Chez Gladines Bar / Restaurant

13eme, Paris –

At Chez Gladines, waiters carrying plates of food chant “Chaud! Chaud! Chaud!” (“Hot! Hot! Hot!”) throughout the night, both to clear space as well as draw attention to the steamingly awesome plates of food in their hands.

This bar and restaurant is hot in every sense of the word, from the delectable dinners and desserts to the young and restless clientele. Sure, the décor is plain and the tables are crowded, but it hardly matters because the heart of the experience is the food.

In fact, the restaurant attracts such an enormous crowd every night of the week that police make special rounds at the request of neighbors who can’t put up with the racket anymore.

People who arrive after 8pm should be prepared to spend as much time outside the restaurant as inside, because although the space is quite large, it is no match for the mass of patrons clamoring to get in. The best bet is to leave one’s name with the barman, order a bottle of wine, and join the rest of the customers waiting out on Rue des Cinq Diamants.

Once customers have finally made their way into the cozy restaurant, they’ll find themselves seated at a long table with checkered tablecloths and a mostly French crowd with whom they’ll share bread baskets and conversation.

There may not be much else to warrant a trek to the 13th, but in-the-know patrons make an exception for Chez Gladines, where the food is cheap, the portions are large, the wine flows freely, and the desserts are not to be missed.