Le Petit Kenyon: Dining in the Environs of Paris for Walkers was written for people who live in or near Paris and like both walking and dining. This second edition was revised and expanded in May 2022.

Le Petit Kenyon is a compilation of thirty-one recommended restaurants and inns in twenty-eight towns in the Île-de-France region, except for four just across the line in Picardy to the north and one in Gâtinais to the south. All are within a short distance of a train station-some are across the street-the most distant is a forty-minute walk downhill.

The restaurants are organized according to the town in which they are located, in alphabetical order. For each, the author has provided the distance from Paris to the station closest to each restaurant as well as its address and telephone number and the URL for restaurants with their own website. Most of the Paris hiking clubs organize day-long hikes, broken by a pause-picnic. This guide, however, is based on an entirely different concept, the rando+déjeuner, in which walkers can enjoy both a country walk and a sit-down lunch before returning to Paris.

Most of these walks are point-to-point, so it's necessary to take the train. Since the average distance of these restaurants is 50 kilometers from Paris and some are as far as 90 kilometers away, it's necessary to catch an early train-one that leaves between 7:00 and 8:30 AM. Arriving at the destination no later than 9:30 affords up to four hours of walking before lunch. It's also necessary to call the restaurant beforehand to make sure it's open for lunch and to reserve a table. Many are small and cater to a local clientele, so they fill up fast.

Several restaurants have changed management or closed since the original review was written; this has been duly noted. New owners may be better or worse than their predecessors, and there's always the hope that the restaurants that have closed will reopen. Entries have been added for four great restaurants, Le Chalet des Etangs in Vert-le-Petit, L'Onyx in Boissy-l'Aillerie, La Chaumière in Mouroux and Le Bistrot de Santeuil. All can be reached after easy walks and are within a reasonable distance of the nearest train station.
About the Author: Ronald W. Kenyon was born and raised in Ashland, Kentucky. He was admitted to the Honors Program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he studied English, French, Spanish and political science and won two Hopwood creative writing awards. The recipient of a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship, he attended graduate school at Stanford University and studied at St. Lawrence University under a National Defense Education Act scholarship. He was certified as a French-English liaison interpreter by the U.S. Department of State Office of Language Services. Having lived most of his adult life in France, Ronald W. Kenyon has been able to discover "la France profonde" on foot on the extensive network of hiking trails crisscrossing the country. For the last forty years, Ronald W. Kenyon has been walking the trails in the Ile-de-France region and enjoying the cuisine and hospitality of many restaurants and country inns off the beaten track, including the ones reviewed in Le Petit Kenyon.