The Verdict
POLIDOR has been serving the plat du jour in the 6th arrondissement since 1845, which makes it one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants in Paris. Verlaine and Rimbaud ate here when they were living their tumultuous relationship in the neighbourhood. James Joyce used it as his Paris canteen. André Gide was a regular. The specific clientele of the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince — the students, the writers, the philosophers, the impoverished and the brilliant — has sustained the restaurant across 180 years.
The menu is the plat du jour in the format that every French bistro developed to feed its neighbourhood at an honest price: a rotating selection of traditional preparations — pot-au-feu, blanquette de veau, boeuf bourguignon — made with the ingredients the market provided that day, served at a price that allows the writer and the student to eat well without calculation. The communal tables, the absence of menus beyond the chalkboard, and the service that communicates decades of practice without pretension are all part of the same philosophy.
The prices at Polidor are, genuinely, what they were in spirit a century ago — adjusted for inflation but not for the tourist premium that the 6th arrondissement's address would justify to any landlord. The restaurant has maintained them because its identity is inseparable from the community it serves. For the visitor who wants to eat in the room where Paris's literary culture fed itself on a budget, Polidor is the only possible address.
Why It Works for Solo Dining
A solo dinner at Polidor — the pot-au-feu, a carafe of the house wine, the communal table shared with whoever else arrived that evening — is the Paris solo dining experience that connects most directly to the tradition of the solitary writer eating in a room of strangers. Verlaine was here. The plat du jour is still €12.
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