10/09/2026
Paris had its own version of working from a coffee shop long before laptops.
Writers, painters and photographers spent hours in places like Café de Flore and La Closerie des Lilas, talking, writing, arguing and probably staying much longer than they planned.
Some of those tables are still there.
Café de Flore
Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir practically lived here during the 1940s — by their own account, it was their office. Picasso was a regular too, along with a long list of writers, poets and thinkers who made Saint-Germain-des-Prés the intellectual center of Paris.
La Closerie des Lilas
Hemingway called it one of the best cafés in Paris — and he wasn’t alone. Cézanne, Picasso, Modigliani, Apollinaire, Zola and Beckett all spent time here. Hemingway even wrote The Sun Also Rises at one of its tables. His name is still on a plaque at the bar.
Les Deux Magots
Before Café de Flore became the existentialist headquarters, Les Deux Magots was the place. Rimbaud, Verlaine and Mallarmé were among its first regulars in the 1880s. Hemingway, James Joyce and Albert Camus followed decades later.
Brasserie Lipp
Across the street from Café de Flore, Brasserie Lipp attracted a different crowd — writers, politicians and journalists who wanted a proper meal alongside the conversation. Hemingway was a regular here too, and it appears in A Moveable Feast.
La Rotonde, Montparnasse
In the early 20th century, owner Victor Libion would accept paintings in exchange for meals from artists who couldn’t afford to pay. Picasso, Modigliani and Diego Rivera were among them. The walls of La Rotonde became an accidental gallery of what would later be some of the most valuable art in the world.
