Christmas Day in Paris

Christmas Day in Paris

After a late night at the Crazy Horse, followed by wine and Netflix back at the apartment, we all slept in until late morning.  With Mrs. SFO777 deciding to take the day off from sightseeing, the three of us headed out for lunch... or so we thought.   Christmas Day means a lot of restaurants are closed.  Buvette serves my favorites croques and they were on our list for lunch this week.  A recorded message on their phone line claimed "we are open on holidays".  So, we UBER'd through empty streets over to the 9th....  

... only to find that Buvette is indeed not open on all holidays. 

Fortunately, it was a gorgeous and balmy 12C/54F so we explored our way back through the picturesque streets of the 9th... looking for anything open that was ranked better than 5,000 Tripadvisor ranking of 17,000+ Paris restaurants. 

And then to a series of wonderful covered walkways and arcades that dates back to the 19th century.

Finally winding our way down to Le Grand Colbert which was on a "open Christmas Day" list.   This was the restaurant made famous in the 2003 Jack Nicholson/Diane Keaton movie Something's Gotta Give.  While they were open, the place was packed and there were no tables available,

At this point, we had walked all the way down to Rue Saint-Honoré and were getting desperate.  Now hungry with much lower standards expectations, we wandered into the first open resto that wasn't Tripadvisor ranked more than 5,000.

Cozy atmosphere and friendly staff.

We ordered... croque monsieurs, naturally.

Which were actually pretty good.  I'd say a 6 or 7 on the 10 point Buvette scale.

After lunch, we continued our walk down to Rue du Rivoli and across to the Louvre...

...  and the Tuileries which was packed with Christmas Day revelers.

And the Christmas markets...

With the sun setting, we took a taxing back to our apartment to relax and have a little more wine before heading out for dinner.  Our Christmas dinner was at L'Atelier Étoile de Joël Robuchon, located on the lower level of the  Publicis Drugstore building, at the top of the Champs-Élysées.

Beautiful setting and decor similar other his other l'Atelier restos.

Lots of starter options designed for sampling and sharing.

Our amazing Maine Lobster with truffles.

The Langoustine in ravioli with truffles was fabulous.

Le Burger.  OMG... with foie gras.

And more fois gras... with pâté en croûte and pistachios.

As if that wasn't enough, the star of the night was La Truffe Noire, one of the most incredible spaghetti dishes we have ever tasted... with egg, parmesan and truffles.

Just in case you were still hungry, the potato purée side with loads of butter.

And desserts, of course.

What an amazing experience, and one of the best meals of the year.