Brasserie Balzar, Latin Quarter brasserie since 1894

Brasserie Balzar, on Rue des Écoles in the heart of the Latin Quarter, was born in 1894 between the Sorbonne, the Collège de France and the faculties of medicine and law. Amédée Balzar, from Picardy, opened a small tavern here.

A few years later he sold it to Marcelin Cazes, owner of the Brasserie Lipp. The architect Joseph Madeline gave it its décor: tiled floors, opaline globes, dark panelling, moleskin banquettes and tall mirrors. The house was then named the Petit Lipp. After 1945 Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir and André Malraux were regulars, and Hélène Cixous met Jacques Derrida here.

In 1961 the Cazes family handed over to Charles and Geneviève Marolleau, from Bordeaux, then to their son Jean-Claude in 1968. Jean-Pierre Egurreguy took over in 1987, the Flo group in 1998, then Alain Grandière in 2018. Jean Tulard, Václav Havel, Louis Malle and Johnny Depp have all had their table.

Its reputation rests on its waiters, known for « a precious mix of nonchalance, irony and kindness ». In the room of mirrors and panelling, a step from the Sorbonne, it serves the brasserie classics every day, from morning until late.