For once, this month’s restaurant isn’t strictly speaking in Paris, but two minutes from the city limits – you just have to cross over the périphérique (a part that’s been covered and turned into a garden, thank goodness) or walk five minutes from the nearest métro station.

Le Timbre Poste is on the south side of the city in a sweet town called Malakoff, but the feel of the place is anything but suburban. Here, you’re so close to the city that you are practically in it still, and the fact that the place is right next to the Porte de Vanves flea market has been key to making it what it is, transforming an old pub into a cabinet of curiosities, filled to the brim with old advertising signs and other objects as bizarre as they are colourful.

It’s probably one of our favourite places in the world, and the food’s pretty good too!

Here’s our review.

As you may have gathered, we think Le Timbre Poste is one of the treasures of Paris, despite the fact that it’s not actually in Paris. It’s an old school place with simple but hearty food, mouthy waitresses all over 50 and quite a lot of noise (a good thing).

It’s also a proper pub, with sixteen different beers on tap and a kitchen open non-stop from 9am-2am seven days a week, making it a simple, dependable and yet original choice for a drink or meal.

And despite the borderline ‘hoarder’ look based mainly on buying waaaay too many 1930s advertising signs, we were surprised to learn that the Timbre Poste was only founded in 1980. The owners must have bought almost everything they saw at the flea market, because inside there’s no wall or ceiling space left!
Basically, if minimalism is your thing, you’re going to be very unhappy here.

In fact, you can more or less tell what’s coming as soon as you spy the outside of the building, with two floors liberally covered with enamelled ads, signs and other retro items. Even the terrace has more flowers than good taste would probably permit.
And as the Timbre Poste is open late, it’s the perfect place for for a late drink on a summer night, allowing you to marvel at its gloriously kitsch facade…
But let’s go back inside, eh? The concept of the restaurant is a little like Chartier, with tables close together (that you may have to share), simple old-school food and low prices, except here it’s on a much smaller scale, there’s a lot more choice and the food is definitely better quality.

If you come at lunch- or dinnertime you’ll be able to sample full ambiance (and probably more than a sentence or two of your neighbour’s conversation), but as the kitchen is open non-stop, you’re also free to drop by at a quieter time and admire the completely bonkers decor in relative silence.
Just a few years back, le Timbre Poste was one of the rare restaurants to still have a fixed lunch menu at 10 euros. Those days are alas gone, but prices have remained cheaper than a lot of other places – the cheapest three-course menu, available at lunchtime every day except Sundays, is still just 12.80€.

There are also two other menus with more choice, costing 23€ and 34€ for three courses, and a special kids menu at 11€. You’ll be able to choose between around ten dishes for each course, and if nothing takes your fancy, there will definitely be something to your taste in the lengthy à la carte menu.

Just be warned that you’ll need to be very, very hungry to finish everything, as the dishes at the Timbre Poste are big!

For our first course, we decided to order tuna salad, a prawn and avocado salad and a ‘hearty salad’ of hot goat’s cheese, all of which are classic French dishes. Unlike Chartier, where we were served 30 seconds after ordering, the dishes took a little time to arrive, making us think that they had been prepared specially for our order, and after a taste it was obvious that care had gone into them.
Actually, the first courses were so large that the idea of continuing with another dish and following up with dessert seemed nigh on impossible. Luckily, we were given a little time for our food to settle down before the main dishes arrived.

When they did (a flank steak with shallots, a rib steak and a salmon fillet), they filled their plates and made us gasp a little, in awe of their sheer copiousness.

Dutifully tucking in, we found the meat to be very well cooked according to our wishes, and the accompanying sauces were delicious, but the salmon came with a giant bed of scorching-hot vegetables (some of which should probably have been served cold) that were tasteless and impossible to eat (partly through lack of appetite). The salmon itself was honourable though, and quite sufficient.
After these mountains of food, we asked for a little extra time to digest before ordering dessert (which we were strangely looking forward to).

The choice is still to be made between classics, and we went for a crème brûlée, some ice cream and a coupe amarena – vanilla ice cream with morello cherries in syrup.

All three desserts were competent and sugary, but the coupe amarena would satisfy even the greediest person’s sweet tooth (and then some). You have been warned!
So, if you’re looking for a chic meal in a designer venue, don’t go to the Timbre Poste. However, if you want to eat heartily in a room that looks like the Wizard of Oz’s acid flashback, the Timbre Poste is for you!

As they serve food all day, it’s a good choice if you need to eat outside of normal serving hours. At the weekend you could even visit the Porte de Vanves flea market and finish off with a meal there, and with the good weather on its way, the flowery terrace means there will always be a table available (probably).

But we’ve said enough, you get the picture – we think the Timbre Poste is one of those places that help give Paris its special charm, and you should definitely give it a try.
Le Timbre Poste (here) is open seven days a week from 9am-2am

Tel.: +33 (0)1 46 56 79 69

Website: www.timbre-poste-malakoff.fr

Other website (not sure why they have two): www.autimbreposte.fr

Facebook: here

To check our all our photos of the Timbre Poste, just click here.