VeganMoFo

Whether you love veganism, love food, or love love – we have got some French classics and some Paris recommendations for you in this month’s installment of VeganIn.

Up first, a review of four restaurants offering vegan options in Paris, courtesy of Vegeeter:

Read about Cafe Ginger, Brasserie Lola, Hank Vegan Burger, and Vegan Follies.

Next, Lyra has been playing with cashew cheese for a while and has made this simply stunning blue cheese:

Go give her all the compliments @herb.cuisine so she shares her recipe!

The lovely Jenny over at Spice Box of Earth was in Paris back in 2015 and ate all the good food!  Read all her Paris travel trips, and find out about Le Potager du Marais, Cafe Ginger, Un Monde Vegan, Hank Vegan Burger, Las Vegans and Vegan Folie’s.  Doesn’t her photo of these delicious cakes make you want to book a flight to Paris right now?!

A lot of the same restaurants are reviewed over at Herbivores’ Heaven, along with Brasserie Lola, Gentle Gourmet and a pet cemetery, for all the animal lovers! Vegan croque monsieur? Yes please!

MoFo regular Jojo over at Vegan In Brighton has a number of Paris-related posts, the most recent from a weekend trip last year.   Check out her thoughts on Brasserie 2eme Art, Ara Chocolat and Cloud Cakes, amongst others.

And April lived many people’s dream by going to Paris for her honeymoon. Just look at all the food she and her new husband devoured!  (For more food inspiration from April, check her out on Instagram.)

Cafe des Deux Moulins, 15 Rue Lepic, 75018 Paris, France

I really wanted to check this place out on my honeymoon to Paris – I mean, it’s Amélie’s cafe! Unfortunately, they don’t have much for vegans, and the waiter seemed a bit exasperated with me when I tried to hand him my “I’m vegan and I don’t eat these things” card. My husband and I ended up with a baguette, some jam, fruit juice, and espresso. It was still tasty, for all that it was simple.

It was also our first foray into the world of Paris coffee – a few places have non-dairy milk (especially the 100% vegan restaurants), but nobody orders cafe mochas here. You get espresso. Everywhere that serves it generally gives it to you with a packet of sweetener (raw sugar and/or agave nectar at the fancy places, plain sugar elsewhere) and some kind of sweet (usually a small square of chocolate or a cookie, which was often a vegan Speculoos!) As for the cafe, it’s adorable and they know it – there’s a few pictures of Amélie throughout, but don’t expect to see the clear board where she writes the menu backwards; it’s not there.

 

Le Potager de Charlotte, 12 Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne, 75009 Paris, France

My husband and I decided to go to Le Potager de Charlotte for weekend brunch. If you decide to do the same, COME HUNGRY. I can not stress this enough. There’s a ton of food, and it’s all delicious. We started with several types of fresh bread and a few different spreads, all made in-house. I also got fresh juice and hot chocolate, pancakes with fruit, a breakfast chia oat pudding, and an avocado spinach salad. It’s a good thing we were walking so much while in Paris!

 

Hank Vegan Burger, 55 Rue des Archives, 75003 Paris, France

Cozy, comfy, and quick – that’s Hank Vegan Burger. They have a bunch of inventive topping combinations for their burgers, as well as sides, drinks, and desserts. The majority of the dining area is upstairs from where you order. We loved our burgers, fries, cookie, and cake!

 

Cafe Ginger, 9 Rue Jacques Cœur, 75004 Paris, France (Inside the Grand Appetit Macrobiotique produits naturels)

We ended up at Cafe Ginger after an attempt to go to a vegan restaurant down the street that wasn’t open. It’s a tiny macrobiotic cafe inside Grand Appetit, which is a macrobiotic and natural foods store. When you go, pay attention to their hours – we got there towards the very end of their open times, and they had pretty much stopped serving their main menu, and we were left with ordering something out of the case. That being said, we ended up with a couple slices of delicious vegetable tart, side veggie salads, and hot tea. Lucky for us, there was a customer in the restaurant who was happy to explain to us what the owner was telling us (the owner had no English, and my French wasn’t quite up to the task). Interestingly, the customer turned out to be an employee of the restaurant down the street to which we had originally tried to go!

