Mador report · November 2026
Restaurants in France: who AI assistants recommend
We asked 4 AI assistants where to find restaurants in 20 cities in France, with 5 questions per city written the way a resident would ask them. That makes 400 answers, collected between 3 November 2026 and 4 November 2026.
87% of answers recommend at least one business
346 of 400 answers give at least one name to call. With the same method, the true share sits between 83% and 90%; the other answers explain how to choose and name nobody.
Perplexity names the most, Claude the fewest
Perplexity recommends a business in 100% of its answers, Claude in 69%. Showing up in one assistant does not mean showing up in another.
Les Fils à Maman is recommended in 4 of 20 cities
2% of answers name at least one national network or chain. The other recommended businesses are independent, and they change from city to city.
Portals make up 24% of the sites read, business websites 10%
63% of answers link to a portal, 28% to the website of a named business. A site the assistant reads is a site it takes names from.
City by city
| City | Answers | With a business | Most recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paris | 20 | 95% | Lapérouse, Big Mamma, Comptoir Sur Mer |
| Marseille | 20 | 70% | Le Petit Nice, AM, Chez Fonfon |
| Lyon | 20 | 80% | Le Café Comptoir Abel, Le Café des Fédérations, Au Petit Bouchon – Chez Georges |
| Toulouse | 20 | 75% | Le Bibent, Le Genty Magre, Le Colombier |
| Nice | 20 | 85% | La Réserve de Nice, Le Plongeoir, Le Chantecler |
| Nantes | 20 | 85% | La Cigale, L'Atlantide 1874 — Maison Guého, Lulu Rouget |
| Montpellier | 20 | 90% | Le Petit Jardin, Le Jardin des Sens, Le Pastis |
| Strasbourg | 20 | 85% | Au Crocodile, Le Blue Flamingo, 1741 |
| Bordeaux | 20 | 90% | Le Pressoir d'Argent, La Tupina, Maison Nouvelle |
| Lille | 20 | 90% | Le Bloempot, Ginko, Pureté |
| Rennes | 20 | 100% | Le Bistrot Des Remparts, La Closerie, Bombance |
| Toulon | 20 | 85% | Le Rock, Le Saint Gabriel, Le Bistrot du Port |
| Reims | 20 | 90% | Le Millénaire, Arbane, L'Assiette Champenoise |
| Saint-Étienne | 20 | 85% | Grabuge, La Java Bleue, La Table des Matrus |
| Le Havre | 20 | 90% | Le Margote, Le Bouche À Oreille, Calice et Mandibule |
| Villeurbanne | 20 | 80% | La Bascule, Cuisine en Ville, Bistrot Le Filanthrope |
| Dijon | 20 | 90% | L'Évidence, Loiseau des Ducs, CIBO |
| Angers | 20 | 95% | Lait Thym Sel, Le Bistrot des Ducs, Le Restaurant Belle Rive |
| Grenoble | 20 | 85% | Le Locafé, La Belle Idée, Le Tohu Bohu |
| Nîmes | 20 | 85% | Le Duende, SKAB, Le Questel |
Download the data
Method
Cities: the 20 most populous municipalities in metropolitan France, INSEE legal populations at 1 January 2023. Each city has its own 5 questions, in the language spoken there, the same for every assistant.
Assistants: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, with the models of Mador's free scan and web search on. For each question and assistant the most recent answer counts.
An answer "recommends a business" when it names at least one real business in the category: headings, neighbourhoods, portals and public bodies do not count. The interval accounts for assistants answering the same questions (the same method as the Mador Index).
Since 4 November 2026, the order counts the answers that recommend first, then the mentions.
Names appear only where the assistants recommend them, never if an answer advises against them: national networks in the cities where at least one answer recommends them, independent businesses recommended in at least 2 answers in their city.
This data comes from the same work Mador does every day for businesses: it sees where assistants recommend them, writes and publishes the missing pages and measures again to see what changed.
See where your business shows upMador, "Restaurants in France: who AI assistants recommend", November 2026, mador.ai.