The World’s 10 Best Historic & Iconic Restaurants
Explore ten historic & iconic restaurants around the world, from Paris, France to Venice, Italy. Discover the restaurants and plan your next dining experience.
La Tour d’Argent
Paris, France
La Tour d’Argent is a restaurant in Paris’s 5th arrondissement, at 15 Quai de la Tournelle, set on the sixth floor of the historic tower above the Seine. Its dining room faces the river and takes in views of Notre-Dame and Île Saint-Louis, placing the meal within one of the city’s most recognisable Left Bank settings. The official house presents the restaurant as part of a broader property, yet the dining room remains a clearly defined destination in its own right. The kitchen is led by Chef Yannick Franques, who reinterprets emblematic house recipes in a contemporary style while keeping them linked to the restaurant’s heritage. That approach gives the menu a balance of continuity and renewal, with seasonal dishes sitting alongside established signatures. The dining room also has an open kitchen, so service and preparation are visible from the room and become part of the overall atmosphere without breaking the formality of the setting. Dining is arranged as a composed restaurant experience rather than a casual stop, with tasting sequences offered for the whole table. The menu includes dishes such as foie gras, caviar, morilles, lobster Thermidor and duck preparations, suggesting a kitchen that works through classical French references with careful structure. The house also asks gentlemen to wear a jacket at lunch and dinner, which reinforces the restaurant’s polished code of service and dress. Taken together, the location, cooking and service create a restaurant that feels ceremonial but current. The elevated position above the river gives each table a strong sense of place, while the open kitchen and Chef Franques’s reinterpretations keep the experience anchored in present-day cooking. It is a Paris dining room defined by history, yet one that presents that history through exacting service, a formal atmosphere and a view that remains central to the meal.
Sobrino de Botín
Madrid, Spain
Sobrino de Botín is the long-established restaurant at c/ Cuchilleros 17 in central Madrid, in the Madrid-Sol district and the historic Madrid de los Austrias area. Its official history presents the house as founded in 1725, while Madrid’s tourism body describes it as a traditional Castilian-Madrilenian restaurant in the city centre. The address, age and setting combine to make the dining room itself part of the experience, with a sense of continuity closely tied to Madrid’s old urban fabric. The kitchen is framed by classic Spanish regional cooking rather than contemporary reinvention. Botín’s menu is organised into roasts, starters, eggs, fish, soups, vegetables and desserts, and the house particularly promotes suckling pig and lamb roasted in the Castilian manner. Other listed dishes include entrecôte a la plancha, solomillo, escalope de ternera and perdiz estofada. This points to a broad, familiar repertoire built around hearty preparations and straightforward cooking traditions. Botín’s own history pages describe how the building evolved over time, including periods when dining occupied only the entrance and first floor while the cellar served storage. That layered use gives the restaurant a notably historic character, shaped by age and adaptation rather than redesign. The result is an atmosphere associated with a long-running Madrid house of hospitality, where the building’s past remains visible in the story of the place as much as in the food. The restaurant states daily service from 13:00 to 23:30 and provides reservations through its official website and by phone. It also identifies itself as a family business, with Madrid’s tourism information noting management by the fourth generation of the González family. Together, these verified details suggest an established operation that pairs long-held routines with a central location and a menu rooted in traditional Spanish dining, rather than a concept built around novelty or trend-led presentation.
Rules
London, UK
Rules is a long-established restaurant at 35 Maiden Lane in Covent Garden, London, with a West End address that places it among the theatres and streets around the market district. The restaurant presents itself as London’s oldest restaurant and says it has remained in the hands of only four families across more than two centuries. Despite that heritage, it operates as a current dining venue, with a smart dress preference and a daytime welcome for families that shapes a formal but not forbidding atmosphere. The food offering centres on traditional British cooking. Current menu pages show dishes built around recognisable staples such as oysters, pies and puddings, alongside a notable emphasis on game. Rather than fixing the kitchen to a static historical list, the menus also include seasonal dishes, so the meal changes with availability while staying grounded in established British flavours. Drinks are part of the experience too, with separate wine and cocktail lists supporting anything from a straightforward lunch to a more extended dinner in Covent Garden. The dining rooms are a large part of Rules’ character. Established descriptions and the restaurant’s presentation point to interiors with dark wood panelling, red velvet seating, and walls filled with paintings, drawings and cartoons. That layered decoration gives the place a distinctly historic mood without turning it into a museum piece. It remains a working restaurant, and the visual richness of the rooms contributes to a sense of occasion whether guests are visiting for a pre-theatre meal, a business lunch or a celebratory dinner. Beyond the main restaurant, Rules also offers private spaces for smaller gatherings. The private-events information names the Graham Greene room and a room associated with Sir John Betjeman, both used for intimate meals, meetings and special occasions. These spaces come with practical support including bespoke menus, Wi-Fi and a 42-inch screen, which makes them suitable for gatherings that need more than a dining table alone. Together, the principal dining room and the private rooms give Rules the feel of a restaurant with both ceremony and everyday function.
