Café de Flore, Paris

Café de Flore is a historic coffeehouse at the meeting point of Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue Saint-Benoît, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Its Art déco character and emblematic shopfront make it instantly recognizable. The café emerged in 1885, and its name comes from a sculpture of Flora, the Roman goddess associated with flowers and spring, located across the boulevard.

Writers Joris-Karl Huysmans and Remy de Gourmont were among its early regulars. Later, the premises drew painters, poets, philosophers, and other figures of Parisian cultural life, including Pablo Picasso. During the post-war years, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir made the café a working base for conversation and writing.

The room’s classic interior, with mahogany, mirrors, and all-red seating, has changed little since World War II. Look at the café frontage and imagine the literary life attached to it: James Baldwin wrote much of Go Tell It On The Mountain here in 1953, drinking coffee and cognac on the second floor. Since 1994, the Prix de Flore has been awarded here each year to a promising young writer. What you see is still a working café, but its walls carry the memory of a remarkable intellectual gathering place.