Travel file · Paris
Coffee culture in Paris, France
Paris has one of the most famous café traditions in the world — and, for a long time, a reputation among specialty-coffee people for disappointing coffee. This page sets out how both things came to be true, and how a small group of cafés and roasters changed the picture in the early 2010s.
The old café tradition
The city’s café history is usually traced to Café Procope, founded in 1686 by the Sicilian chef Procopio Cutò at what is now 13 rue de l’Ancienne Comédie in the 6th arrondissement. Its list of famous patrons runs from Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and d’Alembert to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. A plaque there calls it the “oldest continually functioning café”, but Wikipedia notes the claim does not hold up: the original café closed in 1872 and the current restaurant opened in 1957.
The sidewalk café — Café de Flore in the 6th, Café de la Paix in the 9th — became part of the city’s identity. Writing for Barista Magazine in 2013, editor Sarah Allen argued that this romance, much like in Italy, “has actually impeded the growth and development of specialty coffee”: the café was about atmosphere, not the beans. She also pointed to high city-centre rents as a barrier for small roasters.
“Two stars out of five”
That reputation was widely shared. In July 2012 Sprudge ran a short piece, “Cultural Imperialism, C’est Bon!”, about an American home-brewing blogger’s trip to Paris. It summarised his complaints — coffee that was likely not fresh and roasted fairly dark — and noted the two places he did rate: Coutume, which roasted its own coffee, and Télescope, which was then serving the London roaster Square Mile. Sprudge jokingly gave Parisian coffee two stars out of five.
The specialty wave, 2010s
Reporting from 2013 to 2015 describes a fast-growing cluster of cafés, many founded or staffed by people from Australia, the UK and the US alongside French baristas.
| Name | Area (as reported) | Notes from sources |
|---|---|---|
| La Caféothèque | 52 rue de l’Hôtel de Ville, 4th | Founded by Gloria Montenegro, a former Ambassador of Guatemala; single-estate coffees roasted in-house. Allen called it, with Coutume, one of the few third-wave shops in Paris “for a long time”. |
| Coutume | 47 rue de Babylone, 7th | Founded by Antoine Netien and Tom Clarke; roasts its own beans and supplies other cafés. Moved roasting from the back of the café to a dedicated site by 2014. |
| Télescope | 5 rue Villedo, 1st | Opened March 2012 by David Flynn and Nicolas Clerc; Flynn left in 2013. Rotated guest roasters such as Has Bean and Drop Coffee. |
| Ten Belles | 10 rue de la Grange aux Belles, 10th | Opened by Thomas Lehoux, organiser of the “Frog Fight” barista throwdowns, with the team from Le Bal. |
| Café Lomi | 3 ter rue Marcadet, 18th | Roastery-café founded by Aleaume Paturle and roaster Paul Arnephy. |
| Belleville Brûlerie | 19th | Roastery set up in 2013 by Flynn and Lehoux; open to the public on Saturdays at the time of Sprudge’s 2015 profile. |
Addresses and details are as reported in the sources dated 2013–2015. Businesses change — check current information before visiting.
Small discrepancies
Sources do not always agree. Coutume is listed at 47 rue de Babylone by Malay Mail and Brian’s Coffee Spot and at 49 by Barista Magazine. Télescope is described by Barista Magazine as roasting its own coffee and by Brian’s Coffee Spot as using rotating guest roasters — the reports were written about two years apart.
What changed
Read together, the sources describe a familiar pattern: a handful of pioneers (La Caféothèque, then Coutume) training baristas and supplying beans, newer cafés buying from them (Barista Magazine notes Tuck Shop and Black Market both used Coutume coffee), and then local roasteries such as Lomi and Belleville supplying the next round of cafés. By 2015 Malay Mail was writing about a “French New Wave” of coffee, contrasting it with the classic café of sullen waiters, French roast and café au lait.
For a visit
- Expect the classic cafés for the setting and the specialty bars for the coffee — the two overlap less than in many cities.
- Filter coffee (V60, Chemex, siphon) appears on several of the menus described above, alongside espresso.
- Many specialty spots sell whole beans to take home; Coutume’s retail shelf is mentioned in Brian’s Coffee Spot’s review.
Sources
- Café Procope — Wikipedia
- Barista Magazine — “Cafés Chic Très Parisien” (Sarah Allen, June 2013)
- Sprudge — “Cultural Imperialism, C’est Bon!” (July 2012)
- Sprudge — profile of David Flynn by Victor Frankowski (January 2015)
- Malay Mail — “The ‘French New Wave’ of coffee lands in Paris” (Kenny Mah, September 2015)
- Brian’s Coffee Spot — Coutume (2013)
- Brian’s Coffee Spot — Télescope (2015)
Sources opened and checked October 2026. Prices, addresses and products change.