| 
 enlarge | Author: Gilles Pudlowski
Creators: Simon Beaver, Phyllis Flick, Sophie Brissaud, Lucy Vanel
Publisher: Little Bookroom
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $8.50
You Save: $11.45 (57%)
New (36) Used (21) from $7.47
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 44480
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2007-2008
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 4.3 x 1
ISBN: 1892145480
Dewey Decimal Number: 647.9544361
EAN: 9781892145482
ASIN: 1892145480
Publication Date: June 12, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews:
 If any Paris restaurant review book can be said to be definitive. August 29, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
For a tourist attempting to plan a Paris vacation, one of the most daunting tasks is planning meals. Unlike most cities where there are a couple of city-defining establishments, Paris is simply awash in wonderful restaurants, with over-the-top , bust your budget choices and quaint, simple good value eateries, with everything in between. While some might argue that its difficult to get a truly bad meal in Paris, it is a revelation to find a place that is not on the top ten list of Fodors or Zagat that blows your taste buds away. Pudlo is the book that every tourist planning a Parisian getaway should reference.
There are few establishments missed, few unjustly skewered and few undeservedly lauded. Even some of the old chestnuts that are usually treated with disdain in competing books appear to be freshly reviewed, bringing back into consideration classics such as the Tour D'Argent.
I am certain that the depth of Pudlo's now international reach will disappoint some Parisians who now will find les americains in some of their most precious and heretofore private culinary domains.
 Not as helpful as expected August 21, 2007
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
I was just in Paris for five weeks, and I must have spent many hours reading Pudlo over the course of the trip. I did not find it all that helpful, mainly because I found the paragraphs that accompany each restaurant listing insufficiently critical. Nearly every restaurant in the book gets a good review. A few are praised to the ceiling (mostly the grand restaurants, which obviously have fantastic food), and a few are condemned as disappointing, but the vast majority of the reviews are fairly bland: Pudlo describes a few signature dishes, relates some tidbit about the decor or location or the new chef, and says that they were left happy and satisfied. I wanted the guidebook to help me find the best restaurants in the city, of every size and price: the places that serve unusually good food. But Pudlo did not help with that, because it doesn't discriminate between the vast majority of restaurants it reviews.
I was disappointed in other ways as well. Trying to find a restaurant close to the Comedie Francaise, I chose one of Pudlo's "Special Favorites", a Corsican place called A Casa Luna. It turned out to be mediocre, ordinary, not a restaurant I would want to return to. My main dish was mush, literally mush, with a big slice of cheese on top. (My friend's fish was slightly better.) Not only was the Pudlo guide in general insufficiently discriminating, but the rankings provided did not inspire confidence. How could a serious food critic call this mediocre place "A Special Favorite"?
One would think that Pudlo and his team of assistants would know the city like the palm of their hand, and would reveal the small, inconspicuous places where one can find superb food and drink. Alas, the guide has a prejudice against small casual places--it will list a formal restaurant where the food is quite ordinary over a hole-in-the-wall where the food is divine--and it is often content to stick with places whose fame is already established. Understandable, perhaps (it's harder to find the less well-known gems), but boring. Pudlo lists one ice cream shop in the fourth arrondissement, Berthillon, which is a nice place but already extremely famous. It did not list my favorite ice cream shop in the fourth: Pozetto's, a small independent gelato place, which made truly extraordinary gelato. Pudlo doesn't bother to include these less well-known gems.
Pudlo is helpful as a restaurant phone-book of sorts--it's handy to have the phone numbers, addresses, hours, and prices for such a large number of restaurants. I appreciated that information. But as for guidance, it disappoints.
Don't Leave Home Without It! July 14, 2007
This book is an absolute treasure for Paris visitors and residents. I visit Paris frequently and have collected many restaurant/shop reviews, but this book provides succinct, clear, reliable and insightful entries for everything from shops and outdoor markets to little inexpensive neighborhood bistros to the temples of haute cuisine. The reviewers talk about the food, the chefs/hosts, the decor, the atmosphere and the experience with great understanding. The book is organized by arrondissement, so throw a copy in your bag, and wherever you find yourself when it's time to eat/drink you're sure to find just the spot to match your tastes and pocketbook...Pudlo lists about 1000 restaurants and 300 shops!