Delmonico’s
New York, USA
Delmonico’s is a restaurant in New York, USA.
Café de la Paix
Paris, France
Café de la Paix is a restaurant in Paris, at 5 Place de l’Opéra in the 9th arrondissement, overlooking the Opéra Garnier. Its official site presents it as one of the city’s legendary addresses, set within a historic corner of the theatre district and associated with the InterContinental Paris Le Grand. The venue is described as an established café-restaurant rather than a hotel dining room, with a terrace facing the opera house. The kitchen is led by Executive Chef Laurent André, whose menus focus on seasonal produce and revised French classics. The restaurant’s own materials mention dishes such as foie gras, Burgundy snails and French onion soup, and describe a repertoire of familiar brasserie and bistro standards interpreted with a lighter, contemporary touch. The site also indicates service across breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a separate Sunday brunch offered as a set experience. The atmosphere is shaped by Napoleon III styling, including gilded panelling, a coffered ceiling, and streamlined furnishings in a pale palette. This gives the dining rooms a formal, ornamented character rather than a casual café feel, while the terrace adds an outdoor option facing one of Paris’s best-known landmarks. The restaurant also offers private hire of part or all of the premises for social or professional events. Taken together, Café de la Paix reads as a classic Parisian dining room with a strong sense of place: historic, central and closely tied to the Opéra district. The official descriptions emphasise heritage, seasonal cooking and a polished setting, making it suitable for guests seeking a traditional French restaurant experience in a landmark location rather than a contemporary neighbourhood brasserie.
Antoine’s
New Orleans, USA
Antoine’s is a long-established restaurant in New Orleans’ French Quarter, now operating from 713 Saint Louis Street. The business traces its beginnings to 1840, when Antoine Alciatore founded the restaurant in the city, and its official history notes that it later moved to the present address in 1868. That background places Antoine’s among the historic dining institutions of the Quarter, where the restaurant is defined by its longstanding identity, family connection and deeply rooted place in the city’s hospitality culture. The restaurant is associated with French-Creole cooking, a style reflected in tourism material and in Antoine’s own emphasis on tradition. Rather than presenting itself as a contemporary tasting-menu venue, it is described through classic restaurant dining shaped by established house specialities and a menu approach tied to lunch and dinner service. The culinary character therefore centres on a recognisable New Orleans tradition, combining French influence and local Creole expression in a setting that foregrounds continuity, formality and an enduring restaurant style. A notable part of Antoine’s character is its unusually extensive series of dining rooms. Official private-dining information shows multiple named spaces used for gatherings, while the restaurant also receives regular diners in its main rooms. Those interiors support occasions ranging from private parties to weddings and other special events, giving the property a layout more varied than a single-hall restaurant. This arrangement helps define the experience, with different rooms contributing their own atmosphere while remaining part of one historic French Quarter establishment. Historic detail is woven into the setting. Antoine’s official history refers to the 1840 Room and to preserved artefacts including a duck press, linking present-day dining with the restaurant’s past. The overall impression is of a traditional, multi-room house where table service, heritage décor and ceremonial touches matter as much as the menu style. In practical terms, Antoine’s functions both as a restaurant for everyday service and as a venue for private dining, with its character shaped by long continuity and carefully maintained historic surroundings.
Café Central
Vienna, Austria
Café Central is a restaurant in Vienna, Austria.
Café Pushkin
Moscow, Russia
Café Pushkin is a restaurant in Moscow, Russia.
Le Procope
Paris, France
Le Procope is a restaurant in Paris’s 6th arrondissement, at 13 rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie in Odéon, and its official material presents it as a café, restaurant and glacier. The operator’s own pages make the exact business clear: Le Procope, a historic dining room in central Paris rather than a general café brand. The address and contact details place it firmly in Saint-Germain, where the name is closely tied to long-standing Parisian dining and café culture. Its food offer is built around classic French dining. The official menu is divided into several sections, including the main carte, a Révolutionnaires menu, café salon and drinks, which indicates a service model that spans full meals and lighter daytime stops. The site also highlights ice cream and desserts such as coffee tart and Paris-Brest, suggesting a menu that balances brasserie-style dishes with café and pastry items rooted in the French repertoire. Le Procope’s history pages emphasise its claim to being the first Paris establishment to introduce coffee served at table in a fine porcelain cup. That heritage remains central to the restaurant’s identity, with coffee still foregrounded alongside the food offer. The business also states that it can host private and professional gatherings, including lunches, dinners and cocktail receptions, which points to a formal dining space able to accommodate both everyday service and organised occasions. Taken together, the business presents itself as a heritage-led Paris restaurant with a distinct old-city character rather than a modern concept venue. The experience is shaped by its Saint-Germain setting, its coffee and glacier traditions, and a menu built from familiar French classics rather than novelty. For diners, that means a polished historic house where the atmosphere is as much part of the appeal as the food and drink service.
Caffè Florian
Venice, Italy
Caffè Florian is a restaurant in Venice, Italy.