La Station Damrémont, the metro-style restaurant

If you arrange to meet a friend at Station Damrémont, he or she is likely to spend a good while looking it up on a metro map... in vain! Because this station isn't a station at all. The name actually refers to a restaurant nestled at 103 rue Damrémont, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. Yet inside, the resemblance is uncanny. A royal blue rectangle indicating the station on an optic white tiled brick wall, all the visual codes of our beloved Parisian stations are there. Even the map is a reference to metro line signage.

Except that here, there's no nauseating smell or litter strewn across the floor, but a wide range of generous burgers, from the very cheesy Camembert and bacon burger to the 100% veggie burger, made with a chickpea patty with four vegetables and mozzarella, not forgetting the marinated chicken version with four spices (halal meat). As for prices, they're in the usual Parisian range, with burgers priced from 9 to 14 euros and accompanying fries from 3 to 6 euros (brugers+fries formulas at 15 euros).

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This very American-inspired menu is complemented by a very good fish & chips (13 euros) with a more British touch. For dessert, we fell for the salted butter caramel cheesecake (7 euros). In short, there's something for just about every diet, provided you're not on a diet! What's more, the owner, Alexandre Chapelet, guarantees home cooking using fresh produce.

In fact, it was he who greeted us on the evening of our visit, and in a rather atypical way: by handing us a (fake) transport ticket and accompanying his outstretched hand with a"Here's your ticket to travel tonight, but you'll still get a fine at the end", followed by a broad smile. It seems that this reference to the bill amuses even the RATP teams who, Alexandre Chapelet confides to us, sometimes come here to eat.