Where to Eat in Paris According to Linda Eglin Mayer of Buvette

Chances are you already know of Linda Eglin Mayer, even if you’ve never met her: She’s the owner of Buvette, a Pigalle destination for French fare with a touch of West Village flair. The restaurant opened back in 2012 following the success of the New York flagship, founded by American Chef Jody Williams, and today, the all-day menu of specialties effortlessly bridges the gap between American scrambles, French croques, and veggie-forward salads sure to conquer palates from either side of the Atlantic. 

Mayer herself is just as international. After moving to Paris from New Jersey by way of New York in 1992, she raised her three children here. These days, she spends most of her time in the heart of Pigalle, home to both her restaurant and her favorite places to dine in Paris. 

She typically starts things off, not with a meal, but with yoga. 

“I absolutely love breakfast, but I recently stopped eating breakfast,” she says. “I do yoga in the morning, and once I finish my yoga, I just kind of on a roll, and I just wait til lunch.” 

That said, after her practice, she’ll sometimes head to La Main Noire in the 18th for one of their organic, plant-based lattes, each of which is made with house-made pastes like golden turmeric, green matcha and moringa, or black activated charcoal and sesame. 

“I have something called the spicy raw cacao latte with oat milk,” she says. “It’s really, really good.” 

If she wants something more substantial, she tends to break her fast close to home. “My ideal breakfast is granola, and I love Buvette’s granola,” she says. “Otherwise, I will not talk about Buvette anymore, but I do think that Buvette has the best granola.” 

The house-made, small-batch blend is served with Greek yogurt, fresh fruit, and a little dollop of jam. “I just find it’s the perfect dosing, and it’s really filling, and it’s just really delicious and it’s healthy,” Mayer says. 

If she decides to have a more French-style breakfast, she’d cross Paris for a croissant from the much-lauded Maison d’Isabelle, in the 5th. “I also recently discovered the pain au chocolat at a place called Bacillus in the 17th,” she says. “I think their pains au chocolat are really, outrageously good.” 

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When lunchtime rolls around, she takes advantage of the proximity of her favorite dining companions. “I have three kids, but two adult daughters who have come back home after a brief empty nest,” she says. They have a few local favorites for lunch, including Yum, a Chinese restaurant on rue de la Rochefoucault known for its bowls topped with mapo tofu or slow-cooked pork and quail eggs. “It’s just such a beautiful sight, to see these dishes, because there’s just a layer of beautiful, bright vegetables, like jewels on top,” she says. “Recently, the chef, who had been there for a long, long time, left. But there’s a new, young guy who is doing a fantastic job, so I like to go there and support them.” 

If she decides to travel further afield, she grabs a table at Mokonuts, in the 11th, where Moko Hirayama and Omar Koreitem dazzle with their seasonally-driven fusion fare and famous cookies. “It’s kind of far from me,” she admits, “but I was really charmed by the cuisine and the décor and just the service, and I think it’s a wonderful place to go for lunch, if you want to kind of get out of your neighborhood.”

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For a special occasion midday meal, she and her family are regulars at Caves Legrand in the Galerie Vivienne, which she terms “one of the greatest wine selectors in the world.” The gorgeous location in the 19th century covered passageway is the perfect place to enjoy a selection of high-end charcuterie and cheese boards and an ever-changing bistronomic menu of à la carte options like roast guinea fowl with spring vegetable freekeh or fennel remoulade with dukkah, each of which is paired with the perfect wine. At Legrand, she says, “you just feel like you’re in this rare moment in Paris, when you go and have lunch there and share a really great bottle.” 

Come dinnertime, Mayer can typically be found in her home kitchen. “I love cooking at home,” she says, “and all three of my kids love to cook.”  

Most of the time, she finds inspiration on market street rue des Martyrs, the culinary backbone of the neighborhood. “Part of the fun is a weekend morning standing in line and listening to what people are going to make and hearing their exchanges with the butcher or the fishmonger,” she says. “So the market street is really a big part of our life.” 

From the bounty of storefronts, she has a few favorites, including Fromages Sauvages, named for the so-called “wild cheeses” at the heart of this sustainably-minded cheese shop. “He really goes and sources his cheeses all over the country, from small farms,” he says. “He knows them well. So there’s always a story.” 

She also loves butchershop La Poularde Saint-Honoré, whose butcher, Christophe, is known by locals as “l’artiste” for his beautiful selection of deep red beef and fatty yellow poultry, not to mention house-prepared delicacies like pâté en croûte or lard-barded, rosemary-stuffed rabbit, ready to roast. And for the perfect tarte au citron (her péché mignon of choice), Mayer loves the “sublime” pâtisseries from Sébastien Gaudard. “His boutique is worth just coming over to see, because it’s so beautiful,” she says. His mastery of pastry classics like Tropéziennes, Paris-Brests, and Monts Blancs earned him Pudlo’s Meilleur Pâtissier of the year distinction in 2012. 

“It’s quite classic in terms of French desserts,” she says. “But they’re top of the line, state of the art. So if I were to buy a dessert, that’s where I would go.” 

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When she’s not enjoying dinner at home, Mayer also has a few restaurant go-tos. Her neighborhood coup de coeur is Pétrelle, home to an ever-changing prixe fixe from Chef Lucie Boursier-Mougenot. Creative choices may include Corrèze veal tartare with peanut sauce and asparagus or house-made gnocchi with artichoke, Galician mussels, and guanciale. All are paired with wines from her husband, Luca Danti; both somm and chef were formerly of Caves Legrand. 

“They make a great duo,” says Mayer. “I don’t know how they do it, with the space and the tables, but you’re sort of aware that other people are around, but you’re in your bubble, and it’s a really nice place.” 

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For more classic French fare, her go-to is Le Bon Georges, rife with old-school bistro vibes and a menu of meat-driven specialties to match. Despite being a relatively recent addition to the neighborhood – it only opened in 2013 – “you have the feeling that you’re in this venerable institution, when you go to Le Bon Georges,” says Mayer, “and we always have a really good time. The waiters and waitresses are so much fun, and so knowledgeable, and the food is so great. And of course, the wine list is just amazing.”