L'Ami Louis

L'Ami Louis is the kind of restaurant you have to argue about before you even enter. A back-alley dining room in the 3e where the carte hasn't really moved in decades: roast chicken, foie gras the size of a fist, escargot, frites cooked in goose fat. Critics split sharply — half call it the most disappointing legend in Paris, half call it the last real bistro. Either way, you don't go to discover; you go to participate in a piece of post-war Parisian dining theatre that the city's never quite reproduced. Pricing is unapologetic. So is the cooking. Decide which camp you want to be in — and book a Saturday lunch.