Restaurants near Gare du Nord

Mondays and Saturdays, 10am-5pm, there’s only one reason to come to Abri (‘shelter’), a pocket-sized restaurant next to the Poissonière metro: their multi-layered, super-stacked, millfeuille-esque sandwiches, put together by chef Katsuaki Okiyama. One regal specimen contained grilled bread, a deep and lovely sauce, a vegetable omelette, crusty breaded pork (‘tonkatsu’), sweet and sour cauliflower purée and soft cheese. The rest of the week, there are plenty more of the young Japanese chef’s talents to enjoy - French cuisine enhanced by Japanese touches.

Eight-minute walk from Gare du Nord.

After Little Red Door on the much-hyped rue Charlot and Lulu White in the centre of SoPi, Timothé Prangé, passionate darling of gastronomy, has put down roots in the trendy 10th arrondissement. And he’s gone big with Bonhomie. The gigantic 200m2 room is pitched somewhere between an English members club and the lobby of a grand American hotel, and stays open non-stop from 8.30am until 2am. But in all the grandeur, the tiny Mediterranean details go almost unnoticed. Luckily, the Southern vibe is more obvious in the short cocktail menu, with sundrenched flavours like Persimmon and sumac. 

13 minute walk from Gare du Nord

Thierry Breton takes the idea of generous servings to extremes. Fill your plate with delicious fare from Brittany and elsewhere, starting simply with salted butter on exceptional country bread, and moving on to just about everything else: charcuterie, seafood, boudin, smoked salmon, salads, omelettes… then casseroles of flaked cod, beef bourguignon and other similarly hearty dishes. Still hungry? Head towards the ‘grandmother-style’ dessert buffet. The atmosphere is noisy but convivial and the price (€26) is incredible in light of the quality.

Four-minute walk from Gare du Nord.

This charming bistro has the jovial atmosphere of a Sunday lunch round your grandparents’: sociable, homely, reliable, and almost certain to fill you up. Once inside, opt to sit in the spacious bar space and start with a brilliantly gooey soft-boiled egg with mixed vegetables and bottarga (a typed of cured fish roe, made on site). Follow it up with the staple sausage and mash (€17) – an admittedly simple dish, but one that’s incredibly well done here.

Six-minute walk from Gare du Nord.

Michelin-starred chef Thierry Marx’s newest project knows its audience: there are train times posted on the wall and a cosy room looking straight down onto the platforms. Order the breakfast menu (a hot drink, a pastry, baguette with jams and fresh fruit juice for €12) or come for lunch - melt-in-your-mouth eggs with mayonnaise, comforting pasta gratin with three kinds of mushrooms and ham, cider and honey battered fish and chips and a chocolate tart sprinkled with crushed cocoa beans.

Located in Gare du Nord.

Le Tricycle’s tasty veggie dogs are made from wheat and soya smoked over beechwood, then tucked into lightly toasted finger rolls and topped with different combinations of fresh salad and veg. Most of the sausage names follow a hip-hop theme for some reason, with the ‘Dogtor Dre’ a standout for both its excellently bad pun and its superb blend of textures and flavours (crispy fried onions, guacamole and a cool ‘sauce chien’ – fresh tomato, coriander and onions).

Ten-minute walk from Gare du Nord.

As of January 2017, the Ratapoil du Faubourg has transformed into Little Mana (‘mum’ in Greek). Jerome Aubert, the former chef at Ratapoil, has handed over the reins to his second in command Nadia Michaud, whose dishes are inspired by both the United States and an unconditional love for the Mediterranean (from Greece to Italy, Crete to Lebanon). 

Ten-minute walk from Gare du Nord.

Massawa is a small city on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea, providing a small clue as to the cuisine that’s served at this charming, snug restaurant. If you’re unsure what Eritrean cuisine actually consists of, opt for the bebeaynetu, an immense platter that allows customers to sample a bit of pretty much everything. In it, the zigueni (stewed beef with a cabbage salad and cream cheese) is gorgeously succulent, while the dish of split peas is simple but perfectly done.

Eight-minute walk from Gare du Nord.

A non-nonsense oyster restaurant - it’s all about piles of picnic hampers, paper tablecloths and the jolly bustle and clatter of butter knives, cooking pots and oyster shells. Brilliant for groups of friends who want to sit around a table and consume plates of ultra-fresh oysters (platters at €12.20 or €24), slices of wild smoked salmon or homemade cod roe taramasalata, and bottles of excellent white wine. Oysters are also available to take away, in hampers of 50 at €58.

Seven-minute walk from Gare du Nord. 

Porte 12’s burnished bronze door leads to an intimate split-level room where chef Vincent Crépel is busy creating small masterpieces on the plate. For lunch, we tried the extremely good value set menus at €35 and €28 per head - a bowl of rich, dark, tender duck hearts in a many-layered onion bouillon which came cosseted under buttery whipped potatoes planted with sprigs of salty glasswort being one example of the excellent dishes served here.

Eight-minute walk from Gare du Nord.