Brasserie Mollard

Time Out says

Now a protected building, time at Mollard seems to have stopped in 1985. Pushing open the door is to go back to a vibrant era when all Paris would rock up nightly between the Gare Saint-Lazare and the Grands Boulevards. Classy art nouveau décor, everything either polished and gleaming or sporting a patina of age – a touch decrepit overall, but in a marvellously charming way: mosaics, ceramic frescoes, marble columns, gilt ceiling, circular lamps and furniture by E. Niermans (the designer behind the Moulin Rouge and Monte Carlo’s Hotel de Paris).

The menu also seems to have frozen in time: there's a seafood bar laid out with fresh shellfish and seafood, a whole menu devoted to lobster, classic brasserie dishes (snails, onion soup, andouillette, tartare, trout meunière), and the desserts are also deliciously retro, ranging from crêpes Suzette to omelette norvégienne. It’s all well done, not in a way that will thrill you to your core but honourably. Service is also old school (attentive and disarmingly sweet), and the clientele is a mishmash of night owls, tourists and senior citizens. Everyone fits in, and everyone's happy.

This restaurant serves one of Time Out's 50 best dishes in Paris. Click here to see the full list.