Anyone In France?

[jlinc]

Hi there,

I found this thread on Google when I searched for "gluten-free dining in Paris" so I'd like to update it with some of the info I've discovered through the above posts. It's been very helpful!

First off, Stephen Lord's site, Open Original Shared Link, is great! Lots of good recommendations for my favorite activity when I travel: dining out!

Second, through his site, I found a place with great cards you can give wait staff to help them help you. I printed them out in French and Spanish, since I'm going to Paris and Barcelona this trip: Open Original Shared Link This is also a nice site with lots of scary gluten stories about eating out.

Hope this helps someone else. Thank you!

Josh

[jlinc]

O yes, and one more thing, I wrote parisinfo.com, they said, and I quote:

Hello,

We have no knowledge of free-gluten restaurants in Paris.

Best regards.

No help there...

Josh.

[gfp]

O yes, and one more thing, I wrote parisinfo.com, they said, and I quote:

No help there...

Josh.

and you get the same response from AFDIAG .....

I'm glad you found the site useful. AS I mention on the front page Im thinking of just changing it to an info site since leaving it the way it is involves a finite amount of security work and so far noone has used the forum (with the exception of one person) or used the ability to submiot links and articles....

I can't quite work out what's wrong with it so if anyone has let me know....

[dh204]

hi,

i'm american but i live in paris now...

i mentioned it before, but in the parisian area you can try a store called "Les Nouveaux Robinson" which has a large variety of gluten free products.

Otherwise there is another chain of stores called BioMarkus. However, I don't think there are very many stores and they are not in Paris, but mostly in suburbs for which you will need a car.

There is an excellent little organic restaurant called Guenmaï in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. I don't remember the name of the street, but it's on a teensy tiny street between the metro stations st-germain and mabillon. it's only open for lunch; they often have 2 choices of the plat du jour, and the woman who owns the restaurant/store (they also sell health food stuff and vitamins and all) is very nice and understanding about gluten free. If necessary i think you can even ask for a plat du jour to be gluten free. this is the only place i know and have been to that i have never had a problem with (btw, i highly suggest the "rouleaux de printemps"; they are little rolls in a kind of rice flour and they are filled with veggies and mint leaves and rice vermicelli). You can even order stuff to take out which is great. i'm sure if you do a google search for guenmaï you'll find something written about it; it's one of those little known trendy places, so often times there will be celebrities there (well, not celebrities like brad pitt, but a lot of people in the fashion industry and film industry).

[gfp]

edited to comply with board rules

[aikiducky]

I'm not in France and unlikely to visit in the near future, but I had a look at the site just out of curiosity, hope this helps:

One thing I can think of is the infamous herd mentality .... if there aren't many posts in a forum, new people aren't likely to post either i suspect. It's very difficult to get a forum started unless you have something like a group of friends who all post something in the beginning to attract new people. The key is to have several different people posting, if you just post something yourself in the forum it still doesn't feel attractive to people because there's no group they can join. This is just based on what I've observed on different forums that I visit, some of them never really got going.

For my taste there's also a bit too much text and different menus on the page, it gets difficult to take it all in. I couldn't find the forum at first for example, even though I knew to be looking for it. You might overestimate the average person's ability to take in information. Personally I'm happiest with webpages that have a menu of six-seven links, tops. At the moment the site is more impressive then attractive if you see what I mean... a bit overwhelming.

Pauliina

[gfp]

I'm not in France and unlikely to visit in the near future, but I had a look at the site just out of curiosity, hope this helps:

One thing I can think of is the infamous herd mentality .... if there aren't many posts in a forum, new people aren't likely to post either i suspect. It's very difficult to get a forum started unless you have something like a group of friends who all post something in the beginning to attract new people. The key is to have several different people posting, if you just post something yourself in the forum it still doesn't feel attractive to people because there's no group they can join. This is just based on what I've observed on different forums that I visit, some of them never really got going.

Yes I think this is true.... its just a bit difficult in terms of catch-22...

For my taste there's also a bit too much text and different menus on the page, it gets difficult to take it all in. I couldn't find the forum at first for example, even though I knew to be looking for it. You might overestimate the average person's ability to take in information. Personally I'm happiest with webpages that have a menu of six-seven links, tops. At the moment the site is more impressive then attractive if you see what I mean... a bit overwhelming.

Pauliina

Thanks, this makes a lot of sense. The menu's at the top are most often clicked and it was my intention to have them all at the top ... before I ran out of space at the top.

Indeed peope send me emails all the time asking for information which is on the pages linked from the side menu. I guess I need to stick with one or the other and if I need to have the menu's at the side make them more obvious?

Thanks for spending the time ... Ill see if I get anymore comments and try and take them all into account and redo the site from scratch.... perhaps missing out the abilty of people to submnit stories and links?

[aikiducky]

I think it would be great to have the possibility for people to submit recommendations/warnings about restaurants, but it might be better if there was a way for people to pm you, and then you place the recommendations on the site. There wouldn't be a copyright issue I think if you had a form that was specifically for that purpose for example, one wouldn't fill it in if they didn't want to have the info on the site!

Anyway, good luck!

Pauliina

[gfp]

I think it would be great to have the possibility for people to submit recommendations/warnings about restaurants, but it might be better if there was a way for people to pm you, and then you place the recommendations on the site. There wouldn't be a copyright issue I think if you had a form that was specifically for that purpose for example, one wouldn't fill it in if they didn't want to have the info on the site!

Anyway, good luck!

Pauliina

good idea.... I can just modify the text of the "contact us" .. thanks that's really helpful...

[gpierre]

I recently visited a friend of mine who is also celiac in France and can now confirm that they offer a wider range of gluten-free products there called type produits sans gluten. My friend has recently acquired Open Original Shared Link close to Paris and he says that most supermarkets there have an organic food section where he can find everything he needs. Eating out is a problem tough, this is why we always had dinner at his house - it is just less complicated.