Le Dôme Café
- Getting there
- Boulevard du Montparnasse, on the border of the 6th and 14th arrondissements
Why it’s in the log
Le Dôme opened in 1898 and spent the early 20th century as a gathering point for the artists and writers who defined Montparnasse — Picasso, Hemingway and the rest of the interwar crowd all passed through it. Anthony Bourdain visited for the premiere episode of No Reservations' second season, "Why the French Don't Suck," calling it "an old classic — and I mean classic with a capital C." He kept recommending it for years afterward, once ranking it second only to the Eiffel Tower as a Paris must-visit.
It's a seafood brasserie in the classic register: raw bar, sole meunière, the kind of white-tablecloth room that hasn't chased a trend in over a century because it's never needed to. The prices reflect the location and the history in equal measure.
Book ahead for dinner — the room is small enough that the Montparnasse regulars fill it most nights on their own.
“An old Montparnasse brasserie that once sat Picasso and Hemingway — Bourdain kept sending people here for decades after he first filmed it.”