Friday, 18:30. You open your maps app, type “kosher restaurant”, find an address ten minutes away, rated 4.5 and marked “open”. You go. Shutters down. Of course. It is Shabbat, and your app did not get the memo.
If you grew up with it, this all seems obvious. If you are visiting, inviting someone or discovering it for the first time, here is what to know so you do not end up spending Friday night with a bag of crisps.
Why kosher restaurants close for Shabbat
Shabbat begins on Friday before sunset and ends on Saturday at nightfall. During that time, observance means no cooking, lighting fires, trading or paying. A restaurant operating normally, with a till, orders and working stoves, does not fit with that.
For a restaurant supervised by a kashrut organisation, the issue is generally even clearer: opening during Shabbat is difficult to reconcile with supervision. The precise rules depend on the organisation, and we will not summarise them on its behalf. What we can safely say: in the vast majority of cases, a kosher restaurant is closed from Friday afternoon to Saturday night.
The time changes throughout the year. In summer, Shabbat begins and ends late. In winter, it begins in the late afternoon, around 16:30 in Paris in mid-December, and many restaurants close well before that. The Consistoire publishes each week’s times in its calendar.
What this changes when looking for somewhere to eat
For someone looking for a restaurant, Shabbat divides the weekend into three very different periods:
| Time | What generally happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Friday lunch | Open, sometimes closing early in the afternoon | Enjoy lunch without rushing: it is the last easy meal |
| Friday evening and Saturday | Closed | A meal booked ahead, an invitation, or catered food bought the day before |
| Saturday night | Some reopen after Shabbat ends (which ones) | Call before travelling |
For Friday evening and Saturday lunch, some restaurants and caterers offer Shabbat meals, booked and paid for in advance. You do not pay on site, because payments are not made during Shabbat. This therefore needs organising during the week, sometimes several days ahead. We do not have an exhaustive list of addresses offering it, and will not pretend otherwise: ask the restaurant directly.
Holidays: like Shabbat, but longer
Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover, Shavuot: on festival days, the rules resemble Shabbat rules, and kosher restaurants often close in the same way. Sometimes for two days in a row. Sometimes next to Shabbat, which can mean three days without restaurants. Sukkot and Passover last a week, but only the first and last days are festival days in the strict sense: many restaurants reopen in between. Hanukkah and Purim do not cause closures.
Passover deserves a special mention. During this holiday, kashrut adds rules concerning leavened products, and not all restaurants adapt. Some close for the whole week; others offer a special menu. Again, it varies by restaurant, and the only reliable source is the restaurant or its supervising organisation.
If you are coming to Paris during a holiday period, check the calendar before booking your ticket. Or at least before promising your in-laws dinner at a restaurant.
What a Keila listing contains, and what is missing
New: most listings now have indicative weekly opening hours, with their source, often the restaurant’s website or an online listing, and the date recorded. Indicative is the key word. These are ordinary-week hours: they say nothing about Shabbat times that shift with the seasons, or holidays. When information is old or ambiguous, the app leaves it “to be checked” rather than inventing a closure. On Friday afternoon, the phone remains your best friend.
What you do find on a listing, when the information exists:
- The phone number, on most listings. Your best ally before Shabbat.
- The menu, increasingly readable directly in the app, including dishes and set menus, with its source and date. If a restaurant offers Shabbat or holiday meals, this is a good first place to look.
- The official website, when we have it.
- Sources and their dates, so you know where each displayed piece of information comes from.
Watch one detail: the date a menu was consulted does not guarantee the date of its prices. Last year’s holiday menu may still be online. All the reasoning about dates and sources is on the method page.
The Friday checklist
- As early as Tuesday or Wednesday, call to book if you want a Shabbat meal at a restaurant.
- On Friday, have lunch at the restaurant without lingering: some close early in the afternoon.
- Stop at a caterer for Saturday lunch if you have nothing planned.
- Save your Saturday-night and Sunday addresses as favourites in Keila: they remain readable offline.
- On Saturday night, call before setting off. Always. Addresses reopening are in kosher restaurants open on Saturday nights, and Sunday options in kosher restaurants open on Sundays.
If you invite someone who does not observe Shabbat, explain the principle beforehand. A colleague suggesting “How about a little kosher restaurant on Saturday lunchtime?” is not being difficult; they simply do not know. Suggest Sunday or a weekday lunch. Along the way, they will discover that kosher restaurants have an atmosphere all their own on Friday lunchtimes.
For the rest of the weekend, we have a whole plan in eating kosher in Paris for a weekend. Neighbourhoods to search are in where to eat kosher in Paris by arrondissement, with the updated list by location. If your guest asks why there is no cheese tonight, the answer is in bassari, halavi and pareve. The app is here.