A classic
Chez René
A true Left Bank address at 14 Boulevard Saint-Germain: old-school, generous, and comfortably Parisian.
VISIT PARIS
The BON TON City Guide
Carnet d’adresses: Paris
The Paris we return to: courtyards, collections, cafés, and houses of remarkable craft.
Paris is too large, too layered, and too personal for a definitive list. This is something more intimate: addresses we have shared with friends, places we genuinely return to, and corners of the city that continue to shape the way we think about beauty.
Our Paris moves between the Palais-Royal and the Left Bank, through quiet museum gardens, old cafés, specialist shops, historic houses, and rooms where craftsmanship is still treated as a living language.
A personal selection These are not “the best places in Paris.” They are the places we tell our friends about.
Eat, drink, linger
Food & Drink
Classic tables, café terraces, a neighborhood bakery, and a few rooms where the atmosphere matters every bit as much as the menu.
Le Pré aux Clercs
A café on Rue Bonaparte made for watching Saint-Germain pass by.
Le Boulanger de la Tour
Beautiful bread and pastry near the Seine, just below the Île Saint-Louis.
Poilâne
Our favorite bakery, particularly the historic shop on Rue du Cherche-Midi.
Ellsworth
A favorite near the Palais-Royal for thoughtful, seasonal cooking in an intimate room.
Télescope
A small, serious coffee stop on Rue Villédo, perfectly placed for a Palais-Royal wander.
La Palette
An enduring Saint-Germain bar: artists, conversation, and tables spilling toward the street.
Sit outdoors
Café Marly
Come for the terrace and one of Paris’s most theatrical views, beneath the arcades of the Louvre.
Café Lapérouse
A lovely pause inside Hôtel de la Marine, overlooking the Place de la Concorde.
Collections and quiet rooms
Museums
We are drawn to museums where the building, garden, and atmosphere remain part of the experience—and where you can still notice the hand behind the work.
Do not miss
Hôtel de la Marine
The restoration alone is extraordinary. Give time to the historic apartments and the Al Thani Collection, then pause downstairs at Café Lapérouse.
Musée Bourdelle
Monumental sculpture, working spaces, and garden courtyards. If you love Carl Milles, this museum will feel like a revelation.
Maison de Victor Hugo
A literary house museum overlooking the Place des Vosges, intimate enough to retain the feeling of a home.
Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
A wonderfully eccentric Marais collection where natural history, art, animals, and elaborate interiors meet.
Musée National Eugène-Delacroix
A small museum with a wonderful hidden courtyard, close to Poilâne and the heart of Saint-Germain.
Fondation Louis Vuitton
Frank Gehry’s luminous building in the Bois de Boulogne is worth the journey before you even consider the exhibition.
Grand Palais
A great Paris institution for ambitious exhibitions beneath one of the city’s most extraordinary roofs.
Walk slowly
Gardens & Places
The Paris we love is often found between appointments: a chair beside a fountain, a passage through a courtyard, or a garden concealed behind a monumental façade.
The Palais-Royal
We love sitting beside the fountain here. Mikkel’s first Paris student job was at a tiny gallery nearby, and the garden still carries that personal history.
Place des Vosges
One of Paris’s most complete rooms under open sky, best paired with Maison de Victor Hugo and a wander through the Marais.
Jardin de l’Hôtel de Sully
A quiet passage from the Place des Vosges into a beautifully ordered historic courtyard.
Gardens of the Archives Nationales
A sequence of peaceful Marais gardens hidden behind the grand façades of the national archives.
Objects, materials, and history
Craft & Savoir-Faire
Paris is at its most persuasive when history is not merely preserved, but kept alive through people who still know how to make, restore, select, and explain beautiful things.
French ceramics
La Tuile à Loup
An extraordinary showcase for French pottery and regional craft. Visits are by appointment, which suits the highly personal nature of the collection.
Place Vendôme
Chaumet
Behind the great blue doors at 12 Place Vendôme, the Hôtel Baudard de Saint-James holds layers of jewelry, architectural, and Parisian history. The maison’s archives and heritage embody more than two centuries of savoir-faire.
Chocolate artisan
Debauve & Gallais
An exceptionally historic chocolatier on Rue des Saints-Pères, with the gravity and pleasure of a true Paris house.
Bring a little Paris home
Parisian Houses at BON TON
The city continues in Malmö through makers whose work carries Parisian imagination, ritual, and respect for the hand.
Astier de Villatte
Parisian ceramics, fragrance, incense, and objects shaped by history and imagination.
Trudon
Candlelight and fragrance from a historic French house founded in 1643.
Antoinette Poisson
Hand-printed domino papers reviving the intimacy of eighteenth-century France.
Bon voyage.
Opening hours, exhibitions, reservation policies, and access details change. Please confirm directly with each address before visiting.