PARIS - When Claude Cabri was a child, she had a habit of re-arranging the furniture in her family's living room to create a café scene before dressing up and serving crepes and tea to her friends.

These days, her childhood passion for elaborate tea parties has evolved into "Lunch in the Loft", one of several unofficial restaurants in Paris that are set in people's homes.

Similar "underground" restaurants have been popping up in secret locations around the world for the past decade or so -- Berlin, San Francisco, New York and Hong Kong are a few cities where they are well-established -- but only recently have they taken off in the self-described world capital of food.

That has been changing lately thanks to a handful of English-speaking expats with a talent for entertaining but no desire to chain themselves to a restaurant stove and all the paperwork that comes with it in France.

Grand-daddy of them all is Jim Haynes, who has been hosting open-house dinners in his converted artist's studio near Montparnasse for the past 30 years.

It started when a young American dancer who was staying in his apartment offered to cook for him and a group of friends every weekend. Now a different guest chef every Sunday cooks for as many as 70 people, a mix of Paris residents and visitors from all over the world.

English is usually the common language and Haynes takes pride in remembering the name of each guest to facilitate introductions. The meal is non-profit, with the suggested donation of 25 euros supporting social and artistic projects.

If these legendary dinners are mainly about networking, a new breed of hidden restaurants focuses on the food.

The trend started a few years ago when chef David Tanis and maître d'hôtel Randal Breski from the famed restaurant "Chez Panisse" in Berkeley, California launched "Aux Chiens Lunatiques", which they dub "an occasional eating club," in their Latin Quarter apartment.

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