Emmanuelle Béart
Who: Actress
Where: La M?terran? 2 Place de l'Od?, 75006 (01 43 26 0230)
Where else: Brasserie Lipp, Boulevard St Germain 75006 (01 45 48 7293)
I don't like grand, over-the-top restaurants with fawning staff. That's why I like M?terran?- they know me and always reserve me my favourite little corner table. I always go to eat there with the film director Andr?echin?I like a certain familiarity and that is why I always return to the same places.
Restaurants tend to fall into two camps: places where there are a lot of [famous] people and no one looks at you, but then you have to say hello to everyone, which is a bore, or the small restaurants where no one is well known and so the attention is focused on you and that makes me feel uncomfortable.
At La M?terran?I eat carpaccio and fish - it's not that glamorous but that's what I order. I eat a lot of fish. My favourite is sea bass known as loup where I grew up near St Tropez. I have Italian roots, so if I fancy Italian food I go to Casa Bini on the Left Bank (36 Rue Gr?ire de Tours). I also like Lipp in St Germain.
· Emmanuelle Béart is in Strayed (Les ?ar? and Hell (L'Enfer), both out now
Lambert Wilson
Who: Actor
Where: Brasserie Balzar, 49 Rue des Ecoles, 75005 (01 43 54 13 67)
Where else: Brasserie Lipp, La Coupole, Chartier, Le Voltaire, 27 Quai Voltaire
I like simple hearty food, no frills. I love old French brasseries but one by one they get renovated (La Coupole has recently fallen victim to the trend), but the Balzar has kept to the original and you can sit where Jean-Paul Sartre took dinner. I like the practicality of these brasseries where you can have lunch or dinner all day.You can still find them in Paris but in the provinces it is getting increasingly difficult.
I was on the committee of defence for the Balzar before it was taken over by a the big French chain Flo. We were worried that it would be changed. However, they were shrewd enough to realise what they had and did not touch the concept.
To start I usually have leek vinaigrette, which may sound like a poor man's dish but suits me, then pot-au-feu, boiled meat with vegetables, or a basic lamb gigot with flageolets. Once a year I will have a choucroute because it takes a whole year to be able to take on another one.
Lady Holmes
Who: British Ambassador's wife
Where: Le Timbre, 3 Rue Sainte-Beuve, 75006
I discovered Le Timbre through Neal's Yard, who told me they supplied them with cheese. It is run by a Mancunian and I have used it for intimate dinners and also staff parties. I brought the Embassy team here last Christmas and though we did not have turkey we did have a nod to a British Christmas with the pain perdu served with Christmas pudding ice cream.
The French shun vegetables: sometimes I feel the school marm rising up in me when guests don't eat them. At one Embassy event we sent down to the kitchen for a parsnip to show the guests, it was so unfamiliar to them. I bring back veg in the car from Wales, parsnips, swede and Pembrokeshire early potatoes.
The menu here is Anglo-French and you find French dishes with a Brit twist. I also champion another British institution, the sandwich. For five years we have been running the European Sandwich Show at the Palais de Congr?- the last one attracted nearly 6,000 visitors. I did onstage demonstrations.
· Lady Holmes's book Sandwiches (?15.80, published by Marabout) is available from Amazon.fr, proceeds go to Breast Cancer Research.
Olivier Picasso
Who: TV host and film producer, and grandson of Pablo Picasso
Where: Thiou, 49 Quai D'Orsay, 75007, (01 40 62 96 50)
Where else: Hotel Costes, Place Vend?239 rue St Honor?75001 (01 42 44 50 00), Gaya 44 Rue de Bac, 75007 (01 45 44 73 73)
Thiou is my canteen. It's only a few hundred yards from my home because neither I nor my girlfriend Camille de Pazzis, the Lanc?Girl, cook. The Thiou decor is pretty, but it's the ambience I like. The staff here smile. Even the voiturier, but maybe that's because he likes my car - a black Mercedes SL55 AMG.
You always eat alongside actors, TV people and people in the luxury business at Thiou. The lady chef was the chef at the Bains Douches where she served the international jet set from Mick Jagger to Grace Jones to Prince. She has perfected a cuisine she calls modern Thai fusion; prawn and lemon grass soup, roasted sea bass filet with steamed vegetables, tomatoes and thai basil.
For dessert it is house ice cream, ginger tea flavour, which I find is even better than Viagra! I drink white as red sends me to sleep. If you see me drinking red, I don't feel attracted to the girl I am dining with.
