15 Prettiest Cafés in Paris: Beautiful Interiors, Floral Façades & Historic Charm
There’s no shortage of great cafés in Paris, but some really go above and beyond when it comes to the setting. We’re talking elaborate painted ceilings, flower-covered façades, gorgeous garden courtyards, and historic dining rooms that have been welcoming guests for over a century.
These are 15 of the prettiest spots I’ve found in Paris to enjoy a viennoiserie, a dessert, a drink, or even a full meal.
(Psst: Want the prettiest boulangeries and pâtisseries in Paris? Here’s that list too)
1. Bacha Coffee
Bacha Coffee is a gorgeous Moroccan-inspired coffeehouse on the Champs-Élysées, originally established in Marrakech in 1910.
The ground floor is a coffee boutique, with black-and-white checkered floors, chandeliers, carved woodwork, and shelves packed with colorful orange coffee packages. Head upstairs to the café, though, and it gets even better.
The upstairs coffee rooms have bright green walls, gold chandeliers, intricate Moroccan-inspired decorations, and plush blue and orange chairs.
Coffee is obviously the specialty here. Bacha offers more than 200 varieties of Arabica coffee from around the world, so there’s a huge selection to choose from. If that feels overwhelming, don’t worry. The servers are very knowledgeable and happy to help you choose.
The food menu is pretty impressive too, with all sorts of pastries, croissants with different flavors and fillings, cakes, French toast, and egg dishes, as well as a few options for more substantial meals later in the day.
We actually skipped the coffee and ordered their traditional Sahara hot chocolate, which was wonderful. It had a deep chocolate flavor with a subtle hint of warm spices. We also tried the raspberry and crème brûlée croissants, and both were excellent.
2. Café de la Paix
Right across from the Opéra Garnier, Café de la Paix is one of Paris’s most famous historic cafés, with a luxurious dining room full of Corinthian columns, elaborate moldings, and painted ceilings.
The café opened in 1862 as part of the Grand Hôtel, during the massive rebuilding of Paris under Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann. It quickly became a fashionable gathering place, especially after the nearby Opéra Garnier opened in 1875.
Over the years, plenty of famous writers, artists, and public figures have stopped in, including Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Oscar Wilde, and Ernest Hemingway. Its interior is now protected as a historic monument.
There are actually two dining areas here, both on the ground floor of the hotel. The restaurant side is a bit more formal and luxurious, while the café side is slightly more relaxed, although both have beautiful interiors.
We ate on the café side and ordered French onion soup, Caesar salad, and fries. Everything was good, although the prices are on the higher side. You’re definitely paying a premium for the location and setting.
3. Ladurée Champs Elysées
Ladurée is best known for its colorful macarons, but the Champs-Élysées location is much more than just a pastry shop. It’s also a gorgeous restaurant and tea room, with some of the prettiest interiors I’ve seen in Paris.
The whole place has a very romantic feel, with soft pastel colors, ornate moldings, crystal chandeliers, and beautiful floral decorations. There’s also a sweeping grand staircase and a white piano surrounded by flowers, a whimsical touch.
And while you can certainly come here for macarons and other pastries, Ladurée also has a full restaurant menu. We had a sit-down meal here, followed by dessert and macarons, and everything was excellent.
You can stop in for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, but there are a few other options too, including afternoon tea, a dedicated dessert bar, and Sunday brunch.
4. Café Campana
Café Campana has one of the most unusual settings of any café in Paris. It’s located on the fifth floor of the Musée d’Orsay, right in front of one of the enormous original clock faces from the building’s days as a railway station.
The clock is spectacular, and having it as the backdrop is absolutely the reason to come. But the café itself has a pretty interesting design too.
Created by the Brazilian Campana brothers, it has curved, almost sculptural furniture, copper-colored walls, and unusual chandeliers inspired by the undersea world. It’s a fun contrast with the 1900’s architecture of the museum.
Café Campana is also right next to the Impressionist galleries on the museum’s fifth floor, so you’re sitting down for a coffee or lunch literally steps away from world-famous masterpieces by Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, and others. Not a bad place to take a museum break!
The menu includes soups, salads, main dishes, and a selection of pastries and desserts.
One important thing to know is that you need a museum ticket to visit the café, so you can’t just pop in from the street. Once you’re inside the museum, though, the café doesn’t take reservations, so it’s first come, first served.
5. Angelina
Angelina has been a Paris institution since 1903, and while there are several locations around the city now, the original tearoom on Rue de Rivoli is definitely the one to visit.
The dining room has all the elegance and old-fashioned charm of a grand Parisian café from the early 1900s. It’s easy to see why it was once a favorite gathering place for fashionable Parisians, including Coco Chanel and Marcel Proust.
