On a quite street in one of my favorite districts in Paris, Bastille area, is this gem. I stumbled upon this accidentally after discovering that Merci was too full in the late-afternoon to feel comfortable studying in.
The vibe here is very West-Side Los Angeles and by that I mean it is quiet and calm like a coffee shop you'd find on Main Street in Santa Monica or Profetta Espresso in Westwood (on a Sunday). The hot chocolate is rich, thick, and not too sweet. Overly sweet hot chocolate just misses the point of hot chocolate I think. Go anytime really if you're looking for a quite place to study/read. +They take CBs. - There are no outlets.
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This place is quirky. The decorations are colorful and the tables rustic looking. The combination of the two of these decorative aspects makes the coffee shop feel light, playful, and shabby chic.
They start making lunch as soon as they open (10am) and then you simply have to sit with the pleasant waft of savory delicious things in the process of being cooked. The unique thing about this place is the steamed milk. Now, you may be thinking, this happens at all coffee shops. Well not the way Soul Kitchen does it, they softly boil their milk with freshly and thinly ground hazelnuts and those two things boil together. The result is a soft and warm frothy milk with a naturally sweet hazelnut base and it is superb. Likewise, their hot chocolate is brought to boil and made with chocolate shavings until the mixture of the two is frothy, thick, and velvety smooth. I'd recommend going here in the morning for the Hazelnut Milk or Hot Chocolate, skip the breakfast and wait around until the Mac-n-Cheese soup/casserole is done. +CB's accepted - No wifi So, I stopped in here while on a day trip to Rouen in Normandy and I grabbed this which they called a Mocca Caramel Beurre Salé and I was like "well... that sounds amazing". Amazing it was not. It was good; but it tasted like it came from one of those hospital vending machines.
I don't know hardly anything about the Normandy coffee scene but I heard good things about the French Coffee Shop and Citizen Shop. I did run in to a place called Social Perk which is modeled on the Friends coffee shop called Central Perk. Really it's quite something and has a very comfy college kid vibe. So should you find yourself in Rouen, Normandy my advice is to skip Café Dessiné And head to Social Perk it's quite the experience. +CB accepted; CB is also accepted at Social Perk. I started going here because it's about a seven minute walk from the house of the kids that I watch. I then discovered their granola + fromage blanche and am now quite positively hooked.
The atmosphere is very chill, laptops are allowed but only at the four tables to the left side of the room. (There are signs.) While they serve delicious smelling food (*cough* try the huge quiche *cough* it comes with a salad *cough* ) you do feel that it is a coffee shop first and foremost. There is a friendly bilingual staff. The walls are tiled with small black squares which gives off a cool sort of gallery like vibe. Now for the drinks I've had here:
+CB accepted, free wifi This place is my go to get-work-done space. I have started coming on Friday's because this is when the weekend starts for me, meaning its the first day of doing the homework/lifework. This place for me is comforting because the esthetics are nice, white walls offset by the mellow dark yellow of the metal chairs and the intricate design of the tiled floors. The major reason I like coming here though is for the staff, they are nice and native English speakers so when I come in I get a "Hi" instead of a "Bonjour" which when you're an native English speaking expat living in France, you need sometimes.
Additionally they offer bike tours around Paris which I have heard great things about so that's cool. Things I've had here:
+ Free wifi, nice people, ability to work on a laptop without feeling judged, outlets, english spoken. -- Cash only. The vibe here is very, let's brunch on a Sunday, and not so much, let's study. This isn't necessarily a bad thing and I did enjoy the dirty chai latte, but it wasn't particularly worth the 5€. Mostly that is because the chai and espresso wasn't as strong as I normally like them to be which made the drink taste like lightly spiced and blended warm milk.
Like most cafés in Paris Oberkampf is small, there are four tables and four stools in front of the windows. I suspect that I came at the lunch rush and is not typically this packed. But one did get the feeling that you ought to be eating with friends rather than reading. Overall, with the plethora of hipster/indie-ish coffee shops in Paris, I'm not sure I'd go back to Oberkampf solely for the coffee or to study/read. Especially when in this general area there is Folks & Sparrows, Strada, and Boots. + CB accepted Address: Rue Henri Barbusse, 75005 ParisThis is place is made up of clean lines and cool chairs. I go here when I want to chill out in a minimalists coffee shop, curl into their cool chairs that make me feel like a cat and read a light book. Luckily this coffee shop is about 5 minutes from my school so it is both the closest and coolest place around.
I had a latte here, the coffee had a mellow taste to it, as in it wasn't very strong so I'd say it was a medium roast maybe, the milk added made the latte soft like a latte you'd make in your Grandmother's house while everyone sits around the table and plays cards. At least this was my childhood experience. Come here if you like minimally decorated spaces, white walls, and clean spaces with straight lines. +CB's accepted, minimum of 8 euros I think. - I've had better lattes. This place is just plain cool, located one street up from rue de rivoli and near the Musée de Louvre, you'd think that this place would be swarming with tourists; however, tourists generally gravitate towards the main cafe's on rivoli and so this place remains safe, unless you are looking for it.
The atmosphere in here makes it one of my favorites, it feels both modern hipster, and Paris in the 1920s parlor. There are barrels of coffee beans that the shop owners curate from all over the world, so peek in here to sniff some of the more rarer coffee beans. They sell bourbon soaked vanilla bean steams, 3 for about 7$ which is quite honestly very good, compared to other competitors out there *cough mariage de frères cough* who will sell 3 for about 14$. My reccommendation, go up stairs immediantly upon entering the shop and pick a table in front of the large windows (literally my absolute favorite part of this place). I did not feel weird or rushed and was able to comfortably read in peace. The latte here is not as good as KB's but KB can get rather busy and has a fast pace feeling to it, so try verlet if you're looking for a chill atmosphere and room to read and try something other than the latte. + They take CBs. -- There are no outlets. |
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