I was set off on a nostalgia jag recently by the visit of an acquaintance who lived in Paris in the early 1980s and spent his latest trip cruising the city in search of student haunts of yore, and by the Robert Doisneau photo exhibition at City Hall. Doisneau, you may recall, is the chap whose photo of a young couple kissing in front of Paris’s City Hall is almost as overexposed as the Mona Lisa. His images of Paris before and after World War II are national icons that reach deep into the French psyche – a reassuring touchstone at a time of seething national doubt, and as French as tarte aux pommes.

What has all this got to do with food? It made me think of Paris’s time-capsule restaurants: cross the threshold of these places and you are transported to another era.

Take Chez Clovis, for example. I’ve seen it billed as the oldest bistro in Les Halles, Paris’s former central food market (exiled to the suburbs long before I arrived in the city). The kindly, matronly waitress who served us was probably just a slip of a girl back then. The food, like the interior, is gemütlich: it’s the kind of comfort food you might want to eat after spending an energetic day or night manhandling sides of beef at the market.

The os à moëlle (pronounced “ossa mwal,” if you want to show off) – three 10-inch lengths of halved, roasted marrowbone served with crunchy sea salt – is not for the fainthearted. It can be followed with a pot au feu: several cuts of boiled beef and a profusion of root vegetables in a large cast iron casserole, plus more of that crunchy gros sel and a pot of pickles all to yourself. My nostalgic friend put all of that away, despite earlier complaints that his five o’clock crepe was sitting a bit heavy. I myself went for the creamed veal sweetbreads, also served in Rabelaisian portions, with some lovely potato fritters.

Another such institution is the Trumilou, also on the Right Bank, within spitting distance of the Doisneau show at City Hall and right next door to the Maison du Compagnonnage – a center for the elite craftsmen of France (including chefs), some of whose miniature masterworks are on show in the museum there. Besides locals and tourists, the unfussy, family-run Trumilou is frequented by these master artisans.

The first time I went there, I could not escape the feeling that I had walked straight into a Doisneau photograph. The restaurant’s plain fare, no longer as cheap as it was, is served as cheerfully as ever. This time, I dined as traditionally as possible on boiled eggs and mayonnaise and a steak tartare, while my girlfriend had the rack of lamb. For form’s sake, the patron asked how she would like it cooked (it’s always pretty in pink), but no doubt knew that it must have been sitting in the oven since lunchtime. It was still perfectly edible, if on the dry side.

At neither of these places will you eat refined food, but you will have an “authentic” experience, in the sense that a French diner would see something quintessentially French here, something perfectly Doisneau-esque.

And one more to finish off. That miracle of marketing hype and the winemaker’s black arts, Beaujolais Nouveau, will be with us on November 16. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s as good an excuse to party as any other, I would rank Beaujolais Nouveau as a crime against humanity.

The best street party I ever saw on Beaujolais Nouveau night was at the Rubis in the first arrondissement. The revelers take over the entire street, and the tipple is drunk from plastic beakers. Most of them will not remember that fact the next day, however.

At other times, the Rubis, with its zinc bar and wine-barrels-cum-tables on the sidewalk, is a blast from the past, where you can drink a vast selection of pleasant country wines, ballasting yourself with some excellent country cheeses and cold cuts served by unsmiling, but not unfriendly, figures from another time and place.

Richard Hesse

“Doisneau: Paris en Liberté.” Hôtel de Ville, Salle Saint Jean, 5, rue Lobau
75004 Paris. Through February 17. Open Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Closed Sunday and public holidays. Web site.

Chez Clovis: 33 rue Berger, 75001 Paris. Tel: 01 42 33 97 07. Métro: Châtelet-Les Halles. Open till midnight every day except Sundays. A la carte: around €35, not including wine.

Le Trumilou: 84, quai de l’Hôtel de Ville, 75004 Paris. Tel.: 01 42 77 63 98. Métro: Hôtel de Ville. Open daily. A la carte: around €35, not including wine.

Le Rubis: 10, rue du Marché Saint Honoré, 75001 Paris. Métro: Pyramides. No reservations. Price depends on how long you stay.

© 2006 Paris Update