Lobrano introduces the Paris traveler and diner not only to the wonders of French cuisine, but also to the cosmopolitan charms of the Parisian neighborhoods in which he dines. Each review includes mini portraits of his many intimate acquaintances which adds another delightful layer to the reader's vicarious Paris dining experience. A true raconteur, Lobrano, with great wit and authority, helps educate all readers in the pleasures of the French table. Essays sprinkled throughout are humorous and engaging. All restaurant reviews include contact information and a quick synopsis of specialities. An invaluable addition to anyone traveling to Paris as well as a great airplane read on the way over.

I can't believe the mean spirited comments by I. Xenos on "Hungry for Paris." To dismiss Lobrano's wonderfully written and thoughtful essays as being "American" and therefore not accurate is stupid. Perhaps Pudlow wrote these comments since his outdated book is not selling.

All Paris bound tourists, especially english speakers, should own a copy of this well done book.

>>By I. Xenos (NYC, NY) "Oh please", July 12, 2008
>>Being American in Paris does not qualify one to write an authoritative book on Paris restaurants .

As a Paris resident and food travel pro, my job is to refer clients to the best dining options around the world. I rely on a combination of personal experience and expert food journalist knowledge to make the best possible suggestions. It is often the equivalent of being asked to arrange a blind date though, since individual preferences vary and expectations are high, i.e. "This is our first trip to Paris and we can't wait! Can you suggest a charming restaurant in a fun area, with great food and wine that is not too expensive?" What is charming, fun, with 'great food & wine', and affordable for me personally might not be to someone else. I usually need to ask more questions to understand what the client is expecting, so that they aren't let down.

In my experience, I have found that what most people are actually looking for is an ambiance suggestion, yet, most culinary guides heavily reference the chef and menu items. Knowing the chef trained with Ducasse and that the writer dined on langoustines with ginger foam is significant - perhaps more for serious foodies than the casual visitor - but where a chef trained and what 'was' on the menu doesn't say enough about what to expect overall.

Hungry for Paris is one of the few reference books that I trust based upon M. Lobrano's discerning palate and his extensive dining experience in Paris. However, it is the "In a Word" section at the end of each listing that is the most valuable in my making a decision. For instance, page 259 recommends restaurant Carte Blanche in detail, and then sums up, "Excellent, imaginative contemporary French food in a pleasant setting with well-drilled service makes this restaurant in the heart of the city well worth seeking out." Based on the detailed entry plus the summary, I would know what the client will most likely experience as well as who is in the kitchen and what kind of food will be on the menu.

Congratulations (and thank you) to Alexander Lobrano for setting expectations while comprehensively paving the way to the best dining suggestions.

Having just returned from Paris, I highly recommend HUNGRY FOR PARIS as a superb source of restaurant information and an absolutely wonderful read. What I especially loved about this book is that it offers a brilliantly chosen selection of restaurants for every possible occasion and pocketbook; guidebooks that offer 500 or 1000 restaurants are of no use to me--how do I know which ones are really good? Lobrano's sensible selection solves this problem, and even better, his writing is sublime. With great originality, he's created a hybrid book that's a mixture of a guidebook, a memoir and a delightful portrait of Paris. I loved this book!

I think this is probably a good book for anyone looking for a vicarious Parisian dining experience. There are some very interesting commentaries about the kinds of eats and eating establishments that exist in Paris (and elsewhere in France). Someone not familiar with Paris and not headed there anytime soon can nevertheless enjoy the descriptions of food and environment that author Lobrano provides in his chatty book.

There is, in my opinion at least, a really insightful chapter on dining alone in Europe that goes beyond the vicarious and hits the bulls eye on the practical side of travel.

Author Lobrano, clearly a Paris insider, also has a lot to offer the actual visitor to that city with lists of some great sounding restaurants and menus that seem much less covered by other food guides. He ventures, for example, into the far corners of several districts of the city that are seldom frequented by visitors, but deserve exploring just for the food to be had there.

The book will be less interesting to someone knowledgeable about food and Paris. There is a lot of space given to comments on "French cooking 101" that aren't going to appeal to someone already in the know about the scene. Also mildly irritating is the author's inclusion of extensive details about his dining partners, the dispositions of the waiters/hosts/chefs at the restaurants visited and other superfluous chit-chat about mood, environment, etc.

