We have kept a directory of places near the square for a while, and the same few judgements kept turning up in it. This page writes them down.
The award is one sticker for the window. There are no stars, no tiers and no score, because a scale would imply a precision we do not have. A place either meets the five tests below or it does not.
It is awarded by year. 2026 is the first.
The five tests
Every one of them applies to every category. A place has to pass all five.
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We go back
The test is not whether we enjoyed a visit. It is whether somewhere is still in our own rotation once the novelty has gone. Everything holding the award is a place we have paid to be at least three times.
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Locals are in the room
On this square that is the sharpest single test there is. A room where every table is somebody who will never return has no reason to keep its standards. Being well known is fine. Being only for people passing through is not.
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The price is readable before you sit down
Posted outside, in euros, legible from the pavement. That one rule removes most of the trouble within two hundred metres of here.
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Nobody hurries you
You can take an hour over one drink and nobody makes you feel it.
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It is what it says it is
Nothing sold as artisanal that arrived on a lorry, nothing traditional that was fitted out last year, no house speciality that comes out of a microwave.
What changes by category
The five tests are the floor. Each kind of place has its own question on top.
Cafés and bars
Can you sit with a book at four in the afternoon? Is there something on the list that is brewed nearby? Is the room worth the trip on its own, whatever ends up in the glass?
Restaurants
Would we eat here on a night when nobody is visiting? Is the menu short enough to have been cooked rather than assembled? Does it survive a Tuesday in February?
Shops
Is the person behind the counter the maker, the owner, or an employee of a chain? Could the same object be bought at an airport? Chocolate carries one extra test: made in Belgium, by them or by somebody they will name.
Museums and sights
Is it the right length? Do you leave still interested? Does it tell you where you are, rather than being a survey of everything?
Who holds one
Nobody yet. The criteria went up before the first stickers went out, on purpose: a scheme that publishes its rules only after picking its winners is not worth much.
What we do not do
- Nobody pays
- No fee for the award, none for the sticker, none for the link. No membership, no featured tier, no upgrade. If that ever changes, this page will say so before anything else does.
- Nobody applies
- A place cannot enter and cannot buy in. Being asked does not disqualify anybody, and it does not help either.
- We pay our own bill
- Every time. We have not taken a free meal, a discount, or an invitation to come and review something.
- We are not anonymous
- We live on Rue Saint-Jean. Most of these places know our faces. We would rather be known than pretend to be inspectors.
- We declare a connection
- Where we have any relationship with a place beyond being customers, it is written on that place's own page.
- It can be withdrawn
- Places change hands and standards slip. When one does, the sticker comes down and the withdrawal is recorded here with its date.
This is not a jury, a survey or a ranking. It is two people who live 200 metres from the square and who pay for their own dinner. If that is not a basis you trust, the five tests above are the ones to apply yourself.