La Closerie des Lilas, 171, boulevard Montparnasse. Tel. 014051-3450.Open everyday till 1 am. Formerly a Café littéraire had as customers Baudelaire, Verlaine, Gide, Jarry, Apollinaire, Modigliani, Hemingway, Lenin and probably Trotsky. Keeps a litterary crowd of customers like Philippe Sollers. The present chef Jean-Pierre Cassagne has renovated the house and the excellent meals. Besides the restaurant there is `brasserie’ where meals are alsoserved. Menu 43 euros (including wine), à la carte 90 euros.
La Rotonde Montparnasse, 105 bd. Montparnasse, Tel. 0143266884. Open every day from 12 am till 1pm. www.rotondemontparnasse.com Typical parisian restaurant since 1911. Seafood, oysters, famous Salers entrecote, good fish, selected Auvergne cheese and good desserts. Landmark of the Montparnasse district had as regular customers artists, musicians, writers and politicians: Modigliani, Picasso, Soutine, Cocteau, Diaghilev, Debussy, Nijinski, Stravinsky, Man Ray (and Kiki), Breton, Aragon, Prevert, Queneau, Hemingway, Gershwin, Henry Miller, Scott Fitzgerald. Meetings of Trotsky with fellow bolcheviks in the first floor room to organize the 1917 russian revolution were often interrupted by the french police. Menus 35 and 43 euros.
La Coupole, 102 bd. Montparnasse, Tel. 0143201420. Open every day from 12 am till 1 pm. Typical Art Deco parisian restaurant open in 1927. Seafood, salmon rilletes, abundant sauerkraut, fresh codfish a la plancha, entrecote with french frites, lamb curry india style, excellent desserts. Among regular customers in the past: Cocteau, Prevert, Sartre, Beauvoir, Picasso (who met here Dora Maar), Matisse, Piaf, Montand.