A Guide to the Most Iconic Cafés in Paris

We all have our own highly personal Parisian obsessions. For some, it’s spending seven hours exploring the Louvre, for others it’s strolling along the Seine at daybreak, for still others it’s the address of a secret boite that only gets going in the wee hours.

For me, seven hours in the Louvre does not hold a candle to seven hours at the marche aux puces; the thrum of midnight in Paris is nothing as compared to the delight of sitting in a café—on the terrasse!—in the middle of the afternoon, sipping an espresso, pulling a beret over my Juliet Greco bangs, with an actually book in my lap, no laptops or iPhones in sight!

Here, a highly personal compilation of the city’s most iconic cafes—including one that can only be visited in dreams.

Café de Flore

A legendary clientele of wild surrealists and gloomy existentialists, not to mention my friend Peter, who has every meal here—breakfast, lunch, and dinner—when he is Paris, even though the menu has a distinct lack of cooked food. Legend has it that Simone De Beauvoir was first attracted to the café when the owner installed a powerful heater on the ground floor to warm up the gray Paris winters. She brought Sartre with her, but they were just two of the famous Parisians who have made this their second home. Sonia Rykiel, the wonderful French designer, ate here often—her flagship was across the street—and has a sandwich named in her honor. Even if there is no food with your moniker, a trip to Paris is not complete without a visit to the Flore.

Les Deux Magots 

The magical Café de Flore has a rival, the equally iconic Les Deux Magots, located across the street. Apparently, Simone and Sartre hung out at this place too, along with Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, and other soon-to-be-famous Americans who arrived decades ago in search of inspiration and cheap rents. Once upon a time, this was a center of left-wing activity, while the Flore was a gathering place for the right. But that was then. The origins of the spat with the Flore are shrouded in the mists of time, but all we can say is—even if you are only in Paris for one day, patronize both places.

Le Procope 

So many things in Paris are so much older than their counterparts in America—we are such a young country!—but Le Procope is ancient even by French standards. The plaque outside reads 1686, and that is true, sort of—it closed in 1872, and reopened in the 1920s. The original café was a haunt of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Napoleon (no women allowed back then…). One patron described the atmosphere in 1772 thusly, "There is an ebb and flow of all conditions of men, nobles and cooks, wits and sots, pell mell, all chattering in full chorus to their heart's content.” Now everyone is welcome, and it is fine to raise your voice.

Le Nemours 

This quintessential café, just across from the Louvre, is on my list because it is in my ‘hood. When I was a young girl first visiting Paris, I gazed with wonder at the lit-up grand dames of the 1^st arrondissement—the Regina, the Hotel du Louvre, the Lotti—so distant in every way from the dump with the bathroom down the hall where I was staying. Now I book the Regina whenever I am in Paris and spend my afternoons at the Place Colette, under the Roman columns of Le Nemours.

Chez Louisette 

My favorite place on earth might just be the Marche de Clignancourt, that vast flea market expanse in northern Paris. And my favorite marche of all the marches strung along the Rue de Roisiers might just be Vernaison. Wander the twisted alleyways and you will inevitably end up at Chez Louisette, which looks at first blush like a cheesy Hollywood director’s idea of a Paris café. There is an Edith Piaf wannabe warbling, the staff is sassy, and they have been seducing tourists for almost a century. A few years ago, Ladyfag and her wife Skin convinced me that I should put aside my misgivings, take a break from flea-ing, and join them here. They were right. I never had a better time.

Café de La Rotonde 

It seems that Picasso, Hemingway, and the rest of that crowd didn’t spend much time at home. When they weren’t killing hours at the Flore or the Deux Magots, they were at the Rotunde in Montparnasse. The café, which retains much of its original charm, opened in 1911, and, as the story goes, the proprietor let starving artists nurse a coffee all day, looked the other way when they snapped off the end of a baguette and shoved it in a hungry mouth, and best of all, allowed them pay with paintings when they had no cash. The payment policy has changed (anyway, face it, you’re no Picasso) but you should go anyway.

The Cabaret of Hell (Cabaret de L'Enfer) and The Cabaret of Heaven (Cabaret du Ciel) 

You could consider it the first theme restaurant. The Cabaret de L’Enfer, and its sister club the Caberet du Ciel, were opened by a literature professor the late 19th century. The Victorians loved scary-fun—here is how a visitor described the experience: “We passed through a large, hideous, fanged, open mouth in an enormous face from which shone eyes of blazing crimson. Curiously enough, it adjoined [The Cabaret of Heaven], whose cool blue lights contrasted strikingly with the fierce ruddiness of hell. Red-hot bars and gratings through which flaming coals gleamed appeared in the walls within the red mouth. … Red imps were everywhere, darting about noiselessly, some carrying beverages for the thirsty lost souls, others stirring the fires or turning somersaults. … Presently Satan himself strode into the cavern, gorgeous in his imperial robe of red, decked with blazing jewels…” Alas Satan strides no more—this incredible place was demolished to make room for a Monoprix.

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