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Where trainspotters are revered and gourmets delight in buffets; Paris’s stylish mainline railway stations bring a flavour of the regions to the French capital. Annabel Simms tastes dishes at restaurants in and around each terminus to find the best neighbourhood cuisine

Gare du Nord
A la Pinte du Nord café
38 rue de Saint-Quentin, 75010, tel 01 45 26 11 89
Open 5am-12.30am daily
A few steps down a side-street opposite the Gare du Nord, slightly to the left with your back to the station.
L’Academie de la Bière no longer exists, but this quiet friendly bar specialising in beer and sandwiches has not changed since my first visit six years ago. In fact, it looks as if it has not changed since the 1950s, especially the clock. 33cl Kronenbourg beer 3.10€, espresso 1.80€.

Terminus Nord brasserie
23 rue de Dunkerque, 75010, tel 01 42 85 05 15
Open 11am-1am daily
Opposite the Gare du Nord, slightly to the right with your back to the station.
An Art Deco palace packed with Parisians (a birthday party was going on while I was there) which is three minutes and a world away from the Gare du Nord. Owned by the successful Flo chain, it offers brasserie classics such as sea-food and choucroute (pickled cabbage and pork).You can eat and drink well for about 35€, but avoid the carafe wine. Competent, professional service.

Gare de l’Est
Brasserie de l’Est
7 rue du 8 mai 1945, 75010, tel 01 46 07 00 94
Open 5.30am-2am daily
Opposite the Gare de l’Est main entrance, on the left-hand side of the Boulevard de Strasbourg.
A good place for a drink, a snack or a full-scale celebratory meal, with more than a nod in the direction of Belgium and Germany, for which the Gare de l’Est is the departure point. You can have a Munich beer for 3.80€ or frankfurters and choucroute for 7.10€ in the café. For serious eating you go up steps into the dining room, where there is a choice of classic brasserie dishes and no less than seven varieties of choucroute. I luckily chose the simplest of these, the formule choucroute at 16€. It contained three kinds of pork and two different sausages, served on an immense platter with a spirit flame underneath to keep it warm. It was good, more than enough for two, and came with 25cl of very drinkable Riesling. I do not recommend the other carafe wines. The service was efficient although not particularly friendly at first. It had become positively warm by the time we left..

Gare de Lyon
Big Ben Bar (part of the Train Bleu, left of the entrance)
Open 7.30am-11pm on weekdays, 9am-11pm at weekends
Worth the prices for the roomy old-fashioned leather armchairs and the atmosphere of sober comfort. Entrance is via the listed Train Bleu dining room. 25cl Kronenbourg beer 5.50€, espresso 4.50€.

Le Train Bleu restaurant
Place Louis Armand, 75012, tel 01 43 43 09 06
Open for lunch 1130am-3pm, dinner 7-11pm daily. These are the times for last orders. They will not throw you out at midnight if you are still lingering at the table.
The Train Bleu is on the first floor, above L’Express Bleu café in the main station.
Do not be put off by the forbiddingly high prices displayed next to the curtained door at the top of the steps. The door conceals an astonishing dining-room with painted ceilings and red velvet curtains, a cross between a cathedral and a theatre. It is a listed monument to the faded splendours of the Belle Epoque and eating here is an event. We were greeted with genuine warmth, possibly because the place was half empty on a Sunday evening and the staff seemed delighted to have someone to look after. We ordered a blanquette de veau and an aromatic Southern dish I have never eaten in Paris, joues de boeuf braisées à la niçoise, gnocchi aux herbes, both at 24€. They were faultless, as was the service, which was efficient, friendly and unobtrusive. The three-course menu at 42.50€ includes half a bottle of wine. Otherwise, wine prices start at 24€ for a bottle of Chardonnay and go up to 150€.