 

Veg’Art, 123 Rue Oberkampf, 75011 Paris, France

All vegan pizza, all the time! This was, by far, the smallest restaurant we went to while in Paris, consisting of only 4 or 5 tables, and barely enough room to walk between them. All of the pizzas are personal size and have some very inventive toppings, and they had a delicious strawberry cake while we were there (not sure if that’s a regular menu item or not; my French wasn’t up to the task of communicating with the gal behind the counter.)

 

Cafe Pinson, 6 Rue du Forez, 75003 Paris, France

The ordering system at Cafe Pinson was a bit confusing to us, and we ended up sort of pointing at things in the case while the gal behind the counter tried to explain what we could get. For one price, you get an entree and main dish, or main dish and dessert. They also have fresh juices and coffee. Luckily, the gal behind the counter had enough English to catch that we were vegan, and was able to point out which things were vegan and which were just vegetarian. The salads and main dishes were fresh and healthy, and I was happy to get hot cocoa with vegan whipped cream on top.

 

Vegan Folie’s, 53 Rue Mouffetard, 75005 Paris, France

Vegan Folie’s is mainly a bakery with punny names for their sweets (the James Brownie, Rosa Pinks, Red Astaire, and Choc Norris, for example). They also have giant sandwiches, which are probably enough for most people to split (though my husband wanted a whole sandwich to himself – again, I was glad for all of the walking we did!).

 

Gentle Gourmet Café, 24 Boulevard de la Bastille, 75012 Paris, France

This was, by far, the fanciest restaurant that we went to the entire time we were in France. Also, the priciest, but for a splurge, it’s a great choice. Gentle Gourmet goes for quality over quantity, and their plating is exquisite. We experienced all sorts of complex flavors and textures. For dessert, we got the sampler plate, which was the first time in my life I’ve ever eaten French macarons! These were made with aquafaba and were little bites of absolute heaven. Reservations are very important here – if you don’t have one, you might not be able to eat there that day.

 

La Verrière, 24 Avenue de Tourville, 75007 Paris, France

We weren’t quite sure what to expect from this restaurant, and found a sort of buffet set-up. We spent some time foraging amongst the offerings, and came out with all sorts of fresh veggie dishes, as well as tasty savory and sweet tarts. The ambience is spare and modern (makes me think of IKEA a bit).

 

Crepe de la Joie, 4 Rue du Fer À Moulin, 75005 Paris, France

Seriously, y’all – vegan crepes! My husband and I each got one savory crepe (galette) and one sweet crepe. They were delicious, and we also got hot cocoa with non-dairy milk to go with.

 

Un Monde Vegan, 64 Rue Notre Dame de Nazareth, 75003 Paris, France

Not a restaurant; this is Paris’ only 100% vegan grocery store. They had *two whole cases* of vegan cheese, which was quite exciting. My husband and I stocked up on vegan cheeses, “meat” sticks, drinks, and chocolate to snack on at our apartment and on the train to Angers. We also got a vegan paté that was quite tasty!

Le Potager Du Marais, 24 Rue Rambuteau, 75003 Paris, France

This restaurant is larger than some of the others we visited in Paris, but not by a lot, and diners will be seated in fairly close quarters with others. Also, reservations are important here. This was one of the fancier places we went, and the flavors in the dishes were interesting and fun. This was another place where I got super-fancy vegan hot cocoa (yay!) and delicious pudding.

Facebook friend Donna (whose son created the Is It Vegan? app)  agrees with this recommendation, and notes that reservations are essential here as she saw people being turned away.  She also shared a few notes on a couple of her other favourite places in Paris:

Loving Hut, 92 Boulevard de Beaumarchais, Paris, France,75011

We ate at Loving Hut a couple of times. It was economical and close to the metro stop. Their food was better than the Loving Huts I have been to in the US.  The appetizers were all so good.

Veget’Halles, 41 Rue des Bourdonnais, 75001 Paris, France

We also liked Veget’Halles, a vegan/vegetarian restaurant  near Le Centre Pompidou with a lot of options.

 

Are there any places we’ve missed? Have we motivated you to book a trip to the city of love and vegan macarons?  Let us know, and stay tuned for the announcement of next month’s VeganIn destination!