The Real Reason I Fell for Paris (Not the Restaurants)
'There’s always another chance. It might not look the way you expected. But it also might be unimaginably better.'
The Dish and I met in a restaurant.
I was having dinner with a Colombian friend—dark chocolate hair, skin the color of burnt honey. Radiant. Barely a pore. She’s the kind of woman who moves through the world without a hint of self-consciousness. Words flow from brain to mouth, no filter. We call ourselves tigras. Take pleasure in the hunt.
That night, my tigra kept glancing at the guy behind the bar. Then she’d lean into my ear.
He’s cute, no? she whispered—a touch too loud for my comfort.
No! I waved her off—not because I didn’t agree, but because of how hard I did. I kept catching myself lingering on the deep blue of his eyes. But I was afraid that if I admitted it, I wouldn’t be able to look at him without blushing. I tried, instead, to focus on the food: the veal tonnato; the artichokes with the lingering licorice taste.
What do you do? The tigra asked him between dishes. He was polishing wine glasses unhurriedly. What are you doing in life?
He grinned, I’ve been trying to figure that out for the past 30 years.
He was funny. He spoke near-perfect English, with soft vowels and hard Rs—an accent that drifted between Jude Law and Matthew McConaughey. He was different.
I wrote in my journal the next morning:
“Met a cute actor/bartender who restored my faith in the possibility of randomly finding love in this city.”
I was suspended somewhere in that vast space between being flushed with hope and having zero expectations.
Later that day, he texted. Exhibition and a stroll? I countered with a movie—Gloria at the Filmothèque?
I’m down for a movie but I’ve watched Gloria a thousand times.
My heart fluttered. A man who knew his Gena Rowlands.
I suggested Tangerine at Le Brady, one of my favorite indie cinemas near Strasbourg–Saint-Denis. SSD, as Parisians call it. That, according to the Dish, is when he knew. I was different, too.
Later that afternoon, two cinephiles watched an early Sean Baker flick. Both loved it. Afterwards, we debriefed on a terrace and ate Turkish pizzas, sprinkled with minced meat and served with chopped tomatoes and sliced white onions, washed down with cold bottles of beer. He walked me home, from the 10th to the 9th. I invited him up for a glass of water.
Tangerine would be the first of so many movies we’d watch together.
From the outset, movies have been our constant. A week later, he urged me to see Emilia Pérez—a masterpiece, he called it. I heeded his advice, sitting solo for an afternoon matinee in UGC Les Halles. It was an early sign of trust—in his taste and sensibility. A couple weeks later, we returned to Le Brady to watch The Florida Project, our eyes watering at the very same moment.
Movies became our date night when we didn’t feel like going out-out. They were our cozy at-home activity when we wanted to reveal what had moved us in the past—a way to show, not tell, who we were; the characters and images and scores and storylines that stuck to our souls: like The Royal Tenenbaums for me, Cabaret for him.
During the weeks when I had my daughter (per my 50/50 custody), we’d meet for midweek matinees—our way to carve out time for each other and prioritize our relationship. Nothing says I love you like holding hands through a four-hour Friday screening of The Brutalist. I smuggled in turkey sandwiches with mayo and mimolette (similar to an unaged cheddar) on sliced whole wheat—soft but satisfy sandwiches—carefully wrapped in aluminum foil.
I’ve written about the leading role of restaurants in my Paris story, but cinemas have been just as important to me—a private place to escape my emotions or face them head-on.
They’re not a hobby to be listed on some online profile. It’s not that I like movies. It's that I'm prone to losing myself inside of them entirely. At least the good ones.
An example: Just days before my marriage ended, I bought a solo ticket at the Filmothèque, a mythic Latin Quarter haunt dating back to 1968. I sat in the top left corner for a late-night screening of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a Michel Gondry film I’d seen countless times. But this time felt different—like peering into a mirror: the slow, seemingly inevitable unraveling of a relationship that once felt untouchable. The imperceptible line between love and loathing. How the very qualities you once cherished become sources of frustration and soul-crushing resentment. The desperate longing to forget.
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Toward the end, in the bookstore, Clementine has fiery red hair, and “Bookstore” by Jon Brion fades in.
Joel says, It would be different if we could just give it another go-round.
And Clementine says, Remember me. Try your best. Maybe we can.
There’s a flashback to Long Island, where they first met. It’s winter, and they’re inside a stranger’s house along the beach, and Clementine is ransacking the place while Joel is anxious to escape. So he does.
“Peer Pressure” by Jon Brion.
I wish you’d stayed, Clementine says. The voice is outside of the scene. She’s commenting on a history she wished had gone differently.
I wish I’d stayed too. Now I wish I’d stayed. I wish I’d done a lot of things, Joel says. I wish I had stayed.
But he was scared. Our faults get in the way of love sometimes.
The magic of the film happens—Clementine and Joel decide to recreate their past.
Come back and make up a goodbye at least. Let’s pretend we had one, she says.
She leans over. Bye, Joel.
He’s at the bottom of the stairs, sitting in the sand. He whispers, I love you.
In a Left Bank theater, my face was wet from eyes to chin. I knew my marriage was over. But unlike Joel and Clementine, I wouldn’t get another chance.
It would be many months and many movies later before I realized: There’s always another chance. It might not look the way you expected. But it also might be unimaginably better.
