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
172 Bd Saint-Germain, 75006 Paris, France
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
6 Pl. Saint-Germain des Prés, 75006 Paris, France
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.
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