Voulez Vous Diner – Dine with the Locals

I've been in Paris for about 5 months now but surprisingly I haven't met too many French people. This is partially because of my lackluster French skills but Parisians are also notoriously tough to make friends with. That is why I was excited when Voulez-Vous Diner invited my wife and I to have a dinner with a French couple.

Voulez-Vous Diner is a new service that invites tourists and other visitors into the homes of locals for a traditional home-cooked meal. While the meal might be the main focus, I found that the cultural exchange was one of the most interesting aspects of this experience.



The Voulez-Vous Diner has a number of specially selected French hosts listed on their website. Each host specifies their location, age-range and interests—making it easy to find a compatible host. And of course, each host is chosen by Voulez-Vous Diner based on their home, cooking skills, cultural inquisitiveness and their English-speaking abilities.

Our hosts lived in the town of Versailles so we hopped on the RER and were on our way. We met Renaud and Corinne (the hosts) at their home and we were invited to their living room for a traditional drink before dinner—plus, alcohol always seems to get the conversations flowing a lot quicker.

We chatted for about 30 minutes and exchanged stories of where we grew up and what brought Susan and I to Paris. The couple had done quite a bit of travel and they had both spent time in the US. Renaud explained that he was currently working for a company that trained international companies about the cultural differences their employees might experience when being sent abroad. This gave him a keen insight to cultural differences between Americans and French—which Susan and I thought was interesting to hear his insights.

He had one analogy about French and Americans that I thought was very astute. He explained the Americans are like peaches - all warm and fuzzy on the outside but with a rock solid inner stone that is difficult to penetrate and get close to. In contrast, the French are like coconuts - rock solid on the outside, but once you break into the soft centre, you will have made a friend for life.

By this time the house was starting to smell amazing from the food in the oven and it was making me hungry. We ventured upstairs to the kitchen to start our meal. We began with some wine — I'm not a huge fan of wine but even I thought it was very good.

Renaud and Corinne brought out the starter, aka the "amuse bouche."

The main dish was a duck and vegetable crumble casserole which was amazing. If I had a real kitchen I would have asked for the recipe to make it myself.

The next course was a traditional cheese plate of multiple cheeses. I was already full from the main dish but it is hard to say no to fancy French cheese. Luckily, I've become a cheese expert thanks to all the wine and cheese classes at Cook'n With Class.

Then, like always, we had dessert. It consisted of a baked chocolate cake with a gooey chocolate center (Molleux au chocolat). We also had clementines to accompany the chocolate cake.

By this point I was so full that I couldn't eat another bite. Our hosts offered us coffee or tea but both Susan and I were about ready to burst. It was almost midnight so Renaud was kind enough to drive us back to the train station so we wouldn't miss our train.

My experience with Renaud and Corinne and Voulez-Vous Diner was great. It is rare that visitors get to eat an authentic French meal with a French host. I think this is a great way to truly experience French culture. Renaud and Corinne actually invited us back if we're ever in Versailles again so we might have to meet up if we visit the chateau. 


The price for the meal is 65€ (40€ for children under 12) per person and and every meal includes a minimum of a starter, a main course, a desert and drinks. Booking a dinner is easy. Simply click on "Book a Dinner", choose the host that you would like to dine with and pay online with a credit card. The while process only take a few minutes. For more information go to VoulezVousDiner.com.