Bonjour! Welcome to Paris! Today we’ll check into the hotel. Upon arrival, you can relax, unpack or take a walk about the 10th arrondissement on the right bank, where we will be staying. In the late afternoon, we’ll meet in the lobby/restaurant of the hotel for an introduction and a small snack. We’ll also review the detailed itinerary for our Paris Old & New trip, and answer any questions you may have.

From there, we’ll venture out into our surrounding neighborhood for a walking tour. We’ll check out the local haunts and perhaps have another bite to eat along the way.  After our walk, we'll make our way to our inaugural meal together at a classic Parisian bistro, kicking off our exploration of Paris’ culinary scene, highlighting the traditional and modern. We’ll take in the charm of old-world Paris with a meal that’s big on the classics. 

After enjoying breakfast at the hotel, we’ll set out on our exploration of Parisian café culture. You may want to go easy on the caffeine this morning -- we’ll be having plenty of it in the near future.

We’ll have our first lesson of the trip—a traditional coffee “cupping” (dégustation) at Belleville Brûlerie to bring “third wave” coffee to Paris. We’ll talk about how actually roasting coffee beans in Paris is a highly unusual break from Parisian tradition; most cafés in Paris have bought coffee from one main distributor for many years, paying little attention to how it tastes. We’ll begin to explore the deviations between long-held traditions and modern-day Paris, which will set the stage for our entire program.

We’ll have lunch together with master charcuterie chef from Maison Verot .  His family has worked in charcuterie since 1930. Gilles will sit down with us to learn about terrines, pâtés, tourtes (meat pies), and more exquisite prepared foods essential to the French table.

Tonight's dinner will be at an exciting restaurant bringing innovative dishes to Paris!

Today we’ll kick things off with a stroll through the Bastille market, with free time to amble through the fruit, vegetable, cheese, and meat stalls before heading to our first activity.

There's nothing like the smell of chocolate, churning right in front of your eyes. After the market, we’ll visit one of Paris' new chocolatiers, run by a passionate husband and wife team, who explain the process from bean to bar and, bien sûr, leave us with a delicious taste!

We will meet at hotel and make our way to our dinnertime event -- a formal cheese lesson with an urban French cheesemonger. The owner-operator is doing something very special in this unassuming little cheese and wine shop! He was once a winemaker and found his calling many years back, switching to cheese. While here, we’ll tour a 17th century cellar, have a tasting of cheese, visit the cave d’affinage (aging cellar), and enjoy a cheese-focused dinner with a wine pairing.

Breakfast will be at the hotel this morning - then it’s time to don our baking toques!

Bread is integral to French culture, and the most iconic bread is the baguette; and we couldn’t bring you all the way to Paris and not teach you how to shape a baguette! We’ll spend the morning at one of the biggest and most renowned bakeries in Paris. While they aren’t focused on small batch production here, we’ll get a peak into an essential part of the Parisian bread landscape to see where most Parisians get their bread.  

Next up, we will make a special trip to a part of town rarely seen by tourists--the underground! Not the catacombs, and not the metro, we mean an underground urban farm, in a parking garage! There, we get a lesson in modern agriculture from our friend overseeing the production of mushrooms, endives and more...all grown many floors below ground in perfect conditions.

After a brief rest at the hotel, we’ll have a very special meal cooked for us in one of Paris’ most beloved new lunchtime restaurants, Mokonuts (opened just for us after hours), for a taste of modern French cooking by a husband-wife team of chefs, pulling on French technique with an international twist.