We’re not quite sure why this is our first time visiting this monument of Paris culture and cuisine, but we double-checked and it’s true – we’ve never eaten at Le Procope before, the oldest restaurant in Paris apparently!

Thankfully, the opening of the Hotel Saint-André des Arts less than a minute away was just we excuse we need to go down there, finally!

What an odd place the Café Procope is, half-hidden on the cour du Commerce Saint-André just opposite the Hotel Saint-André des Arts, and yet vast inside, with at least ten different rooms!

The small terrace is really pleasant when the weather is good, and on the facade it says that the restaurant was founded in 1686…

What it doesn’t say is that the original restaurant closed definitively in 1890, and that the restaurant that exists today just took the site and adopted the original name in around1957 (or so says Wikipedia).

Inside, it looks like the interior design hasn’t been touched for quite a long time. There’s a lot of red leatherette and the ‘nicotine yellow’ colour that used to be so typical of Paris restaurants.

Room after room is decorated with old objects, fake plastic candles, paintings of the French Revolution… Some will find it cosy, others rather oppressive and depressing. At least the facade, balcony ironwork and roof (?) and now listed and protected historical monuments.

In any case, it looks like the restaurant is aimed at groups of touristes and office lunches – dozens of big tables are ready to receive diners, and the place is now owned by a company with many other big restaurants, some of them upmarket, some of them not at all.

After checking out the lugubrious interior, we much preferred our table on the sunny terrace! It’s the place ot be for fresh air and people watching.

The restaurant offers a fixed-price menu at a price that is actually very decent for the area: 21.50€ (starter and main course, or main course and dessert) or 28.50€ for three courses. The ‘Philosophe’ menu (31.50€ / 38.50€) is mostly reserved for the dinner service.

À la carte, expect to pay around 13€ for a starter, 25€ for a meat main course, 30€ for fish… That’s not terrible for somewhere so well-known. You can check out the full menu here.

We decided to skip the first course and get tucked in to a main dish straight away, ordering a magret de canard and a girolles mushroom risotto, practically the only vegetarian dish on the menu (this is obviously an old-schoolFrench cuisine establishment).

The duck is tender, well cooked and well properly seasoned. The mashed potatoes are sufficiently rich in butter and the figs add a nice sweet counterpoint.

As for the risotto, it was enjoyable but not really a revelation.

Both dishes were fine, and the presentation was competently done, but don’t expect a ‘wow’ factor. Keep your expectations lowish and you won’t be disappointed.

For dessert, we chose two classics – a French tart and a tiramisu.

The tart was fine, but the mini meringues were not fresh and their excessive crunch reduced our enjoyment.

The tiramisu was pleasingly creamy, but perhaps a little expensive at 11.50€ 😬

Full marks for the simple presentation of both though.

So, there aren’t really any bad surprises when you go to eat at Le Procope, but no good ones either. The restaurant is very obviously trying to please as many people as possible, and the dishes are confidently prepared, perhaps because they’ve all been served thousands of times before.

This is a place one visits for its history, easy opening hours and fairly reasonable prices. For a family group with kids, parents and grandparents, everyone will find something to their liking! Try it out and tell us what you think!

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Le Procope (here) is open seven days a week from midday – midnight

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