When all is said and done, opinions about food and restaurants are entirely subjective. At his best, Lobrano is a well-informed expat in Paris who supplies the reader with some interesting dining possibilities. Some wading through verbose commentary is needed to get to the good stuff. It may be worth your time if you are not as familiar or comfortable with the city as Lobrano is. On other hand, there are other sources of dining advice, as at least one other reviewer has suggested--notably the Pudlow guide which is frequently updated and speaks to a local audience.

Being American in Paris does not qualify one to write an authoritative book on Paris restaurants -- in a very real way, expat writers like Lobrano (and Patricia Wells, for that matter) condescend to the local culture and visiting tourists too. After all, would any American think to buy a book that purports to be the authority on American restaurants -- which across the board are now better than French ones anyway -- written by a Frenchman? Of course not. I would argue that Lobrano is as qualified to recommend Paris restaurants as George Bush is to draft a coherent strategy for lasting peace in Iraq. Consumers would be better off buying the book Parisians actually read, the Pudlow Paris guide, written by a Parisian and now in English, too. Jer

Will be sampling a few of Lobrano's suggestions in the next few weeks. Delightful reading. Spot on reviews. All too often the tourist gets "ripped off" in going to supposedly great local restaurants, which have long since lost their shine. I can't attest to the authenticity yet - but just the reading has me salivating. Indeed, as one reviewer noted, if nothing else, as one who will be eating solo during this particular trip, the book makes you wish you could find such a great eating companion. I just know I wont be disappointed.

Having been to Paris recently, I was curious to see how the author would treat certain of the restaurants I had visited. However, the reading became much more than that as I took great pleasure in reading about many restuarants that I had heard of but did not actually have time to visit.
The author has some clear preferences which become clearer the further one goes into the book. I found that I agreed with most of them from the standpoint of food choices and quality, service and overall ambience.
The coverage of restaurants is very good although some of the neighborhoods are probably too far out of the way for many visitors.

My biggest regret was that the book ended.
I really didn't want to put it down.

20 some years ago Patricia Wells' Food Lovers Guide to Paris changed my approach to dining in Paris, but that source has been woefully absent for some time. Hungry for Paris now has pride of place on my travel bookshelf. First, the writing is so good you almost feel like you're there - and you can only read two or three reviews at a time, because you get too hungry. Face it, Paris is wonderful, but it's full of crap restaurants. If you don't know where to go, you have a 96% chance of being disappointed. This book will keep that from happening. There are choices from casual to haute cuisine, and the accuracy of the reviews of the places I've been makes it clear that the book is thoroughly written and trustworthy.

I just returned home from Paris and went to three recommended restaurants. They were all great and reasonable despite the sinking dollar. I liked trying the house wines which were a great cross-section of wines I didn't know and now I do! I also stopped ordering bottled water. Loved Astier, Bistro Paul Bert, Le Petit Pontoise. Alexander has a website where he reviews Parisian restaurants www.hungryforparis.com. Check it out, because it's also a great resource.

Although I hadn't had a plan to revisit Paris so soon..this book made me want to jump on the next plane and visit quite a number of the restaurants Mr. Lobrano talks about. I delighted in reading his descriptive ancedotes before getting down to the "in a word" and "don't miss". Anyone can write a basic review of a restaurant. Mr. Lobrano's style and voice made me feel like he was speaking directly to me as an old friend, as if he were handing me his personal notes and steering me to the places the average tourist would most certainly miss. If I couldn't be so lucky to have Mr. Lobrano accompany me to dinner, I would most definitely savor his suggestions as if he were my guardian food angel over my shoulder! His creation in "Hungry For Paris" is a masterpiece.

I bought this book for a trip to Paris based on a very positive Washington Post review. I bought it to use as a Parisian restaurant guide; I did not find it very useful at all. It is more like a travel essay than a restaurant guide. If you want to experience Parisian restaurants without actually going there, this book may be for you. But if you are planning a trip to Paris and want a restaurant guide, don't buy this book. The author spends a lot of time describing diners who were at the restaurant while he was there. Also, he includes restaurants whose food he found "good" or merely "better-than-average." I had expected to find reviews of 100 restaurants with excellent food -- after all, there are probably thousands of such restaurants in Paris -- but a lot of the reviews in this guide did not seem to be of restaurants the author recommended. I guess to be fair some of the essays are interesting, but I would have preferred more focus on the restaurants and their food, rather than on the author's experiences in eating at these restaurants.

