Looking for mouthwatering food in an intimate setting in Paris, without paying an arm and a leg? Join the club – a Dinner Club to be exact. While Paris is home to some of the most celebrated restaurants in the world, the phenomenon of underground dinner clubs offer an excellent dining experience in Paris where talented chefs and culinary experts are cook in their Parisian apartments and invite you to join them and like-minded diners in an intimate setting, albeit among strangers.

Take The Hidden Kitchen for example. Two Paris-based Americans, restaurant consultants by day, invite up to 16 diners to their apartment in the Palais Royal district on the weekend for a 10 course tasting menu, with wine paired to each course, for about 80EUR per person. Seasonal produce is sourced at local markets and while the menu is set, they encourage you to alert them to special dietary requirements and strong preferences.  The menu could include fava bean spatzel, poached egg with asparagus and parmigiano mormay sauce, stuffed pork roulade with cheddar cheese polenta and for dessert strawberry and tarragon sorbet with buttermilk cake and marscapone cream. Hungry? Book at hkmenus.com or email HK here. Immediate confirmation is received by email, but the location is only disclosed shortly before your reservation date.

Much more underground and even more occasional is the ‘mad dogs’ place. Aux Chiens Lunatiques is run by American chef David Tanis and his partner Randal Breski, both formerly of Chez Panisse. These dinners take place sporadically every winter at their 17th century apart in the Latin Quarter. Very difficult to get a reservation, very worth it once you have, the menu includes the likes of steamed fennel with caper-anchovy vinaigrette, braised guinea hen, foie gras pâté on crusty organic baguettes, farm-raised duck breast roasted with figs. All ingredients are sourced from local Parisian markets and a jar is passed to cover costs of the meal.

A third and last supper club is also the third run by yet another American in Paris. Louisiana-born Jim Haynes hosts up to 70 people in his converted artists’ studio in the 14th arrondissement where a different friend prepares the Sunday dinner and wine each week. There is no set price, but a suggested donation of 25EUR. These dinners have been running for over 30 years with over 120,000 having dined with Jim on these Sunday evenings. Interested in contact details? Aside from his number being published in this very public 1998 Independent article about Jim, bookings can also be taken over his website.

While the food is guaranteed to be locally sourced, the company will be anything but – you might meet anyone from a Norwegian artist or Hungarian poet to an American truck driver, French lawyer or a Japanese writer, and perhaps a celebrity or two sprinkled in as well.  The high quality food in a private Parisian setting with an intimate, international group of people makes for a unique (and delicious) dining experience.