Loulou De La Falaise
Who: Yves St Laurent's fashion muse, designer
Where: Caf?e Flore, 172 Blvd St Germain, 75006 (01 45 48 55 26)
Where else: Yen, Blvd St Germain, Les Deux Magots, 6 Place St Germain (01 45 48 5525)
I have been coming to the Flore ever since I can remember, it is my St Germain choice over its famous neighbour the Deux Magots. People like to make an entrance here, I remember Kenzo arriving with his multicoloured entourage in 1972. Flore has kept its reputation for being a fashion and literary haunt.
The place has not changed but it has become more expensive. These days I come here either for lunch or an aperitif before heading next door to eat at a Japanese restaurant called Yen. I tend not to drop in at the weekend because it is packed out. I eat according to the season. In the winter I take scrambled eggs with ham and mixed green salad with oak lettuce and mache. Otherwise I have a Flore classic, which is the Welsh Rarebit drowned in melted cheese. Right now I am making handbags for a Guerlain project and they have just been launched at Harrods. We have two shops so life is very busy.
Mazarine Pingeot
Who: Daughter of Fran?s Mitterrand and author
Where: Isami, 4 Quai d'Orleans, 75004 (01 4046 0697)
Where else: Restaurant Georges, Centre Pompidou, 19 Rue Beaubourg (01 44 78 47 99), Chez Wong, 10, rue de la Grande Truanderie, 75001 (01 42 33 38 15)
My partner and his company Oskar Films have just produced a documentary, Le Secret, about my relationship with my father Fran?s Mitterrand, it went out on national French television at the beginning of the year. Now we are not so busy so we have time to eat out.
My big favourites are Japanese and Italian. The busy Italian on Boulevard Magenta called Da Mimmo is great. For Japanese I go to Isami: I recommend the beautifully presented sashimi moriawase; the chawanmushi, which is creamed eggs with a tangy sauce; a plate of oysters with a special sauce. If I want a delicious Japanese dessert I would head for Chez Wong near the Place de La Concorde.
Though I am not a big meat eater, I adore a steak tartare: Georges on top of the Centre Pompidou has it down to a fine art.
Andr?Putnam
Who: One of the world's most influential interior designers
Where: L'Ami Louis, 32 Rue du Vert-Bois, 7500 (01 48 87 77 48)
Where else: Closerie des Lilas, 171 boulevard du Montparnasse, 7500 (01 40 51 34 50)
I saw that bon viveur, Bill Clinton, arrive at L'Ami when I was eating in a restaurant next door. It is a favourite address of his in Paris.
When I go, I feast. I start with foie gras served with a cold confit de canard. Next comes a c?de boeuf served up with the house speciality of potatoes cooked like a tarte tatin in duck fat. As a concession to health, I will take a salad doused in the delicious house vinegar.
I am not a dessert person but chez L'Ami Louis you can expect to be served up an unexpected fruit, maybe a lychee or a mango. At Christmas they might send a bowl of cherries to the table unannounced - I do not like produce out of season. If you have a sweet and juicy apricot every day it loses its poetry and deliciousness.
I prefer an imperfect apricot from an abandoned orchard with a blemish; I think of that as a beauty spot. I am not a wine drinker but take red wine over white as it is better for the system. Even though I binge at l'Ami Louis I have no weight problem as I am something of a camel eater, I can go for a week without eating and then I eat to excess and store.
Antoine Du Caunes
Who: TV presenter
Where: L'Ami Jean, 27 Rue Malar 75007 (01 47 05 86 89)
Where else: Le Perron, 6 rue Perronet 75007 (01 45 44 17 51); L'Osteria. 10, rue de Sevigne 75004 (01 42 71 37 08)
This restaurant opened just after the war and I have been coming for years. It's round the corner from the National French TV HQ where my father broadcast. I first came here with him when I was three. This really is a central casting of French cuisine - langue de veau, wild pigeon and ris de veau, frogs' legs. Another signature dish of this Basque restaurant is piballes, which are like tiny eels caught off the Basque Coast. To show solidarity with Basque cuisine they prepare pigs' ears with prawns. They taste like pork scratchings.
Here, you can book and order 72 hours ahead of time if there are five or more of you. Then you can choose classic dishes from the gourmet menu such as blanquette de veau ?'ancienne. I start with a basket of saucissons and boudin which you chop up on your own board, then confit de cuisse de canard r?dans sa graisse, spiced with garlic and thyme.
When I am not eating Basque, I will eat Italian or Japanese. I have Italian boltholes across town: L'Osteria in le Marais, San Francisco in Avenue de Versailles and a new one, Le Perron, near L'Od?.