I loved this book, and recommend it to any food lover who is either planning or dreaming about dining out in Paris.

Alec Lobrano is a superb writer and a well-seasoned gourmand, who shares his love and knowledge of delicious French cuisine and great chefs in his own inimitable style. He takes you on a first-class tour inside the best restaurants in Paris as if you were his dinner companion, and lets you taste and experience, albeit vicariously, its finest French and international cuisines and the perfect wines to enjoy with each sampling. .

This book reads like a autobiographical novel, filled with charming, and often amusing, short stories chronicling this world famous gourmet's earliest memories of "eating anything specifically described as French, - the éclairs my mother bought at the A&P supermarket in Westport, CT,... long soggy pastries shaped like hot dog rolls" and "heat-and-serve" frozen croissants, to the canned Vichyssoise , French toast, and beef burgundy stews she made at home, to his savory descriptions of his first experience at age 11, in a real French restaurant, Le Charles V, on the east side of Manhattan, which made him "rabidly anxious to get at some more French food."

Lobrano chronicles his first trips to France with his family and his adolescent awakening to the gastronomic joys of French cuisine, - and the development of his palate as he "ascended the pyramid of French gastronomy and discovered some spectacular food at its higher altitudes," and finding in the end - or at the top of his list - that "it is bistro food, or rustic cooking with deep roots in the various regional kitchens of France, that remains the blessedly eternal bedrock of the French kitchen."

Like a chef, Lobrano describes the ingredients, the preparations, the cooking and serving of the most favored, and simplest, meals of the French people, and also takes us out to dine at the most expensive, moderate, and least expensive restaurants where good French food is always served. His stories about chefs and French celebrities are written with an elegant style of one who has been invited to all the best parties in Paris.

Hungry for Paris is not just a guide book for dining out in Paris, but a veritable masterpiece on the history and culture of French cuisine,

This is a classic!

Paris is an easy mark for all the hacks in the world. I know, I lived in Paris for 20 years, and read countless
"guide books" that were nothing more then re-cycled press releases and re-hashed blurbs stolen from other
guide books. But this author, Alec Lobrano, is the rare combination of a great food and restaurant expert and a great writer. Though it has lots of up to date practical information, this book's real pleasure is as a bed-side literary journey into the heart and soul of Paris' foodie culture. It's the real deal, and I'll bet even Alec's anglophone French readers would agree. Even if you're not planning a trip to Paris, well worth the read for any
Francophile day-dreamer. It leaves me hungry for more, and I'll be looking for Lobrano's next book, no matter what the subject.

The write-ups for each of the restaurants is too long and verbose. I can't figure out for whom the guide was created. If it's for first-timers in Paris, then I think it should be more instructional and less ethereal. It it's written for experienced Paris travelers (as I am), then I'd like it if the write-ups were more to the point.

Alexander Lobrano (Alec) has re-invented the guide book with his new thriller Hungry for Paris. Each listing not only describes the restaurant and the food, but tells a small story about the dining partner. In doing so, the evening comes more alive and you too feel that it could be you, lucky enough to be dining out with Alec...in Paris, bien sur. This is a classic for food lovers and guide book readers and all in love with Paris.

You can't help but sense Lobrano's passion about every morsel of food he's eaten, as well as his distain when he's been disappointed. He's one of the lucky ones who have been able to convert a passion into a profession. Lobrano is Gourmet's Magazine's European correspondent and has written for nearly every major food and travel magazine since 1986 when he moved to Paris.

But his love of good food started long before he became a Parisian. Lobrano was a gourmet by nature and critiqued food when he was a child living in Connecticut. His book's introduction recounts his first French meal in Manhattan when Alec before he was shaved. When his parents took him to France when he was in his teens, he returned to the US never imagining that he'd end up in Paris assigned to live, eat and write for a living.

