[twinkletwinkle_]

Anecdotally I have a French acquaintance who dreads his trips back home because the food is so terrible. Paris might be famous for fine dining at the extreme top end, but that doesn't necessarily make for the best eating.

[pjerem]

Eating great food in Paris is expensive on average. And the service is unfortunately known to be horrible. It’s not a rule though.

But other French cities are full of restaurants that serves really great food, with either gorgeous local specialities (hello Britain and Provence), or excellent « French » cuisine for really modest prices as low as 12-15€ for the « plat du jour » (which is made from what the restaurant bought in the morning) to 30-40€ for meals you’ll keep in your memory.

This is due to a law that enforces employers to pay for your mid-day meal. Most of them do this by giving you restaurants vouchers so a lot of people in France got to eat at restaurants on a budget every day. So as a restaurant owner, you’d better have nice food if you want to see your customers come back every week.

[MrGando]

That's definitely not true. Source: my wife is French and from Paris, I lived in France etc. Paris is AMAZING to eat, in every single tier. And that doesn't mean you'll be eating French cuisine everywhere. Asian food is incredible in Paris, so is Moroccan for instance. It's a deep city though, if you do "shallow dining" you'll eat garbage, like in pretty much every single major western city.