With the Musée de la Vie Romantique and its delight of a rose-garden café closed until 2026 for renovations (le sob) …
… read on for five other museum cafés that will satisfy your cultural-cuisine craving. Bonus brownie (macaron?) points: they also offer a beautifully botanic setting that’s as idyllic and atmospheric for autumn/fall as it is for spring and summer. Plus, they’re also free to enter*.
Café Renoir, Musée de Montmartre
* Café Renoir is the only eatery on this list that you’ll need to pay to access. But the 5€ fee is more than worth it because, while it won’t allow you museum entry, it will let you roam around the historic estate, with its lovely views over Montmartre’s one remaining vineyard. As for the café itself, it’s set within the prettiest garden imaginable — where Renoir once painted such works as The Swing, no less. Take a seat in the dainty glasshouse or outside on the vintage garden furniture, and enjoy a light-and-tasty lunch (salads, sandwiches), or a delicious afternoon tea. Wine is also on the menu; it is Montmartre, after all!
Open daily, including public holidays, from 10am to 6pm (latest entry: 5:15pm); click here for more information.
Café Mulot, Maison de Victor Hugo
A quiet and calm haven in the heart of the Marais, Café Mulot is perfect whenever you have the time to visit — and whether you’re after breakfast (coffee and viennoiseries), brunch (served on the weekend), ‘anytime’ snacks (avocado croissant, croque), lunch (from sandwiches to heartier fare like risotto) or afternoon tea (celebrated Mulot treats such as fraisiers and fruit tarts). There’s a chic dining room but if the weather warrants it, take a table in the peaceful courtyard, which had a former life as a school garden. With its elegant trees and bubbling fountain, it feels like the kind of place of which the ghost of Victor Hugo, that old Romantic, would well approve.
Open Tuesday to Sunday, from 10am to 5:45pm; click here for more information.
Café 1902, Le Petit Palais
This cafeteria-style restaurant, with its elegant, warm décor, offers well-priced set menus for breakfast, lunch, and snacking, although you can also order à la carte. As delicious as its Claire Heitzler pastries are, the star attraction has to be its exterior setting, with vintage chairs and tables dotted along the exquisitely tiled colonnade, or in the courtyard garden, which is shaded by an inspired, exotic mix of trees and the exuberant architecture of this delightful museum, a must-visit for its swoon-worthy statues and paintings, as much as for its interior decoration (and those stairs!).
Open Tuesday to Sunday, from 10am to 6pm (final order: 5:15pm); click here for more information.
Le Rhodia, Musée Bourdelle
Located within one of Paris’s most inspiring atelier museums (to read more, click here), and between its two gardens, Le Rhodia is a suitably spirits-boosting kind of a café. There’s a reason for its comfy, cosy feel: this space was once within the former apartment of the sculptor’s daughter Rhodia Bourdelle and her modernist furniture-designer husband Michel Dufet. That marriage explains the homey-yet-chic merging of interior style (and how happy and heartening is that yellow tone?), as well as the soul-soothing menu, with its healthy dishes that burst with flavour and colour.
Open Tuesday to Sunday, from 10am to 5:30pm, with brunch served on the weekend from 11:30am to 4pm; click here for more information.
Le Nélie, Musée Jacquemart-André
Okay, so this restaurant-café is not set within a garden per se … but with its Tiepolo fresco of a ceiling and series of scenic tapestries on the walls, you’ll feel transported to somewhere pretty special. (You are, of course, already somewhere special: click here to read about the newly renovated museum and why it’s more than worth the price of a ticket). As for the food, there’s something to suit every culinary mood. Drop in for a light salad or sweet treat at any time, but you can also settle in for a long lunch (inspired by both French and Italian classics, which is fitting for a museum that was established by an Italophile Parisian couple). The restaurant transforms its ambience throughout the week; go on Friday evening for extended apéro hour (think spritzers and snack platters), on Saturday and Sunday between 11am and 2:30pm for a decadent brunch, or a little later on the weekend for le tea-time. Note: while you can visit Le Nélie independently of the museum, reservations are not taken so be prepared for a possible wait.
Open Monday to Thursday, 10am to 6pm, Friday 10am to 10pm, Saturday and Sunday 11am to 7pm; for more information click here.