Le Fooding Guide, Paris

Next time you travel to Paris, forget the Michelin Guide at home (the Zagat too for that matter). Instead when you arrive, head straight to the duty-free shop and pick up the newly published 2010 Le Fooding Guide to read in the taxi ride on the way to the hotel.

Started by Alexandre Cammas ten years ago, Le Fooding rejects the old guard of food criticism championed by the Michelins and Gault Millaus of the world. Cammas was fed up with what he viewed as a flawed system, one where chef’s reputations ride and fall on the whims of inspectors and an arbitrary system of stars. In his own words, his goal is to “make French food sexy again.”

Of its 864 featured restaurants, Le Fooding (Food + Feeling, go figure) is organized by arrondisement in Paris and by department in the rest of France. Instead of stars, categories include trop bon (too good), feeling (a more casual place), and voir et se faire voir (see and be seen).

While you won’t find any rarified temples of haute-cuisine in these glossy pages, they’ve picked some seriously good restaurants frequented by a young Parisian crowd. They reserve special praise for Le Comptoir du Relais, Chez L’Ami Jean, Ze Kitchen Galerie and other places where you would be hard-pressed to find a mediocre meal.

While the reviews are in French, each dining brief is followed by an English synopsis and while some is lost in translation, it usually just leaves you wanting more.

For more information, visit the website at www.lefooding.com

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by Trafton Kenney
Gloobbi Cuisine

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