. This is your afternoon feast, handpicked, and all your own.
