A Paris menu tells you more than what you can eat. It tells you how the kitchen works, what it buys, and whether anyone there cooks. You can read most of it standing on the pavement.
The verdict
Trust a short menu. Six to ten dishes means the kitchen buys what it will use and cooks it that day.
Distrust a long one. Forty dishes across four cuisines means a freezer, a supplier and a microwave.
Read the format before the dishes. How a menu is organised says more than what is on it.
The formats and what they mean
A handwritten board or a single printed page, changing. The kitchen buys at the market and writes the menu after. This is the strongest signal there is, and it usually means someone in the back cares.
Entrée, plat, dessert with a fixed price. The standard French structure. A formule is usually two courses, a menu three. It is almost always cheaper than ordering separately, and at lunch it is the best value in Paris.
À la carte only, with a long list. Common and not alarming in itself — but combined with length and photographs, it is the profile of a room that reheats.
A menu translated into five languages with pictures. Covered elsewhere: this is a room built for people passing through.
The words worth knowing
Fait maison. Made on the premises. There is an official label and a logo for it. Its absence is not proof of anything, but its presence is a claim the restaurant is making publicly.
Plat du jour. The dish of the day. Usually what the kitchen bought that morning, usually the best thing on the menu at lunch.
Suggestions du jour. Often written on a board rather than printed. Same logic.
Entrée is a starter, not a main course. This trips up English speakers constantly.
Formule midi. The lunch deal. Paris restaurants that are expensive at dinner are often reasonable at lunch, with the same kitchen.
Service compris. Service is included in the price. It is the law in France — the price you read is the price you pay. Tipping is optional and small.
What the drinks list tells you
A short wine list with producers named suggests someone chose the wines. A long list of anonymous regional labels suggests a distributor chose them.
Wine by the glass, in several colours, changing is a good sign in a bistro. It means the room drinks.
A carafe of tap water is free, always, on request — une carafe d'eau. A restaurant that pushes bottled water without offering it is telling you something about how it treats customers.
The thing nobody reads
The closing days and service hours, usually on the door.
Most Paris kitchens serve lunch from around midday to two, close, and reopen for dinner from about seven or half past. Arriving at three means no kitchen. Arriving at ten in a neighbourhood bistro can mean the same.
Many restaurants also close two days a week, often Sunday and Monday. A place that is open every day, all day, in the centre, is running on a different model.
Who this does not suit
If you are eating in a covered market, a food hall or a street-food setting, these rules do not apply — different format, different logic.
If you have dietary restrictions, the short menu that signals a good kitchen also means fewer options. Ask rather than read; most kitchens adapt if you ask early.
If you are booking for a group, the handwritten daily menu becomes a problem rather than a virtue. Choose somewhere with a stable card.
What we do not know yet
We do not publish menus, prices or service hours for individual restaurants. They change by season and by owner.
What does not change is how to read one — and that works on any street in Paris, on a menu you have never seen.