LE TERMINUS DU CHÂTELET
Go there and contact
Bistro offering seasonal dishes, accompanied by fresh food in Paris.
The Terminus is the history of Paris of the 1950 s, the memory of the Châtelet neighbourhood, the vestiges of a «belle époque» that Robert Sucheyre cultivates by the opulence, passion and pleasure of the good food. Words that already lead us in this in-depth room, which seems fixed in time, with its-metre zinc that has polished the elbows of celebrities at the Théâtre de la Ville: The Coluche, Le Luron, Robert Doisneau and others Sardou… Since 1929 and three generations of lovers of good living in French, Le Terminus is still crowded. Reason? Specialties that will make them lost to more than one patois. Seasonal dishes, accompanied by fresh dishes. The fish come straight from Dieppe, the mushrooms of Normandy, and wine… wine! More than 200 labels in the cellar with a specialization in raw grapes from Languedoc. Wines of discovery, wines of character, dixit the boss who aiguillera you in the jungle of his crates. But let us go back to the kitchens where we develop known but quality dishes: homemade gras, timbale of sardines in the onion jam, paved with old pepper taureau, fresh chipirons with balsamic vinegar on rocket bed, etc. And perhaps the most greedy will fall to the baba with homemade rum or sabayon with red fruits?
Did you know? This review was written by our professional authors.
Members' reviews on LE TERMINUS DU CHÂTELET
The ratings and reviews below reflect the subjective opinions of members and not the opinion of The Little Witty.
Our waiter called to tell us that we should come 15 minutes later than our reservation and that worked well for us. When we came, I told him that our party of five was actually four because my mom became ill. He immediately let us know how annoyed he was that we didn’t tell him. I know running a restaurant is difficult, but the restaurant was totally empty except for two other tables by that point so he could have been a little nicer about it. When he told us about the special, he pointed out that the andouillette was not available but no matter, it’s not for us anyway, just the French. When we ordered wine, he gave us two glasses of red wine, with a very minimal pour. He said he would choose the wine. By this point, we could sense his resentment towards foreigners. We tasted the wine and it was vinegar: sour, fizzy, nasty!. I asked him about it and he promptly replaced it. Honestly, it felt like he knew but tried to get rid of it with the dumb foreigners. We sat right next to wine serving station and saw that the wine was served next to a Coca Cola glass that the bartender used to measure the wine. We noticed that for non foreigners, he would top off the wine. Not for us and the other non French.
Many people came to the restaurant asking for a table, if they were non French, he was very dismissive. One couple came in and they only spoke French and he was quite lovely and apologetic to them. I speak a little French and could understand. When another (foreigner) couple came in that was late for their reservation, he scolded them so rudely that we winced at our table. Then he went on to very kindly and sweetly seat a group of French ladies, I don’t know if they had a reservation. But what followed totally blew our minds. After he sat the ladies, he called someone and told them that they weren’t here to their reservation that was in the future (ten minutes later!) and that he was going to cancel their reservation. Ok, I get if you’re going to scold someone for being late but wow, you’re going to scold someone even though they are not late and cancel their reservation anyway?!
After the initial hiccups in the beginning, we realized that it was going to be a bad night but we tried to make the most of it because we had already ordered by that point and it was our last night in Paris. It’s a small restaurant and we sat prime to hear all the craziness that was happening. It was certainly entertaining, though in a negative way. I will never be patronizing this restaurant again and warn any foreigner to not bother. I know he is not representative of most French people. The other server that came in at the end of our evening was much friendlier and the food wasn’t terrible but we all left feeling quite bad and didn’t finish because of such unfriendly service.
The place felt different. Unlike many other places we dined at, you did not hear a word of English from the staff or patrons, except for the owner when we were ordering, and the menus were only in French. That said, the service was wonderful and they made us feel welcomed and treated us like any other French speaking guests, with warmth and care!
We ordered a few items off the menu with our favorites being the escargot and confit de canard.
I'll be keeping this place on my list on my next visit to Paris.
Find unique Stay Offers with our Partners
Allez y vous serez comblés et si vous aimez les champignons vous serez aux anges que des produits frais et faits maison