Or, if you can't afford a trip to Paris at the moment, read it for the vicarious thrills!
More useful than Zagat or Michelin --- the new gold standard July 9, 2007
28 out of 28 found this review helpful
A year or so ago, a blogger with a special love for Paris bemoaned the way Americans read English-language restaurant guides and then make predictable choices:
"I've given up the occasionally useful Patricia Wells [The Food Lover's Guide to Paris, because every self-respecting American foodie would never find herself eating anywhere in Paris without first checking with the good Ms. Wells. This often results in the mass descending of American food tourists on places she favored. Walking through the door of La Regalade these days feels like one has just been magically transported to Manhattan."
The blogger took solace in one enduring reality: "My Pudlo is still only available in French. When a translated version is published, then I will really scream."
Well, scream your head off, darling. It's here: the first-ever English language edition of Gilles Pudlowski's voluminous-yet-handy guide to 1,000 Paris restaurants, 300 wine bars, tea shops, cafes and several hundred gourmet groceries. He gives awards: best chef of the year, international restaurant of the year, young chef of the year, bistro of the year --- even best hostess of the year. He lists new restaurants, with ratings (one to three "plates") and prices. He summarizes the "best" restaurants. He collects restaurants that are the "best value for the money." And he smartly organizes this mass of information and opinion by collecting restaurants in arrondisements, with informative short essays at the beginning of each one.
Gilles Pudlowski is not just a critic. In that French way, he's a public intellectual: a historian of regional French cooking, a novelist, cookbook author. As a foodie, he's a bit limited; he seems to be obsessed with "produce". And he ends almost every mini-review the same way, with praise for the restaurant's wine list. Still, if you're off to Paris --- or, given the exchange rate, of a mind to read and dream about Paris --- this is the book to buy.
Not Zagat?
Not Zagat, except as a handy --- because it's alphabetical --- backup.
And for a very simple reason: Zagat tells you what tens of thousands of unknown people liked, Pudlo is one man's opinion. Okay, with a little help --- he uses "twenty or so professional and amateur researchers." Still, I think my point holds: You do better dealing with one, reasonably consistent point-of-view than with a legion of unknowns.
Pudlo's point-of-view comes across as one of sensible optimism. He finds this a very good time: "Paris has never provided us with as many new opportunities to celebrate at reasonable prices." [Looking at those prices, you may conclude there was a problem in the translation here.] His chef of the year is female. And he has a knack for suggesting restaurants you've never heard of in a way that makes you want to go immediately.
The quickest way to test a critic is to compare his impressions of restaurants you know well with your take on those establishments. I was with him on Le Caveau du Palais, an old favorite on the Place Dauphine: "There is not a single false note..." Yes, Vaudeville is "the archetypal Parisian brasserie." I thought there was much more to say about Benoit than to recite the menu and note that it now takes Visa. I found Bofinger overrated; Pudlo wrote around the subject, avoiding a negative opinion. He raved about the view at Georges, on the roof of the Pompidou Center --- well, duh. He nailed L'Orangerie for its devotion to "chic little suppers." Amen. His enthusiasm for Rotisserie du Beaujolais could not equal mine; I forgive him. He overpraises the fading Vietnamese classic, Tan Dinh, and fails to include the outrageously great Cambodian restaurant, Au Coin des Gourmets --- for shame. And he has a weakness for killer expensive, big name restaurants that I don't share.
No matter. Reading Pudlo is to be in a conversation. I thrilled when he turned sour: Maxim's customers are "in search of a culinary museum." And it's great to hear a voice that's a monotone for most of the book break out in wild praise. The Mori Venice Bar "will convince you that the Grand Canal is to be found in the heart of Paris." Helene Darroze "looms over the Parisian culinary stage alongside all those she formerly admired." And he finds the food at the Jules Verne --- the Eiffel Tower restaurant I recall as an overpriced tourist trap --- so great that he could almost "step over the balustrade and take to the air." Nice touches, all.
Pudlo --- don't leave home without him.
Pudlo Rules July 8, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As always, Pudlo is the best. Easy to use, tersely written text, often amusing, always helpful. You'll be glad you own one,
(Note to the copy editor: Take out the exclamation points.)
|
|
|
