We’ve all experienced it: we travel to a new city with a guidebook of which museums to visit, what shops to check out, and how to beat the long lines at all the popular sites. Pretty straight-forward stuff, right? But what about dinner, or even lunch for that matter? Restaurants come and go, reviews can be out of date, and nobody wants to walk around thumbing through a book that screams tourist. So what’s a Paris traveler to do? Help is here, in the form a new iPhone app called A Food Lover’s Guide to Paris, by Patricia Wells. A newly updated, more portable version of her latest edition of the book published in 1999, it can be considered a food lover’s ultimate guide to navigating the Paris restaurant scene.
Users can search by categories, price, arrondissement, and specialties. There’s even a search item called “details”, where you can really narrow down the list. Say you want a restaurant with a fireplace, or one with an exceptional wine list (harder to pin down than you’d think), or a place that’s open in August; it’s all right there. Her priceless glossary is also included, to discreetly help us with those mysterious terms on a French menu so we avoid ordering that dish with the meat we just can’t quite identify. Users can refer to a list of her picks or create their own list for a quick and easy reference-on-the-run.
This is quite simply, a great tool for the Paris traveler. I look forward to using it when I visit Paris again in June.
A note about Patricia Wells: An ex-pat from Wisconsin, she is an award-winning cook book author, restaurant critic, and teacher with cooking schools in both Paris and Provence. She has lived in France for more than thirty years and has become a favorite among Americans looking for a better understanding of how to prepare French food. Julia Child even wrote her a fan letter. Talk about an endorsement!