Amour Hotel Restaurant
8 rue de Navarin, 9th Paris.
Tel 01 48 78 31 80
M° Notre-Dame de Lorette or Pigalle
Brunch in Paris without car exhaust fumes…
Open daily noon through 11:30pm , this hotel restaurant is technically a brasserie. But who cares? What’s more important, that it has a 1950s décor of Formica tables or that the leafy courtyard terrace is one of the best places for a calm Sunday brunch? Sure, it attracts a bobo crowd of artfully disheveled hipsters and the tables are so tiny that you have to balance the salt and pepper shakers on your lap, but the menu is – rare for Paris – à la carte. That way you can order pancakes and eggs and a hamburger and a glass of Champagne and your sweetie can go for the croissants and coffee, black, without the often inflated one-for-all brunch price.
It’s not the best food in Paris (the pancakes were undercooked), but they have pastries and bread from Delmontel’s famous bakery on the corner, and if you’re friendly with the wait staff they might be able to convince the kitchen to make your eggs sunny-side-up (not on the menu) instead of scrambled. No reservations, try arriving around 1pm for the smallest crowds and be prepared to hang out at the bar for 15 minutes to get a seat outside.
Still one of the best addresses in Paris, if only for the vibe and outdoor terrace!
Dinner at the Hotel Amour Restaurant was a major letdown, I’m afraid. The bread is fine as mentioned above and they have some good wines on the list but that’s pretty much it. The steak tartare wasn’t more than a pile of flavourless raw meat (and I’ve had delicious tartare before). The chicken isn’t any better than the one you get at any greasy spoon, but it comes at a price you can get much better value for, even in Paris. Both our neighbours had to remind the waitress that they need steak knives. And although I’m not very picky about it, I was rather astonished when she put the cutlery I had used for the starters back on the table so I could keep it for the main course. Just didn’t seem right at that place. Obviously the restaurant lives on it’s hip reputation because it was still packed. The food can’t be the reason.