The best cafés in Paris can be divided into two categories. The iconic haunts of yesterday—smoky terraces where students and Surrealists would linger under a scalloped awning sipping bitter espresso until the hour called for something stronger—and more modern, new-wave coffee shops.
Left Bank institutions like the Café de Flore and La Palette offer a timeless, postcard-perfect snapshot of the city where you can camp out en terrace for hours and people watch à la Parisienne. At these sorts of cultural landmarks, the experience is decidedly French; if you come around lunchtime, you may be expected to also order food, and the coffee will not be the main event.
For those in search of a better buzz, specialty coffee shops have sprung up across the city over the past two decades. Art Deco dairy shops now serve flat whites, and chic industrial warehouses have become home to some of Europe’s best roasters.
Whatever type of café you’re looking for—a place to work, to grab and go, or to chat with friends over a leisurely lunch—you’ll find it in the City of Lights. From historic haunts to reservation-only tasting rooms, read on for the Vogue guide to the best cafés in Paris now.
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The Best Classic Cafés in Paris
Few places are more primed for people watching than this all-day café, where you can read the paper over a coffee and croissant at 8 a.m. or smoke and gossip as you polish off yet another carafe of house rosé until 2 a.m. (my preference, bien sûr). Proudly straddling the gourmand Rue de Seine and cobbled stretch of Rue de Buci, this Saint-Germain-des-Pres landmark is a rare delight in that it’s positioned on a pedestrian street, offering infinitely more charm than most traffic-clogged corners.
Just down the block from Bar du Marché, La Palette is another Left Bank institution, open since 1902 and a frequent haunt of artists like Picasso, Cezanne, and Braque. It’s a gathering spot for locals and visitors alike, with old men playing cards in elbow-knocking distance of students sipping Saint Germain Spritzes on the sprawling terrace in summer. On gray days, tuck into the moody, masterfully-preserved wooden and tiled interior, where paintings line the walls and you can pull up a classic (meaning: rather uncomfortable) stool to the zinc bar, or seclude yourself in a booth beneath the enormous vintage mirrors.
Tucked down a leafy lane beside the Pantheon, this beloved natural wine institution is one of the Latin Quarter’s best lunch spots. Wide windows open out to a tree-lined square that’s now quite crowded with Emily in Paris fans (it’s the site of Emily’s apartment and Gabriel’s restaurant), but the café remains a fixture for locals, who come early in the morning for an espresso or mid-afternoon for a hearty bite and a reliable list of low-intervention wines by the glass, carafe, or bottle. Call ahead for dinner reservations, and note that they’re closed on weekends.
When it comes to the cluster of chic, historic cafés on Boulevard Saint-Germain, Café de Flore has, against all odds, managed to retain a steady stream of locals. Alongside tourists and influencers snapping photos of their chocolat chaud and the 19th-century café’s botanical facade, you’ll find dapper French grandfathers reading the newspaper and gallery owners splitting the famous club sandwich. But all that isn’t really the point: walking into the Flore, you’re adding your name to a long list of luminaries who’ve perhaps sat in your very seat: Apollinaire, Picasso, Hemingway, Bardot, Givenchy, and now, toi.
Wander a few minutes away from the crowds of Sacré-Coeur and Place du Tertre to this narrow, three-story café that appears to have been plucked straight from a Wes Anderson film. Since 1909, its green and red awning and cobbled, island-like terrace has attracted the likes of Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, and other artists living in the hillside bohemian hideaway of Montmartre. While tourists flock here during the afternoon for solid French fare like onion soup and escargot, it’s best to visit in the early morning before exploring the neighborhood (don’t miss the nearby secret gardens dedicated to Rodin at the Musée de Montmartre, or Paris’ only remaining vineyard, the Clos Montmartre).
La Fontaine de Belleville offers the best of both worlds: quintessential Parisian café decor (tiled floors, vintage chandeliers, a curved wooden bar), plus specialty coffee and seasonally-inspired fare. That’s thanks to the team behind Belleville Brûlerie, who took over the canal-adjacent space in 2016 and serve coffee from their roasting facility just up the street (they’ve since passed on the café to new owners). Saturday afternoons are lively, jazz-filled affairs as a live band takes over the fantastically blue terrace, where apéro hour slips easily into evening.