Gare d’Austerlitz
Buffet de la Gare Paris-Austerlitz
55 Quai d’Austerlitz, 75013, tel 01 45 84 38 55
Open 10.45am-10.45pm (last order) daily
In the Victorian main courtyard of the station, on the left facing the entrance.
You can have a Kanterbrau beer for 3€ or an espresso for 2.10€ in the busy, unpretentious café/brasserie downstairs, where a two-course menu is only 10.50€. But if you go upstairs to the restaurant on the first floor, you will step straight into a 1950s time-warp. Linen tablecloths, squashy chairs, genuine, not retro, lampshades, pale wood panelling and a blissfully calm atmosphere hold out the promise of seriously good food. The discreet electronic screens listing train departures give you the urge to take a train on impulse, as does the menu which contains several specialities from the South West region served by this station, such as foie gras and smoked breast of duck. The 23€ menu is stunningly good value: kir, petit chèvre de Périgord sur salade verte, fricassée de porc aux piments doux, riz à l’Espagnole, Brie, tarte aux fruits, coffee and half a bottle of Gaillac, Jurançon or Côtes du Rhône. For 17€ you get the same, minus one course and the cheese. It sounds too good to be true, and it is. The cooking is honest but bland, totally fat-free, although the Brie and the Gaillac were exceptionally good. However, if you are looking for a quiet civilised spot in the gastronomic desert around Austerlitz, the Buffet cannot be bettered.

Gare de Saint Lazare
A La Ville d’Argentan café-brasserie
4 rue d’Amsterdam, 75009, tel 01 48 74 32 61
Open 5.30am-11pm daily
To the left of the Cour de Rome as you leave the station, opposite the jumbled clock sculpture.
A convenient, old-fashioned bar although the fruit machines in the front give it a slightly sleazy air. Good choice of bottled beers from all over the world, cocktails and ‘beer cocktails’. 25cl Kronenbourg 3.30€, espresso 2.20€. It offers a selection of snacks and a formule moules-frites including beer for 11.60€. The service is efficient, although not exactly effusive.

Brasserie-Restaurant Mollard
115 rue St Lazare, 75008, tel 01 43 87 50 22
Open 12 midday to 1 am daily, last order 12.30am
Opposite the Gare St Lazare
Mollard was founded in 1867 and considers itself a Parisian institution. Inside it is dripping with Art Nouveau mosaics and the pink linen tablecloths and period lighting complete the rather theatrical effect. In spite of the condescending and appallingly absent-minded service, I found the ‘Plat du Pêcheur’ good value for 23.40€: oysters, amandes, tiny crabs, crayfish, whelks and mussels. The 25cl carafe of Blanc de Blancs at 5€ was also a bargain. The three-course menu at 36.75€ includes oysters and half a bottle of wine, although the cooking was competent rather than inspired. It was quite full by 9pm, mainly with a quiet bourgeois clientèle and nary a sign of a suitcase.

Gare de Montparnasse
La Tisane café
27 boulevard de Vaugirard, 75015, tel 01 43 20 74 81
Open from 6am-9pm daily
Take the escalator labelled ‘sortie boulevard de Vaugirard’ from the station. La Tisane is the café with the yellow umbrellas a few metres along to the left.
An unusually friendly family-owned café in this very uninspiring neighbourhood. Does a two-course menu for 13.90€ at lunchtime only. 25cl Kronenbourg beer 3.75€, espresso 2€.

Au Rapide brasserie-restaurant
6 place Bienvenue, 75015, tel 01 42 22 98 23
Open 5.30am-2am daily
Opposite the main station entrance, to the left across the boulevard de Vaugirard.
An ordinary-looking brasserie which turned out to be surprisingly good value. The hand-painted train mural echoes the Train Bleu, where the same motif is engraved on the glasses, and it is the favoured haunt of the SNCF contrôleurs (ticket inspectors) who work at the Gare de Montparnasse. There is a two-course formule for 13.50€, but the surprising dish was the Côtes de Boeuf (rib steak) with perfect home-made chips for 17.50€ and one of the best crème caramels I have ever eaten, also home-made, for 4.60€. The house wine, a Gamay at 4.60€ for 25 cl was excellent. 25cl of 1664 beer 3.90€, espresso 1.90€. The clientèle is mainly local and the service friendly and efficient.

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