Vegetarian food in France

[midnightmoon8]

We've just returned from a lovely holiday in France. It was perfect apart from one issue - I'm vegetarian and found finding vegetarian options in restaurants almost impossible. We travelled around and mainly stayed in b&b accommodation and ate out each evening but this involved traipsing round restaurant after restaurant until we found somewhere suitable. Think we'll go self-catering in future but wondered how other vegetarians overcome this? There must be French vegetarians - where do they eat??!

We find the same issue. We always go self catering and tend to eat out at Italian restaurants!

@AgentPidge another for the west of Limoges restaurant recommendation please!

Good luck with that. Ispeak French reasonably well and it's virtually impossible unless you are in a big city.

@HundredMilesAnHour
'I thought it was still illegal to be vegetarian in France?'

No, it's no longer illegal, but you may encounter the head of a VEGAN on a stick, at the entrance to a village, as a warning.

Ah, that wasn't me! I ate in a Moroccan restaurant in Limoges. It was in the old part. I can't remember what it was called but I've just googled and there are loads. One says vegetarian available, and one even says they do vegan!

Depends where you are, and yes it has improved in the 35 years I've been going to France! I am just eating my (vegetarian) dinner, will elaborate more when I'm done.

Outside Paris I generally go to Italian restaurants which is a bit frustrating for friends if they are on holiday with us. In Paristhere was a road near Boulevard Haussmann with a multitude of ethnic restaurants - Ethiopian, Indian, Chinese, Mexican. Lebanese. We used to work our way down the road trying a different one each night.

Back.
Nowadays, you should be able to find "proper" French restaurants serving vegetarian main courses (just one, mind you 😆) in most reasonably sized towns, especially those with an alternative/ student population.

And why wouldn't you?? Even in France a decent chef has a sense of adventure and likes to innovate and incorporate different influences into food- and doesn't France produce great vegetables, pulses and dairy products?! IMO it's the mark of a timid, unskilled chef if they need meat or fish to create a good dish- and vegetarian dishes must have better profit margins, too.

Even Buffalo Grill (those roadside restaurants with the horns!) have a veggie burger option nowadays, and they don't even make you sit in the car park to eat it 😆

In November I had a fantastic meal at a restaurant called Lautrec somewhere in the vicinity of Pigalle in Paris- delicious oyster mushroom tacos. Paris is fairly easy, obviously- as well as the aforementioned falafel and other ethnic restaurants, there is a whole row of South Indian vegetarian restaurants on Rue Fauborg du S.Antoine (I think it is) down the side of the Gare du Nord- very handy if you're travelling by Eurostar.

I also found Marseille a real foodie heaven, although I don't think I had any traditionally French food while I was there last year- just Spanish, North African and Japanese- and it was all delicious.

Don't forget the option of looking up vegetarian restaurants- or just looking at menus- on Google maps, rather than trudging all over town.

Out and about, boulangeries often have some delicious quiches without meat, even if they usually refuse to make you up a fresh cheese and ham baguette without the ham (whyyyy? 🙄). I may have caved and had a smoked salmon baguette while with the kids in Paris last week (I was not going to drag them all over looking for suitable options just for me, fuck it).

In terms of self catering, supermarkets are even starting to stock rather dodgy looking frozen meat alternatives, and if I've had Carrefour's spinach and goat's cheese quiche once I've had it a dozen times.

We had the same problem when in France with my DGD (2) who has a cows milk allergy. All the restaurants served lovely crepes and almost every dish contained cheese or butter. Even in the supermarket it was impossible to buy milk free biscuits, cake etc. France just does not embrace people with dietary restrictions.

Ah sorry, it's rue Fauborg St Denis down the side of Gare du Nord with all the Indian restaurants. I did a couple of Google map searches for "vegetarian restaurant"- yes, loads in Paris of course, but look- I also did one for Limoges and loads popped up!

Italian restaurants are a good bet for something veggie in France.

But yeah. A French colleague once explained to me that there was no need to be veggie in France because they cook the meat much better than in England and it is really tasty….

😆

Fact.

Overall, I think availability of vegetarian/vegan foods are improving over in France but mainly in the major cities

I remember being in the south of France in the early noughties, travelling with one of my good friends who is vegetarian- in some places they seemed totally baffled as to what they could give her! She mainly ate green salads & omlettes

Hi, I’m from the provinces of the uk and not London or a major city. Dd1 is vegetarian and most places have plenty of choice and she isn’t stuck with a veggie burger or cheese sandwich. Honestly there is life outside of London here.

dd1 does struggle in France though being vegetarian. Portugal was also tricky. Spain and Greece have generally been good though with plenty of choice.