Angelina is famous for its hot chocolate, and it’s actually my personal favorite in Paris (and I’ve tried a lot!). It’s incredibly thick and rich, almost like drinking melted chocolate, and comes with whipped cream on the side. Of course, drinking it in this historic tearoom makes it even better.
Another signature specialty is the Mont-Blanc, a pastry made with meringue, whipped cream, and sweet chestnut cream. I’ve eaten at Angelina many times and tried plenty of other things on the menu too, including full meals. The savory dishes are excellent, so it’s definitely not just a place for dessert.
Note that Angelina doesn’t take reservations, and lines can get long, so come early and be prepared for a bit of a wait. And one last tip: don’t skip a trip to the bathroom! Even the restrooms are a work of art, with ornate mirrors and old-fashioned details.
6. Au Vieux Paris d’Arcole
Just around the corner from Notre-Dame, Au Vieux Paris d’Arcole has one of the prettiest restaurant exteriors in Paris. It’s especially charming in spring, around mid-April, when enormous clusters of purple wisteria spill down the old stone façade, hanging over the turquoise tables and chairs on the sidewalk.
Even when the wisteria isn’t blooming, I love the old stone building, with its weathered signs, turquoise-painted woodwork, and greenery growing across the façade.
The building dates back to 1512 and was originally used by the church for nearly two centuries. It became a wine bar in 1723 and later a restaurant, so there’s quite a bit of history behind that famous façade.
7. Le Nélie
Le Nélie is a lovely tearoom inside the Musée Jacquemart-André, one of my favorite hidden gem museums in Paris.
The museum is housed in a magnificent 19th-century mansion that once belonged to wealthy art collectors Nélie Jacquemart and Édouard André. They filled their home with an incredible art collection, and today you can explore the intricately decorated rooms of their former residence.
The tearoom feels like an extension of the mansion itself, with enormous tapestries covering the walls, elaborate moldings and ceiling decorations, a marble fireplace, and plush red chairs. It really feels like you’re sitting down for tea in someone’s very fancy Parisian home.
The menu focuses mostly on lighter fare, drinks and desserts, with a few options for salads and main dishes. You don’t need to buy a museum ticket to visit the tearoom, so you can stop in just for the café if you’d like.
8. La Maison Rose
La Maison Rose is one of the most recognizable cafés in Montmartre, thanks to its pretty pink façade and green shutters. It sits on the corner of Rue de l’Abreuvoir, one of the most scenic streets in Paris, with cobblestones, ivy-covered buildings, and a beautiful view down the hill.
The pink building has been a Montmartre landmark for more than a century. In 1905, it became the home and studio of Catalan painter Ramon Pichot, who was friends with Picasso. A few years later, Pichot’s wife, Germaine, turned it into a café and painted the building its famous shade of pink.
Back when Montmartre was the heart of Paris’s artistic community, La Maison Rose became a popular gathering place for artists and writers. Picasso was among its visitors, and the painter Maurice Utrillo helped make the pink building famous by featuring it in his paintings.
Today, La Maison Rose is still a working restaurant, serving French and Italian-inspired dishes made with fresh, seasonal ingredients. Lunch and dinner are offered as two- or three-course fixed-price menus, and you can also stop by in the afternoon for coffee, drinks, or cake.
9. Café 1902
The Petit Palais is one of the grandest free museums in Paris, and its café is almost as impressive as the museum itself.
Built for the 1900 World’s Fair, the Petit Palais is a magnificent Belle Époque building near the Champs-Élysées, with an enormous dome, elaborate architecture, and a peaceful courtyard garden tucked away in the middle.
Café 1902 is set along the curved, covered gallery that wraps around the garden. There’s a colorful mosaic floor, huge granite columns, and a beautifully painted ceiling. And from your table, you get a great view of the greenery, reflecting pools, and the museum’s grand architecture.
There are a few tables out in the garden and indoor seating as well, but I think the tables beneath the covered gallery are the best place to sit.
The menu includes pastries, tartines, light meals, and drinks. You don’t need a reservation or a museum ticket to visit, since the Petit Palais is free to enter.
10. Violetta & Alfredo
Violetta & Alfredo feels like stepping into a Parisian salon from a couple of centuries ago. Inside, there are plush velvet sofas, ornate gold decorations, antique-style furniture, and heavy draped curtains, and the entrance is covered in purple wisteria decorations.
The tea room is actually inspired by La Traviata, the famous opera by Giuseppe Verdi. It’s designed to evoke the country house where the opera’s two main characters, Violetta and Alfredo, spend some of their happiest moments together.
They serve brunch all day long, and their signature dish is the fluffy pancakes, which are quite the showstopper. They’re incredibly tall and airy, almost like little soufflés, and come piled high with all sorts of toppings.
