Friday night in Paris’ 11th arrondissement is reminiscent of the West Village in New York. The streets are packed—this is the most densely populated district in Paris—and the air is thick with cigarette smoke. Smartly dressed men and women congregate on the sidewalk; some wait for friends, others wait for tables at the sidewalk cafes. This is my first time in Paris (Paris is for (Movie) Lovers) and my first time off the main tourist paths.

Thanks to getting turned around upon exiting the Metro, I arrive several minutes late for my reservation at Restaurant Astier (restaurant-astier.com).  Forgetting how late people eat dinner in Paris, I’m afraid I’ll arrive by closing time. Instead, the restaurant is just starting to fill up at 9:45 p.m.

Astier, open since 1956, is an old-school French bistro. Crowded and noisy, with red-and-white-checkered tablecloths, it seems almost like a movie set of a Paris restaurant. I am seated near the back of the main dining room; my only companion, somewhat awkwardly, is the enormous menu board with the daily specials.

My starter is an Astier staple, smoked herring marinated in apple vinaigrette. Served in a large casserole, the cold dish easily could be an entire meal for two or three people. The sliced fish is covered in carrots, onions, and herbs. The vinaigrette is strongly infused with the taste of cloves; they are a powerful contrast to the apples in the vinaigrette. I initially take only about half, not even sure whether I have been passed a communal dish or not. The waiter stops by my table and answers that question for me.

“Take some more,” he says brusquely. He then sets down the main course, braised pork. It’s wrapped around herbs and served au jus with vegetables. Pork is one of the specialties of the house here—the pig iconography on the website is a dead giveaway—and the meat is tender and juicy.

The highpoint of an evening at Astier, however, is its famous cheese platter that’s passed from table to table. I count 20 different varieties, from creamy to smelly; the only kind I can really immediately pinpoint is Époisses, thanks to its odor. “Take one of each,” the waiter says.

While sharing cheese with 50 strangers seems weird, I figure that all these people do it more frequently than I do. I eat about 4 slices of various kinds, by now wondering where the stories of small portions in French restaurants came from. But I’m not about to miss out on dessert either; it was an excellent dark chocolate mousse served on a Sable Breton shell, alongside caramel ice cream.

When I am done, the waiter reappears with my digestif, a small glass of brandy that plays off the chocolate nicely. “Be careful, it’s very strong,” he says—a few last words of caution for the uninitiated tourist, experiencing real bistro dining for the first time.

Astier is open seven days a week and is located at 44 Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, Paris, 75011.