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Recently, a dear friend came to visit, a chef and wine lover who had two days to eat and drink his way through town. He knows Melbourne; this was not his first visit. But still, the stakes are always high when someone like that asks where we should go for lunch.

The first day, I took him somewhere shiny and new, a place the fooderati were raving about, to give him a taste of where we are in this culinary moment. The second day, I said: “Screw it, let’s go to France-Soir.”

Our lunch was an utter delight. We dined on a simple omelette au fromage ($22), cooked runny in the middle as requested; on impossibly creamy lamb brains, crisped on the outside and served with a piquant caper sauce ($26); on a buttery leek tart served with sproingy fresh lettuce in a tart vinaigrette ($26).

The steak tartare ($26 for 100 grams or $49 for 200 grams) was exactly as you’d get it in any old-school Paris brasserie, which is to say: meaty, mustardy, almost creamy.

The bread and butter, free and unlimited, were exceptionally good. The oh-so-French waiters were dashing, clapping and singing Happy Birthday to delighted customers, who grinned like little kids.

The wine list, 2000-plus bottles strong, had my friend enraptured. The chenin blancs alone were enough to send him into a frenzy of lust.

There were a couple of misses; there usually are. On this occasion, the tripe in tomato and riesling sauce ($30) was a bit muddy tasting; we left most of it uneaten. Did I care? I did not. There are good things to eat at France-Soir, and to me, that’s only half the point anyway.

I’m not sure that we value our history enough in this city ... we’re too obsessed with newness.

Does it matter that the “veritable steak au poivre” ($52) sometimes comes wildly unevenly cooked, or that the roasted half duckling with orange sauce ($49) lacks the sticky wonder and perfectly rendered fat of a truly great version of duck a l’orange? That the crepes suzette ($18) are pre-cooked and come out barely warm and with an unconvincing sauce? I’m not sure. My food snob friends certainly seem to think so, dismissing France-Soir out of hand, as if the whole point of a restaurant is consistent edible excellence.

Of course, food prepared well is important, and some dishes at France-Soir are as dependable as gloom in July. The best way to approach this menu is with a list of favourite dishes you come back to over and over. (The omelette! The tartare!) But also? Food isn’t the only reason to love a restaurant, or for a restaurant to have value.

In France-Soir’s case, there’s the transportive nature of the place, its cramped room with red walls and white tablecloths, its mirrors scrawled with specials – this really does feel like a neighbourhood bistro in Paris, right down to the uneven cooking.

There’s the charm of the service, the teasing and cajoling in French accents, and the potential you might become one of those customers they kiss on both cheeks when you enter the room.

There’s the value of a place that’s open from noon to midnight every day, where you can linger over lunch for hours if you wish, or show up at 10pm and still get a proper meal.

There’s the utter glory of the wine list, a tome so deep that for the right person, it’s like reading an exciting novel, and where the rest of us will find something perfectly friendly, too.

There’s the comfort of nostalgia – for the 38-year-old restaurant itself, but also for some of the dishes it serves. I’m a massive fan of the chocolate mousse ($18), for instance, which is good in the old-school way: airy and made with dark chocolate and reminiscent of the stuff my dad used to serve at dinner parties in the ’80s. There will be no sea salt found on this mousse, no saltbush, no seasonal fruit. But neither will it be stiff from too much gelatine, or flabby from cheap chocolate or fake sweeteners. It is quotidian, in its own way, and maybe that’s why I love it.

I’m not sure that we value our history enough in this city, certainly not on the restaurant front. We’re too obsessed with newness, with playing with the big kids on the international culinary stage, with showing off the things that are shiny.

But you know what diners in London and New York and Paris adore? Their daggy older restaurants, the ones that are dependable and endearing stalwarts. It’s in those places where many of us live our lives, and it’s the presence of those places that make for truly great food cities.

France-Soir is not our best French restaurant, nor our best older restaurant, nor the place to take your snobbiest food snob friends when you want to impress them. But it embodies so many of the above qualities, and for that reason, I believe it deserves our deepest love and respect.