"Verdict: This postcard café is a Disneyfied version of Parisian café life, complete with a solid cup of hot chocolate. But there are far better places serving chocolats chauds, with warmer service, fewer tourists, and way more soul. Generations before Emily in Paris gave an extra boost to this iconic all-day café, it was a gathering place for legendary existentialists, surrealists, novelists, and resistance activists like Sartre, Picasso, and Camus. Today, their offering is deliberately simple: coffee and hot chocolate served with a wine glass overflowing with whipped cream, plus caesar and niçoise salads, club sandwiches, and omelets that come with a hefty price tag. Real Paris, this is not. On any given day, you’ll find a handful of Parisians scattered throughout the Art Deco dining room (and almost exclusively there, not on the terrace) with a pot of tea or wine, but it’s the tourists who keep it in business. Servers exchange knowing smirks and whisper whenever a doe-eyed foreigner walks in with inflated expectations and cash to drop, pleading for a terrace table to live out their fantasy. As long as you know you’re paying for the legend more than the quality, or the welcome, go and live it up." - lindsey tramuta
