A Paris Favorite: French Onion Soup at Au Pied de Cochon

 A Paris Favorite: French Onion Soup at Au Pied de Cochon

There are restaurants you discover while traveling, and then there are restaurants that become part of your personal geography of a city. For me, Au Pied de Cochon is firmly in the second category.

I have been coming here for years, and when someone visits Paris with me, there is a very good chance I am going to bring them here. The reason is quite simple: the French onion soup.

Au Pied de Cochon sits at 6 rue Coquillière, immediately beside Les Halles and just around the corner from my beloved Saint-Eustache. It has been a Paris institution since 1947, serving the traditional, generous food of the old Les Halles neighborhood. 

And the restaurant looks exactly the way I want a grand old Parisian brasserie to look. Deep red upholstered chairs, crisp white tablecloths, polished wood, mirrors and decorative details give the dining room that unmistakable old-Paris character. There is nothing minimalist about it. It feels warm, established and wonderfully French.

But I come for the soup. The waiter asked me if I wanted a menu in English, but I told him that a French one is just fine because I know exactly what I want.

Their version is properly called “Les Halles” onion soup au gratin, a name that connects it directly to the history of the neighborhood. The current menu still lists it among the restaurant’s classic starters. 

And when it arrived, it was exactly what I remembered.

The soup comes to the table in its own substantial white crock, filled right to the top. Over the broth is that magnificent golden cap of melted and browned cheese. It has bubbled over the rim during gratinating, leaving little trails of cheese running down the outside of the bowl.

Then comes my favorite part.

I put my spoon through that browned surface and lifted it.

Cheese pull!

Long strands of melted cheese stretched from the spoon all the way back to the crock. Underneath was the deeply flavored onion broth and the softened bread that has absorbed all that goodness. The top gives you the browned, slightly chewy cheese, while underneath everything becomes wonderfully soft, savory and rich.

French onion soup has particularly deep roots in the old Les Halles market district. The gratinéed version became associated with the restaurants surrounding the enormous former food market, where it was substantial enough to feed market workers and appealing enough to attract late-night Paris revelers as well.  Au Pied de Cochon still celebrates that connection today, and its onion soup remains one of the house specialties most closely associated with the restaurant. 

It is certainly a favorite of mine.

And Julia Child loved French onion soup.

And then there is Kim.

And Karl.

And Tina.

And probably a few others I have introduced to it over the years.

I suspect taking people to Au Pied de Cochon for onion soup has become something of a Paris tradition of my own.

After something that gloriously rich, I went in the opposite direction for the rest of lunch and ordered a Caesar salad. It was a nice counterpoint to the soup: crisp greens, Parmesan, dressing and all those familiar Caesar flavors after the deep, caramelized richness of the onions, broth, bread and cheese.

For water, I ordered a large San Pellegrino.

I apparently underestimated what large meant.

A full one-liter bottle arrived at the table.

Well, all right then.

I drank most of it, which was probably a very good thing for me to do after a morning of walking around Paris. Sometimes the accidental decisions turn out to be the sensible ones.

That combination made for such a satisfying Paris lunch: the wonderfully indulgent onion soup I had specifically come for, followed by a fresh salad and a rather impressive quantity of sparkling mineral water.

But the meal was about more than food.

Returning to Au Pied de Cochon feels like returning to one of my places in Paris. I know what I am going to order before I walk through the door. I accept a French menu instead of an English one because I already know what I’m going to get, so I look quite sophisticated. I know what I am hoping that first spoonful will taste like. And I already have memories of the people who have sat here with me and discovered why I insisted that they try the soup.

Perhaps that is one of the ways you know when a city has become more than a destination. You stop simply collecting new places and begin returning to old ones.

And when I return to Paris, there are some traditions that simply have to continue.

For me, one of them comes in a white crock, bubbling over with onions, bread and an absolutely unreasonable amount of melted cheese.

Oh, and a little bit of dessert and coffee.

And I wouldn’t change a thing.

(Add link)Au Pied de Cochon official website⁠

Pricing: this entire lunch was about 50 euros.

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