A Bowl of Japanese Ramen in Paris

Ever since I fell in love with ramen at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, I’ve been hunting down ramen in every city I travel. It’s become a tradition: regardless of the city’s culture, I’ll try the rumored best bowl of ramen to see how it compares. And that’s exactly why we had a bowl of Japanese ramen in Paris.

But ramen in Paris was not what I expected.

A Bowl of Japanese Ramen in Paris

Japantown in Paris

Having ramen in Paris was on my to do list long before I left on my trip. So I researched the best bowl of Japanese ramen in Paris through multiple websites, and had a few in mind before we landed. To our surprise, when my friend and I arrived in Paris, our AirBnb was right in the middle of Japantown in Paris in the 1st arrondissement!

Japanese restaurants surrounded our apartment. There was even a Japanese-French fusion bakery with delicious green tea muffins. And steps away was what I read to be the best ramen spot: Kotteri Ramen Naritake.

Ramen at Kotteri Ramen Naritake

After a rainy day at the Palace of Versailles, we joined the line outside of Kotteri for a bowl of ramen. (Furthering my theory that lines are everywhere in Paris!) While we waited in line we watched the chefs cook.

I was fascinated by the way they cooked their ramen: they’d drain the noodles right on the floor, splashing water all over. The cooks wore rubber boots and rubber aprons, spraying the floor with a hose to clean away stray noodles.

Ramen in Paris

Once our ramen arrived, it wasn’t quite what we expected.  The chicken-based broth was heavily overpowered by chicken flavor. Chicken-based broths aren’t uncommon for ramen, but this one wasn’t strained so the chunky broth made it more like a thick chicken noodle soup. The pork was dry and not very flavorful. And the egg (a classic component of ramen) was nowhere to be found.

I was amused by how different the Parisian ramen was from all the other ramen I’ve had. It was an obvious example of taking one culture’s food and adapting it to another culture’s palate. It may not have been authentic ramen in the Japanese sense, but it was authentically French ramen, done to their taste.

And in the end, that’s exactly the experience I was craving.

Related :: What I Hated About Paris, Tips for a Day Trip to Champagne, and Ramen Around the World