Paris Like a Local: “Le Café des Chats”
GUEST AUTHOR: Giovanna Thomaz, Spotahome Student Ambassador
Finally, you’re in Paris. And after you’ve breathed the fresh air at the top of the Eiffel Tower, after you’ve faced the endless corridors of the Louvre and been mesmerized by the views of the Sacre-Coeur, it's time to “get local”. I mean, if you really want to fully experience Paris at its best, you must do it like a local - like a Parisian. And Spotahome can help you with that.
No more crowded touristic spots, come with us to discover new and exciting places where Parisian life takes action, typical sites of daily life that tourist guides wouldn’t show you. But first things first: if you want to experience Paris like a local, you have to eat like a local. And you do want to eat like the people who mastered the art of baking croissants, right?
So that takes us to a very special place in Paris for our first stop, yet undiscovered by tourists, just a 5-minute walk from “La Bastille”.
Welcome to “Le Café des Chats”, or “The Cat Cafe”, where you’ll find so much more than croissants.
Currently home to 13 happy and adorable cats, at “Le Café des Chats” you can enjoy a nice cup of tea while caressing a cat, or sip a cup of hot chocolate while hearing them purr. Since 2013, this establishment offers a cozy environment for the cats as well as the clients. With antique decoration and a vintage feel, you can sit here comfortably to appreciate a good meal or drink a coffee and catch up on your studies while playful cats walk around the place.
This very original and lovely coffee shop in one of the central areas of Paris has been inspired by the very popular “Cat Cafes” from Japan, places you can go to drink coffee and either adopt or just play with the cats that walk freely in the establishment.
Delighted by that idea, the owners of “Le Café des Chats” decided to adopt street cats and create a welcoming space where people and felines could commute and spend some quality time together here in Paris.
Besides the menu, that offers a selection of hot beverages to typical dishes such as Tartes and Tartiflettes, you can also read about each individual cat on cards that are displayed around the tables, so you can learn that they all have different stories and personalities, and you can have a lot of fun getting to know them better as well as watching them run around the cafe.
But of course, regarding the safety of the cats, everything is well taken care of. You can not enter the place without using hand sanitizer and there are basic rules, such as “no feeding the cats” and “no waking up the cats”. So in case you were concerned, there’s no reason to be, everything is organized in a way to provide a safe environment for both the cats and the cat lovers.
“Le Café des Chats” is a very exciting and original wayto get to know in Paris as well as a good example of a traditional Parisian location to have a cup of coffee. If you’re intending to pay a visit, I would recommend the hot chocolate. One of the best I’ve tried in Paris so far, that hot chocolate will warm up your body while those lovely cats warm up your soul :)
"Le Café des Chats" will welcome you from Tuesday to Sunday from 12 noon to 10:30pm and Saturdays until 11pm at 9 rue Sedaine, 75011 Paris. No booking is required.