The hot chocolate was also a highlight, wonderfully creamy and rich, with a milkier chocolate flavor than most I’ve tried in Paris.
11. Joli
Joli has one of my absolute favorite café settings in Paris. It’s set in the courtyard garden of the Musée Carnavalet, a museum dedicated to the history of Paris that’s housed in a 400+ year old mansion in the Marais.
The garden is so picturesque, with intricate patterns of neatly trimmed hedges, colorful flowerbeds, and ivy climbing the stone walls of the mansion. Tables are scattered around the garden, and the whole setting feels like something you’d expect to find in the courtyard of a chic French château.
Joli is actually more of a restaurant than a traditional café, with a full menu of updated French bistro classics. But you can also stop by just for drinks, with a separate bar area and garden seating that doesn’t require reservations.
Joli has its own separate entrance, so you don’t need to visit the museum to stop at the café. But since the Carnavalet’s permanent collections are free and excellent, I’d definitely recommend taking some time to explore the museum while you’re there.
12. La Favorite Saint Paul
La Favorite Saint-Paul is one of those cafés in Paris that you can spot from a block away. Its exterior is covered in an enormous display of pink, red, and white flowers, spilling over the striped awnings and surrounding the windows and entrance.
The flowers are artificial, but it’s still one of the most elaborate floral displays I’ve seen on a Paris café. Combined with the pink-striped awnings and classic French bistro chairs, it’s quite the sight.
The café sits on a corner in the Marais, directly across from the Church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis. The outdoor terrace has a fantastic view of the church’s ornate Baroque façade, making this an especially picturesque spot to sit and enjoy a drink.
La Favorite serves a fairly standard Parisian café menu, with breakfast, lunch, and dinner options, as well as drinks throughout the day.
13. Café Saint Honoré
Café Saint Honoré is one of the most colorful cafés in central Paris, with a mint-green façade, pink-and-white striped awnings, and elaborate displays of pink flowers decorating the exterior. Oversized teddy bears peek out from the upstairs windows, and there’s even a giant one sitting beside the entrance.
The café sits on a corner in the 1st arrondissement, with outdoor tables tucked beneath the striped awnings. It’s a particularly fun and cheerful setting, and the pink and green color combination makes it hard to miss.
Café Saint Honoré serves a traditional French café menu, with everything from breakfast pastries and coffee to lunch, dinner, and drinks. It’s open from early morning until late at night, so there are plenty of opportunities to stop by.
14. Café de Flore
Café de Flore is one of the most famous cafés in Paris, and it’s about as classic a Parisian café scene as you can get. Located on a corner of Boulevard Saint-Germain, it has cream-colored awnings, an outdoor terrace lined with traditional wicker café chairs, and greenery spilling over the balconies above.
The café has been around since 1887, and over the years, it became a favorite gathering place for some of Paris’s most famous writers and artists. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir spent hours here writing and working, and Pablo Picasso was another regular visitor.
Today, Café de Flore is still a Parisian institution in the 6th arrondissement. I will say, I haven’t been particularly impressed with the food, but I do think it’s worth a stop for the historic atmosphere and sidewalk setting. Personally, I’d recommend stopping for a drink on the terrace rather than a full meal.
And while you’re here, be sure to take a look at Les Deux Magots, another legendary Paris café with a long literary legacy that’s just a few steps away.
15. Starbucks by the Opera
Look, I get it. Starbucks on a list of prettiest cafés in Paris? It feels almost sacrilegious 😆. But there’s no denying that the Starbucks location right next to the Opera Garnier is quite a surprise.
The ceilings are covered in intricate gold trim, floral details, and frescoes, and chandeliers hang between black marble Corinthian columns. It feels appropriately grand for being next door to the Paris Opera House, one of the most ornate landmarks in the city.
It’s just Starbucks, with the usual drinks and snacks, but I think the interior still deserves a mention.
Address: 3, Boulevard des Capucines
Planning the Rest of Your Time in Paris?
If you’re looking for more great places to eat and explore during your trip to Paris, these guides can help:
- 15 Unwritten Rules of Dining Out in France – Tips and tricks for how restaurants work, from ordering to paying
- 18 Favorite Restaurants in Paris – The most memorable spots I’ve eaten in Paris
- 10 French Menu Terms That Commonly Confuse Visitors: Restaurant terminology that’s easy to mix up
- Ultimate List of Things to Do in Paris – Nearly 100 sights and experiences, from must-sees to hidden gems
If you want everything in one place, my Paris travel guide page pulls together neighborhood guides, attraction and museum guides, foodie recommendations, and travel tips in one hub.
And if you’re feeling overwhelmed or short on time, I also offer Paris planning calls.
These one-on-one video sessions are great for getting feedback, asking questions, and sorting through options, whether you need a full plan or help fine-tuning what you already have.
