Les Arlots

Tucked away at the top of the Rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, charming bistro Les Arlots 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), or alternatively the equally delectable house ‘four meat’ pâté. Follow it up with the staple sausage and mash (€17) – an admittedly simple dish, but one that’s incredibly well done here  – or the mature undercut of beef, which comes served with sautéed potatoes and a red wine and wild garlic sauce (equally unoriginal and yet still very well executed). For dessert, the deconstructed strawberry cake, with its light mousse topped with sweet gariguette strawberries, is outright irresistible, while the wine menu throws up plenty of interesting discoveries too, with an emphasis placed on various impressive small producers and natural wines like the Vouvray and Mâcon-Villages.

TRANSLATION: FLORA HUDSON