Travel Tips: Cool Paris Restaurants & Cafés

Bonjour lundi, bonjour nouvelle semaine, bonjour Paris! Yes, we are back to the eternal ‘City of Light’, to my beloved second home Paris. Well at least we are back in Paris on the blog. With all my travels recently I am running late with a few Paris restaurants and cafés that I wanted to share with you – in fact I visited and tested these places during my Paris stay in July and look now, it’s mid-October but I know you’ll appreciate the tips for your next Paris trip, right? So let’s roll or better yet – on y va!

Maison Bastille
My first restaurant recommendation is located in Paris’ 11th arrondissement close to the metro station Chemin Vert. Maison Bastille is an airy, light-filled space with a slight Scandinavian touch – it brims with white-washed brick walls, wooden furniture, a large chalkboard and a quirky wallpapered feature wall. But Maison Bastille is not merely a nice place to sit and look at. It serves delicious and healthy breakfasts and luncheons with a fine selection of organic and local food. Moreover, it hosts a little boutique with food and kitchenalia to buy and take home. The service is super friendly and you feel like being at a friend’s place enjoying good food and a good time in Paris. Thumbs up!

Season
Season is a fairly new concoction on the gastronomic map of Paris and is a mix between a café, a juice bar and a neobistro serving great coffee, cold pressed juices and healthy, organic food with or without gluten. The restaurant’s menu is inspired by the North American cuisine and pays due respect to organic ingredients and a healthy and balanced nutrition. Interior wise I love their focus on natural hues and materials with wicker chairs and stools all around. Nice!

Ob-La-Di Café
Now this tiny café has a name that might ring a bell in your music loving ear: Ob-La-Di. Even thought the name refers to a Beatles song, the café looks everything but Beatles-like. This very petit café in the 11th arrondissement is one of the most instagrammed cafés in Paris according to certain sources and I am guilty as charged for instgramming it myself. A cool patterned floor, marble wall table, raw industrial walls and exposed copper piping makes this place very ‘now’ – so does the fine selection of small dishes and great coffee. Perfect for a little shopping break!

Sinople
If you love plants, you’ll love Sinople. Seriously, you’ll be like ‘I don’t care what the food or service is like, I just love being seated in the middle of jungalicious plants’. Sinople is hidden in a beautiful courtyard in the 2nd arrondissement in Paris and is attached to the Klay Club, a sports & spa club, in a 19th-century building in the middle of the famous Montorgueil quarter. The courtyard is a lush green oasis in the city center and the restaurant serves fine food even though the service tends to be a bit slow. But it’s definitely a great place to discover and take a time-out.

PNY Paris-New York
Enough breakfast and brunch places! Let’s talk about burgers, good burgers. If a place is called PNY Paris-New York, it can only serve good burgers, right? And yes, the assumption is correct! PNY Paris-New York has three branches in downtown Paris, one in the 10th arrondissement, one in the 11th arrondissement and one – the colourful one – in the Marais, in the 3rd arrondissement. This pink and turquoise place recalls the atmosphere of American diners in the 1950s with a refined contemporary twist. The burger menu is delicious and mouthwatering – they offer a rather small but exquisite selection of burgers, sides and desserts. You will lick your fingers. I did.

Kilikio
Not really a restaurant or café, Kilikio is a place I discovered and fell in love instantly last summer. It is a Greek delicatessen shop selling great food from Greece as well as freshly cooked dishes to take-away. Buy some delicious Greek honey, olive oil and herbs from Crete at Kilikio and don’t forget to take their daily changing dish for a quick lunch on a sunny bench at the park close to Arts et Métiers, a stone throw away from Kiliko.

Natcho et Compagnie
Now Natcho et Compagnie is definitely not a restaurant nor a café (although you’ll find some great cafés in the same street in the 3rd arrondissement). But Natcho et Compagnie is one of my favorite florist’s in Paris and I love to stop by every time I am in town. It is a small shop with a wonderful selection of flowers and potted plants. Do you remember my beloved Oxalis plant? It was a baby plant when I bought it at Natcho & Compagnie and I brought it back by plane to Munich where it’s thriving happily ever after. Go there for the perfect green souvenir from Paris!

I hope you like today’s Paris tips and let me know if you went to one of these or if you have some favorite tips to share with me! I’ll be back in Paris in a few weeks! Happy new week everybody!

Photography by Igor Josifovic