Starting: Tuesday afternoons at 4:00pm

Meeting point:Metro Palais Royal in the center of the square

Duration: approx 3 hrs

Cost: 99€

Price includes: Guided Tour + 5 Wines

• Louvre
• Les Halles
• Montorgeuil
• Eglise St Eustace
• Place de Victoires
• Passage Vivienne

DESCRIPTION & ITINERARY

First glass of Sancerre: In Les Halles

Walking parallel to along rue Rivoli you head towards Les Halles. A former marke with its many restaurants and bistrots that cateredto the thousands of professionals visiting the "Marche des Halles" before its destruction at the turn of the 1970's.

Here we visit our first Bistro with its genuine professional ambiance and stop for two glasses of white wine.like the : Muscadet 2003 , or Quincy 200 , looking for the freshness in the first wines tasted . Other wines in whites here could be Menetou Salon 2003 , Sancerre 2003 , and a white Cotes du Rhone.

Rue Montorgeuil: A stop for a Red

Then , walking through "Les Halles" , we reach a street that retained its Halles atmosphere , with restaurants and bars and lively street activity : Rue Montorgueil where we stop at a bistrot well known for its quality selection of wines .

There , we'll enjoy reds , one of these : Beaume de Venise 2003 "Costanci, Domaine de la ferme Saint Martin", Morgon vieilles vignes ( Georges Descombes , Touraine Cot .

"Claude Gousset has dinner at lunchtime every weekday at Aux Tonneaux des Halles, a bistro situated just behind the church of St-Eustache on the cobbled old market street of rue Montorgueil. Gousset, a meat cutter at Rungis who started his career in the butcher's trade at Les Halles, buys meat for the bistro every day. He has also lived next door to Aux Tonneaux since his Les Halles days, and has had his own table at the bistro for forty-odd years. ''You know,'' he tells me one afternoon, nodding sagely, ''it is only the most courageous and passionate bistro owners that have persevered through the really difficult years.'' He speaks highly and fondly of both Chez Clovis and Chez Denise ( a great place for dinner) in this regard, and then tells me about Aux Tonneaux: The original owners, he says, had let the place sink into sad decline, when Patrick Fabre a 27-year veteran of other old bistros in the area took it over in 1991. Fabre has revivified the place, keeping old customers like Gousset happy, but developing a new, younger clientele as well by not only cooking bistro standards like entrecote bordelaise, served with its marrow; rump steak with a creamy roquefort sauce; and andouillette (tripe sausage) with a mustard sauce; but also dishes like a simple melon de Cavaillon in summer; a deliciously light filet of salmon with leeks; and a hearty cod steak with baby spinach".

Walking on Rue Montorgeuil , we look briefly at L 'Escargot and Stroher , living monuments of Paris Gastronomy.

L'escargot: One of the most authentic examples of 1830s decor in Paris

Stohers: Founded in 1730 by the former Pastry chef of Louis XV.