Mokonuts — Restaurant in Paris

Simple, flavourful, beautifully plated food in a warm and welcoming place. Small portions, well paced so you feel fed and enjoy each bite.

Café is a misleading term given the quality of the food, and the price. It’s not cheap, though the recent spike in oil and produce prices have made both eating out and running a restaurant more challenging.

I discovered Mokonuts from an NYT 25 dishes to eat in Paris article and like how Hiramaya-san described food. I looked up the restaurant she and her husband had in the 11th, like their philosophy and approach to food and made a booking.

The NYT article may be why most of my fellow diners had American accents, a mix of expats and tourists like me, though a French-speaking walk-in was politely and regretfully turned away as the restaurant was fully booked. The owner knew, from my broken French grammar when I called, that switching to English would be a more efficient conversation. Much as I like bumbling with my terrible French in Paris, it’s nice to be able to exhale and not worry about saying the wrong thing or be seen as that annoying tourist that expects the world to speak English.

You know a place cares about feeding people well when they welcome solo diners. Parisians can be quite cliquey, so it was nice that this is a place where I ended up having a nice chat with the person whom I was sat next to. It had that NYC vibe, where if we were both expats we could have found a new friend to hang out with.

I think I enjoyed the experience more as it’s an owner operated place. I had 3 courses and a glass of wine and water. 24 hours later, I am still regretting not asking for an order of the cookies to go, which the regulars seem to love.

On a cold rainy day, this room behind the fogged up windows was a lovely place to be. Easy to get to on the 8...

Tiny cafe with sweet service and delicious and unique dishes! My husband and I called a week ahead to book a seat for lunch on a Monday around noon. With only less than twenty seats in the place, it’s a good idea to book ahead if you’re going at peak hours.

We were greeted and seated by a sweet lady who I presume is one of the owners (based on other reviews read). The menu was short and in French but she came right over to help us with the translation. I would say the guest who come to dine are an even mix of foreigner/travelers and locals.

We ended up choosing an egg with green entree and the two mains they had for the day, a chicken and a fish dish. Also we had two noisettes that were delicious (my husband would of liked a stronger coffee taste though). Our food was brought out in decent timing. The kitchen is so small so it’s rather impressive they can do all this back there. Our food was awesome. My husband’s chicken had a nice crisp skin on it and Brussels sprouts that amazingly weren’t bitter but tasty! My fish was super soft with just the right amount of crisp on the skin.

The meat plates were €25 and €20, egg starter I think about €8-10, and noisettes €3-4 (sorry I can’t remember exact pricing). Yes it was a little pricey for lunch but we wanted to try the food as we heard so much about this cafe. Definitely didn’t disappoint but do know you’ll probably spend a little bit more than you usually do on lunch.

Five stars for great food taste, presentation, friendly service, clean restaurant, and good location! Thank...

Somehow this place made it onto all the “lists of where to eat when in Paris” and as a result, it’s filled with only Americans (table next to me and behind me was filled with New Yorkers in fact). Sure, Paris is touristy and there will be lots of tourists anywhere but I didn’t expect this to be as bad as Au Relais de L’entrecote LOL.

Felt compelled to share this for anyone even seeking somewhat of a local experience, or even a mix of locals/tourists…this is not it 🥲

Moving onto the food, it’s pretty plain for the price (it’s definitely priced for the American tourist - 26 euro for a lunch main dish, something I haven’t really seen at any comparable restaurants). Finally, it’s absolutely awful for vegetarians. When I sat down, i asked what option they could make as I don’t eat meat/fish, and the server assured me that they could make a main dish of vegetables. Turns out I just got the same dish that others who were eating fish were getting, just without the fish! And was still charged 23 euro for it 🥲 the dish was tiny without the fish and I left very hungry (see pic below lol)

Labne starter was good but certainly not worth coming out of your way for. Highly suggest to walk into any other cute lunch spot in the area,...