17 cafés in 3 citys. Places change: check opening hours before you go.
A confectioner open since 1761, with a listed shopfront and an 1839 interior. Charles de Gaulle had its vanilla-filled waffles sent to the Élysée.
Order: gaufre à la vanille · café · chocolat chaud
💡 The tea room is behind the shop; buy waffles to take away at the front counter.
An Art Nouveau brasserie of 1911 with furniture by Louis Majorelle and glass by Jacques Grüber, near Nancy station. In 2023 a painting by Émile Friant was found hidden behind its mirrors.
Order: café · brasserie dishes
The Austrian confectioner Antoine Rumpelmayer opened it in 1903 opposite the Tuileries. Proust and Coco Chanel came for its thick hot chocolate.
Order: chocolat chaud l'Africain · Mont-Blanc
💡 Expect a queue at weekends; weekday mornings are quieter.
A Saint-Germain café of red banquettes, mahogany and mirrors since the 1880s. Sartre and de Beauvoir worked here after the war; Picasso and Bataille came earlier.
Order: café crème · chocolat chaud
💡 Upstairs is calmer than the terrace.
Opened in 1862 in the Grand Hôtel, with Napoleon III interiors by Alfred Armand that are a listed monument. Zola, Tchaikovsky, Oscar Wilde and Diaghilev all stopped here.
Order: café · millefeuille
Opened in 1847 by François Bullier and named for its lilacs. Hemingway wrote stories here for the Toronto Star; Apollinaire brought Picasso in 1905.
Order: café · drinks at the piano bar
💡 The piano bar has brass plaques marking where famous regulars sat.
Victor Libion took it over in 1911 and let penniless artists like Modigliani linger over a single coffee. It sits on the Vavin crossroads with Le Dôme and Le Select.
Order: café · brasserie dishes
Opened in 1898 and the meeting point of the "Dômiers", the American and School of Paris artists including Hemingway, Beckett and Modigliani. Today it is an upscale seafood restaurant.
Order: seafood · sole meunière
💡 Now mainly a restaurant; book ahead.
The Sicilian Procopio dei Coltelli opened his café here in 1686, and Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Benjamin Franklin and the revolutionaries Danton and Marat all met here. Today it is a restaurant in an 18th-century style.
Order: café · café gourmand
💡 It is now a full restaurant; go for lunch or dinner rather than a quick coffee.
Opened in 1923, it was one of the great Montparnasse cafés, with Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Picasso among its regulars.
Order: café · croque-monsieur
A fabric shop turned café in 1884, named after the two Chinese figurines still inside. Hemingway, Joyce, Camus, Sartre and de Beauvoir were regulars, and its literary prize dates to 1933.
Order: chocolat chaud à l'ancienne · café
A neighbourhood Montmartre café that opened in the early 20th century and became famous as Amélie Poulain's workplace in the 2001 film.
Order: café crème · crème brûlée
One of Paris's oldest coffee merchants and roasters, with a small wood-panelled tasting room near the Palais-Royal.
Order: single-origin espresso · coffee of the day
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
An early leader of Paris specialty coffee that roasts in Romainville and sources directly from producers.
Order: espresso · filter · cold brew
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Paris roaster founded by Alexis Gagnaire, 3rd at the 2019 World AeroPress Championship. It ranked 4th on the 2025 Top 100 Coffee Shops Europe list.
Order: filter · espresso · AeroPress
A small café by the Canal Saint-Martin that grew into a sourdough bakery and specialty roaster with three Paris shops.
Order: filter · flat white · sourdough sandwich
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A minimalist café near the Palais-Royal, opened in March 2012 by Nicolas Clerc and David Flynn. There is no Wi-Fi, and filter coffee is the focus.
Order: filter (Kalita) · espresso · noisette
💡 No Wi-Fi and closed Sundays.