VIBE

The ultimate Parisian café. This Latin Quarter hangout is where chain-smoking thinkers like Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Hemingway used to linger over espressos as they penned their novels and pondered the meaning of life. Inside, vintage red leather banquettes are complemented with mirrored walls and wooden tables, while outside, the sidewalk is packed with classic petite green wooden tables and chairs. The waiters (who sport nothing less than starched whites and black bow ties) can be aloof, and the tourist crowds are overwhelming in the summer, but it’s still worth stopping by for the experience.

CROWD

The sidewalk is jammed with tourists, but there are still a few local poets and intellectuals to be found indoors.

WHAT WE WOULD WEAR

Do as the brooding philosophers do and wear all black, topped with an ironic beret.

GO HERE WITH

Literary types; friends

WHY WE LIKE IT

It’s one of the best spots in town for a leisurely café au lait and some people watching. We like to scribble our travel-related ponderings at one of the (admittedly touristy) sidewalk tables.

WHAT WE WOULD CHANGE

The overpriced, mediocre mains and the diffident service.

GOOD TO KNOW

Watch where you sit if you’re taking up a post on the sidewalk–Café de Flore kind of runs together with next door café Les Deux Magots.

CLOSEST COMPS

Les Deux Magots (Paris)

Read more about Café de Flore in The Diary

Click here for our full-form mobile travel guide, The Purple Passport to Paris