His book, "Hungry For Paris - The Ultimate Guide to the City's 102 Best Restaurants" guides readers as if they are his close and dear friends. If you intend to eat in Paris, he is the masterful mentor, an insider who will show you not only where to eat but how to approach the meal. He also shares his tips about ordering wine and says there's no sin to ordering the restaurant's house wine. But skip the pre-dinner whiskey. It will only deaden your palate and add euros to your bill.

Alec shares his first-hand expertise about what diners should and shouldn't be looking for when going out. He takes readers by the hand and gives them a fast track course in restaurant mores much in the same way Emily Post might have done. You can hear her admonitions that you shouldn't raise your voice or wave your hands to attract a waiter's attention.

This is a MUST BUY book .. even if you're not Paris bound. It's a great read.

Dollar skidding, plane fare soaring --- it's not likely I'll be having dinner in Paris any time soon.

But that doesn't mean I can't eat in Paris by proxy. Naturally, the lucky stiff who's having the meals I'm missing is an American --- someone with an expatriate's appreciation of culinary greatness. This person can write as well as he/she can enjoy the handiwork of a fine chef. And, finally, this gourmet can appreciate the value of the dollar.

On the basis of Hungry for Paris, Alexander Lobrano is my Paris rep.

He's so American: "My first visit was in August 1972, en famille, with my parents, two brothers and sister. We stayed at a now-vanished hotel just off the Champs Elysees and every day began with a glass of warm TANG, which my late father mixed up in the bathroom water glasses, as a bit of thrift."

Lobrano is an ideal guide because he remembers who he was, how he became the expert he is now, and how you can acquire expertise. And he can do that hard thing --- see what's in front of him: "The French never drink Perrier with meals because they think its large bubbles make it too gaseous to go well with food." He has a good ear for the quotable restaurant owner: "Come on, eat! Go ahead! I'm going to charge you a lot of money, you know!" He can let it rip: "A heavy rain filled the gutters with bronze-covered chestnut leaves last night, and the city is suddenly the city is nude." And, above all, he has an awareness of ultimate goodness: "It is hard to imagine a better lunch than a creamy wedge of Camembert smeared on a torn hunk of crackle-crusted baguette and a glass of red wine."

But, eat in restaurants he must, so he's off to 102 of his Paris favorites. Some of them are mine, too. Most, refreshingly, are not. And, refreshingly, he's not shy about explaining his enthusiasms. Le Pamphlet: "the best risotto in Paris." L'Alcazar: "better service, better lighting and a more cosmopolitan menu" than La Coupole. L'Epi Dupin, which he hears about from "the nice lady at the post office." Le Florimond serves his beloved stuffed cabbage "in a pool of brown gravy so lush it had already skeined on its way to the table."

Reputation means nothing. Neither does atmosphere. Lobrano is all about what's on the plate. L'Ami Louis is "for high rollers more interested in a brand-name experience than good food." Bofinger's "beautiful decor...can't compensate for the kitchen's mediocrity." Le Divellec is "stuffy...and exorbitantly expensive."

Even if you never go to Paris, this book is wonderfully educational. I've seen aligot on a menu; I didn't know that the whipped potatoes are mixed with Tomme de Laguiole cheese and garlic until they have "the texture of molten latex." Joel Robuchon makes spaghetti carbonara with Alsatian bacon and creme fraiche --- I'll try that at home. And more, and more, until the meal fantasies merge and I have to...well, if truth be told, I need to pour a small glass of red wine, tear off a hunk of baguette and slather it with cheese.

Alexander Lobrano serves up gastro-porn of the highest order.

Hungry for Paris: The Ultimate Guide to the City's 102 Best Restaurants

fresh views on familiar places and new discoveries on and off the beaten path distinguish this well-written, informative and thoroughly enjoyable guide. a great read and highly recommended.

Finally, a book on Paris restaurants that is a pleasure to read and informative! I have been going to France for thirty years, am a French teacher, and often take my students to France (I'm going soon and Lobrano's book is in my carry-on!) Lobrano is an experienced writer and food lover and gives his wonderfully irreverent opinions on a wide range of Parisian restaurants. There are also several fabulous essays! This book will be the one to have and cherish for years to come. I am already waiting for Lobrano's next book on Paris. Until then, bon appetit!