In the 90's I asked for the vegetarian option at a restaurant. They brought me out duck.

Luckily my child is pescatarian so lived on Prawns and mussels whilst in France this summer

There’s much about France to be irritated by. But good food and a refreshing disrespect for food faddism are things the French get absolutely right.

We’ve been going to the Pas de Calais for the last 20 years and there’s certainly a greater awareness of being vegetarian.
The big supermarkets have seriously improved with loads more meat-free options, usually in the organic ‘bio’ section.
Eating out can still be a challenge but again, so many more places will do versions ‘sans viande’ even if we have to do the ‘lardons and jambon are actually meat-thing’ frequently.
Staples for my vegetarian are ‘welsches’ - ultra-cheesey rarebits, omelettes, goats cheese salads, galettes and buffets - we have several local places where there’s a really good selection of ‘à volonté’.

If everyone in the world wants to eat meat every day, we're fucked. Absolutely and comprehensively fucked. The planet cannot support this number of livestock, or the vast acreage of land required to grow food crops solely to feed them.

In the light of this, basing meals around plants is less of a "fad", and more sheer common sense.

Not doing something environmentally damaging on ethical grounds is hardly 'food faddism'.

My ds is veggie and we always manage. This year eating out- twice there were good veggie burgers available and the more 'proper' French hotel restaurant we went to had a vegetarian dish made with meat substitute (I'd say this is unusual though). Another place had veggie curry option. There is usually pizza/ pasta somewhere but we tend to go to cheaper, more casual places.

It can be hard to find alternatives in supermarkets. It took me ages to find chickpeas and there was only one quorn type thing to buy in the whole (massive) shop. It was impossible to find - I had to ask a member of staff. I think I will take a couple of things from home next time.

Yes, simple staples like peanut butter, houmous and veggie sausages can be way more expensive and/ or difficult to find in France.

Most medium size French towns will have a Breton style creperie that will sell simple vegetarian galettes.

Even if you do speak French you should double check for sneaky meat. I am not a vegetarian and eat most meats, but I prefer vegetarian or fish dishes most of the time. We had a set lunch menu in a fancy restaurant in Nimes a couple of years ago and I translated the main course as stuffed tomatoes with Camargue rice and a tomato coulis. I assumed it was the common vegetarian dish of a large tomato stuffed with rice and vegetables. In hindsight i should have smelled a rat that a fairly fancy restaurant was apparently serving a vegan main dish on their set lunch menu.

It arrived - a beautiful big tomato on a bed of rice, decorated with sauce. The tomato however was stuffed full of rare beef!

I mean it was delicious but i would have been bit miffed if i did not eat meat.

I’ve always found that even if there isn’t a veggie option on the menu (which is quite common) if you ask nicely they will find you something - but im not too worried about all the ingredients (I can live with a bit of suspect stock, hard cheese, etc) and im quite happy with a plate of buttery veg and a side of chips as dinner.
Recetnly I asked for a cheese and ham toastie without the ham - the chef wasn’t having that, too boring, so he kindly replaced the ham with a big pile of grated carrots. Was a bit odd, but perfectly edible!

There are lots of places around where we live on Lake Annecy that’s cater towards vegans and vegetarians and I don’t think I have found any restaurants that don’t do anything at all veggie. Naturalia and Biocoop sell lots of vegan and veggie options for eating in.

It is a challenge outside Paris and large cities. The south of France is particularly bad for veggies, I’ve found. I’ve spent many an evening going from restaurant to restaurant reading menus to find nothing to eat, unless I lived off chips and salade verte, but I much prefer the idea of a balanced diet.

italian restaurants and pizzerie are always a solution but I live in Italy so want to avoid eating Italian abroad. Creperies are fine but not exciting. This time we went to a Moroccan restaurant and there were 3 things I could eat on the menu, but I had to ask for extra chickpeas to be served with the tagine, or it really was only veg. If you want Asian you need to go upmarket for veggie/vegan options. The cheap takeaway places had one noodle dish and one rice dish (and the quality was rubbish).

not all French restaurants will rustle something up, unlike in Italy where they will happily propose something off menu. I speak fluent French so it’s not a language issue either, if they’re busy they just can’t be bothered. I did tell them once that I’d get much better service in Italy but that didn’t shame them, alas 😫