"It’s worth the extra steps across Invalides to reach Café des Ministères’s sleek, modern dining room complete with a black-and-white statement wall. It's the perfect setting to dust off old-school French classics and season them with a bit of 7th arrondissement refinement. Golden towers of flaky puff pastry vol au vent are generously filled with veal sweetbreads simmered in cream, but not before they’re lined with a sautéed spinach base to keep the pastry crisp. (That’s the whole point of vegetables, right?) Innards aside, the menu also features a delicious egg-mayo and some of the prettiest in-shell scallops ever. Sip a digestif from the drinks cart or an espresso before a walk along the Seine a few steps away." - emily monaco, sophie friedman, sara lieberman