26 October 2022
I ♥️ Juice
I love juice. Fresh or cold pressed preferably. My boyfriend calls it one of my “adorable quirks”. He is utterly fascinated by not just my crazy need to get my fruit and veg in liquid form, but by the amount of money I spend on it. Not in a patronizing way mind, he’s 9 years younger and about 1000 times more emotionally intelligent than I will ever be, he would never, most he just thinks it’s adorable. He thinks everything I do is fascinating and adorable (but not patronizingly so). He jokes that he’s going to give up his career and open a juice bar. I guess they didn’t juice in England so he doesn’t really get it. My friends on the other hand think I’m nuts “buy a juicer, you’ll save so much money if you just buy a juicer, stop spending money!”. My boyfriend says the same, but he would never outright criticize me for anything. Instead he buys me juice.
I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but I’m a pretty big consumer of the products so… If you’re going to juice bars and buying like 4-6 juices day, you can rack up a bill of 40-60€ buying juice in this city. It can be an expensive habit but so is Starbucks. And there are so many places. You can’t run out. You’re going to find another place and you’re gonna want to try out their signature drink.
I didn't really know juicing was considered an "American" thing. I mean it makes sense; we like healthy things but we like it easy and uncomplicated. Tell any American they can drink their 5 a day and they'll gladly hand over money for it.
Thankfully Paris is good with the juice. They jumped on the trend a few years ago. I feel like it used to be more prevalent than it is now post Covid (two places in the Marais closed), but you can still find plenty of places around the city.
This post will be about juice bars. I can always do a separate post on my favorite juice cleanses. They differ from juice bars in that they are companies that sell you detoxs and cleanses. You let them know what day you want to start and they deliver them by scooter to your house (they’re local in Paris). They usually consist of 6 bottles a day (some include 3-4 shots, or soup). The timeframes range from 1-7 days and the price ranges from 98€-500€ (depending on length). Obviously some companies are more expensive than others.
They have 4 locations in the city but Odeon is the one closest to me. Their smoothie options are a bit cheaper than the others, but they're only 50cl so that might have something to do with it. Super Choco Proteiné was a bit intense for me. It was like soup. It took me a while to drink it and it made me feel kind of yucky after. The detox infusion of the day is one that I liked the most, but it can be made at home with the Detox satchets from Elephant if you're being lazy. The Mocolada is my favorite, and the Acai smootie is also good. Obviously you’re going to probably come here for the Açaí bowls, but those can be found everywhere. I guess the French jumped onto the Açaí trend late.
This one is a located on my street so it's an easy 3-4 minutes walk (they took over the old Italian place). It's easier for me to frequent and like most Gen Z trends they’re plant based cups and straws so you can feel good about that. What makes this one stand out is that unlike the others you can get smoothies and juice mixes, but you can also get "solo juices" of just celery, carrot, orange, apple, grapefruit or pineapple. I love carrot juice and since Marlon closed down and turned into Marcelle, I have to go here for my fix (I can hear Sonia in the back of my head “or just buy a juicer and make it at home”).
Another selling point is that their smoothies are thinner. I don't want a milkshake, I don't want soup in a cup. They do a good job of keeping the consistency lighter which makes them easily drinkable and not heavy.
As you can imagine most places have the same recipes. Variation isn’t going to be —— from one place to next. What I like about this place isn’t their juice so much as their gnocchi. I love gnocchi and they give you a piece of roasted eggplant with it (most places sell their gnocchi with a cream sauce). But their juices are pretty good too. Their We Are Young - No Need for Botox tastes like the Açaí detox from Açaí and You but at 6.50€ is a bit cheaper. As a fan of carrot and ginger I liked their We Are Beautiful as well and We Are Sexy was tasty. Don’t let the vanilla throw you off.
The good thing is, unlike the other two, they sell their’s in bottles so you can toss them in the fridge and have them later. This is important to me because I can buy a bunch and have them whenever. I have stored Açaís and You’s in the fridge but they have recyclable paper cups and they get really gross after a few hours.
Next up is Figue. Figue also does bottles. They tout that their bottles are “vegan”. I don’t know what makes a plastic bottle vegan, but it sounds good for the environment? The thing I like about Figue is that they sometimes have a promo so their juices will be 3.50€ instead of 7€.
Personally I don't like their Slim or Perf juice. Their Burn is really tarty, almost like drinking a lemondrop (candy). If you're feeling lazy you can also buy a juice cure, but it's only one day.
Wild and the Moon was not my favorite. My first impression of it was when an ex and I walked to Luxembourg Gardens one day and it was there so we went. There was a group of annoying Americans next to us and the food was not what I wanted that day. Once you realize that they don't serve food-food here then it's not so bad.
They sell juice cures whoch I love.
And just an honorable mention because this is such a uniquely French thing, if you want fresh orange juice you can literally pop into any grocery store. My ex Christian used to get one of these every time he came to Paris. He was like obsessed. I don't pay attention to them because I'm not a big orange juice fan, but the concept is a good one. My local Au Bon Jardiner sells different variations like grapefruit and seasonal varieties. Sometimes they chill them. You can literally pop in if you're ever on rue Cler.