The Little Wonder Restaurants of Paris

To eat cheaply in Paris, must you eat poorly? That isn't the case in the French capital any more than it is in any other fine restaurant city of the world. From Hong Kong to San Francisco and New Orleans, from Brussels to Florence and New York, the cities with a reputation for good eating maintain scattered pockets of good eating all up and down the price line. And my husband and I proved it on a recent visit to the scintillating City of Light.

THE GROUND RULES We had resolved to spend no more than $25 per person per day (and, we hoped, less) on all meals-and most importantly, to do so without feeling sorry for ourselves. No cheating the $25 limit by grabbing a candy bar and some pommes frites for dinner. Our assignment was complicated by the fact that at the time of our last ...