There's something to be said, eating lunch with a native Parisian. It's not just that they're bred for good taste in food - and other...things - nor is it just that they can help decipher the menu and translate what the waiter just sang to you in French of the day's Plats du Jour.
Yes, all of these are fine reasons to lunch with a native Parisian, but what's the most alluring is that they can recount to you stories of having waited on that very platform to board the train as a child, when the restaurant you are at the moment dining in was, indeed, an operating train station.
Such was the case recently when I dined with an old friend at Paris's Restaurant La Gare. Locals remember it as, indeed, the Passy-La-Muette train station. A stone's throw from Franck et Fils, the men's clothing shop, it unabashedly sits ajutting out on the chaussée de la Muette.
I'm well aware of the haute food critics' unspoken ethic of commenting only on a restaurant's food, but, quite frankly, the atmosphere at Restaurant La Gare is so chic, so Parisian, so expansively stylish...well, for goodness' sake, just walking into the place instantly transported me back to my Le Bain Douche days; days when I was much younger and much more carefree!
And if that doesn't whet your appetite, then, well, mon cheri, I don't know what will...
The Restaurant La Gare is to Parisian restaurants today what Le Bain Douche was to Parisian nightclubs a few years (ok, decades!) ago. 
Now that summer is in full swing, the Terasse, which seats a generous 180 diners, is the place to be, especially for Sunday Brunch. At 33 Euros for brunch, it's a good deal.
The airy 500 square meter establishment was designed by Francois Lamazerolles. The drama is descending from the cosy bar at the street-level entrance to the restaurant at the garden level below.
Ranked as one of Paris's trendiest restaurants, it's that kind of place where, if you sport a baseball cap with NY on it and a pair of sunglasses, people will mistake you for a movie star!
The food, of course, is delicious. As a North American, all food in France is delicious. But lest I be perceived as shirking from my food duties, I recommend the grilled scallops on a bed of creamy, roasted, mashed garlic potatoes. The salad of al dente green beans is light and fragrant. For dessert the three-part roasted pineapple, pineapple compote and fresh pineapple with pineapple sorbet is delightful for a sun-drenched afternoon.
Click on the site Restaurant La Gare for a 360 video view of the place.
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