Sometimes, the mere possibility is just as vital—just as life-affirming—as the thing itself. Going to the movies can do that for you. And on the nights you least expect it, restaurants can, too.
For cinephiles, Paris is the best city in the world. Here are the cinemas that the Dish and I love.
Filmothèque du Quartier Latin
📍9 Rue Champollion, 75005 Paris
His take: If you go to the Filmothèque or Le Brady, you're a cinéphile.
Hers: This is my favorite cinema for cult classics from every era—French and international. Wong Kar-wai, Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Alfred Hitchcock... It’s on a sliver of a Left Bank street with two other historic cinemas.
Le Brady
📍39 Bd de Strasbourg, 75010 Paris
His: See above.
Hers: A dizzyingly organized website, but you can pop into a movie literally any time of day. The programming covers everything from cult ’80s films to kids’ movies to new indie releases.
Le Grand Rex
📍1 Bd Poissonnière, 75002 Paris
His take: It's Art Deco—the architecture. If you want new releases… Le Grand Rex is one of the biggest. Lots of premieres.
Hers: New releases. (Pro tip: always check if it’s VOSTF—version originale with subtitles in French—or VF, dubbed if foreign.) Cool, trippy theaters. Do not try to smuggle in McDonald’s McFlurries—they will catch you.
UGC Les Halles
📍7 place De La Rotonde, 75001 Paris
His take: Check, but I think it's the biggest cinema in France… or Europe. (Ed. note: it is.) But it’s in one of the only malls in Paris, underground, in the center. For Parisians, you don’t want to be at Les Halles.
Hers: Mostly new releases from around the world—both blockbusters and indie films. But they’ll also randomly show beloved movies from great directors for, like, one night only. On a Tuesday night, you might stumble into Lady Bird or Requiem for a Dream.
La Géode
📍26 Av. Corentin Cariou, 75019 Paris
His take: Experiential cinema. You won’t see current movies—it’s documentaries, for kids, 180-degree screen.
Hers: We took Mimi (my daughter) to a whale documentary here. It’s inside a giant globe. She thought it was pretty cool.
Max Linder
📍24 Bd Poissonnière, 75009 Paris
His take: Old cinema, when cinema was… honestly I don’t know about Max Linder, I won’t talk about it.
Hers: I love love Max Linder. It feels like going to the opera—the theaters are old-school, with a mezzanine floor. Mostly indie stuff, though sometimes they do children’s programming—short films that are really cool. Like a stop-motion Japanese film I saw with Mimi and her class on a field trip.
Le Louxor
📍170 Bd de Magenta, 75010 Paris
His take: for severe intellectuals. It's independent.
Hers: How was this literally five minutes from my apartment and I never went until last year?? Such a cool building. Generally a great, Oscar-contender selection.
The 75 Shouts & Whispers
My journo friend Katherine happened to publish a Paris cinéphile story in Vogue last week (great minds, etc.)! You can check her recommendations out here—a great complement to the list above.
I received some restaurant merch from Gift Shop, the brand featuring gear from both Paris institutions and new hot spots. One of the items was a baseball cap from Dandelion, the restaurant at the top of my list. It’s my new favorite accessory for when I’m Kendall Roy-ing around the city.
Their latest drop is a collaboration with La Fontaine des Mars — in their words, “[j]ust a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower, La Fontaine de Mars is a characterful bistro that embodies the essence of traditional French gastronomy.”
Speaking of movies, there’s a newish restaurant in the space that once housed Cinema Le Seine, the venue that hosted the very first screening of Alice in Wonderland in 1951. It’s generating a quiet buzz among Paris’s food and influencer crowd.
I grew up in the Borscht Belt, where my high school job was taking photographs of resort guests—at Kutsher’s, the Concord, and the like—on Friday nights, then selling portraits the next morning in an assortment of sizes, plus those tiny keychain viewers. (Usually hungover, while my best friend and fellow photographer would regularly duck into the bathroom to throw up.) So I came of age with a certain idea of what it meant to mix entertainment and dining. My mind immediately goes to resort acts, wedding singers, or comedians sweating through corporate gigs while guests saw away at prime rib.
So I’ll admit I was skeptical when I first heard about Atica, a restaurant promising an immersive dining experience themed around a particular destination. The journey began in the Basque Country; most recently, Corsica was added to the itinerary.
Now, when people think of dining in Paris, they tend to picture sidewalk terraces, Gatti chairs, maybe soaring ceilings and tobacco-stained mirrors. Atica offers something else entirely: a chance to leave Paris behind for 90 minutes through a multi-course meal executed with the precision of a ballet at the Bastille Opera.
I recently set off on the Corsican journey, alongside my friends Sulekha and Preeti. The menu highlighted ingredients from the island—figs, black olives, briny seaweed, sheep’s milk cheese—flavors I already love. We all agreed that the standout dish was dandelion ravioli.
TLDR: I’d recommend Atica if you’re looking to surprise someone with something a little different. It’s also a smart pick for a group or business dinner.
Words by Caitlin Gunther
Edited by Mary Alice Gunther
Your description of Spotless Mind made me tear up. Not only did it make me want to watch the movie again but it reminded me of a feeling I know all too well. Thanks for sharing such an intimate thought and feeling. I’ve been loving your writing as someone who’s planning a move to Paris in the next year. Can’t wait to read more!
As someone soon moving to Paris (and feeling quite anxious about it) your post was so heartwarming 🫶 and so beautifully written!