Balzar has been a fixture of the Rue des Ecoles since 1890, when Amedee Balzar, a bearded, red-headed fellow from Picardy, first started pulling pints near the Sorbonne. Teachers and students have always made good dining companions, and this classic brasserie has served as their unofficial canteen ever since. The interior is quintessential Left Bank: gleaming brass fittings, mirrored walls, crisp white tablecloths and an atmosphere thick with conversation and the clatter of plates. Over more than a century it has drawn a famously literary and academic clientele, and the room has changed remarkably little, preserving the timeworn elegance that regulars prize. The menu runs through the brasserie standards, from roast chicken and steak tartare to sole meuniere and the inevitable profiteroles, all prepared with the consistency that only comes from a kitchen cooking the same dishes for decades. The service is brisk, professional and distinctly Parisian, the kind of practised efficiency that keeps tables turning without ever feeling rushed. Its position steps from the Sorbonne and the Pantheon makes it a natural meeting point for the intellectual life of the Latin Quarter, as much a part of the neighbourhood's fabric as the lecture halls nearby. A Left Bank classic, Balzar remains one of the Latin Quarter's essential dining addresses, a historic brasserie whose mirrored interior, time-honoured menu and scholarly clientele have kept it at the centre of Parisian life for well over a hundred years.

Type: Restaurant

Address: 49, rue des Ecoles, Paris, France

Telephone: 01.43.54.13.67

Website: https://www.brasseriebalzar.com/

Open Days: Monday to Sunday