General Information

La Closerie des Lilas is a restaurant famous for its bohemian past. It was frequently visited by artists such as Paul Verlaine or Ernest Hemingway and became a regular meeting spot for Parisian bohemians. Today, the place is divided into a brasserie, a restaurant and a piano bar. All serve French cuisine, but differ in prices and the booking policy.

Additional Information

The charming bar looks like it was only yesterday that Hemingway was sitting there. The brasserie is also elegant and has a cosy ambience. Only the restaurant seems to diverge from them, but if you would like to eat something tasty in a simple, unpretentious décor, it’s definitely a place for you.

According to legend, La Closerie des Lilas was built on the area of the Vauvert castle that once belonged to the son of Hugh Capet, Robert the Pious. The spot was opened in 1847 by Francois Bullier. It borrowed the name from a successful play of those days, “The Closerie des Genets” written by Frederic Soulie.

Among the famous patrons of La Closerie des Lilas were Émile Zola, Paul Cézanne, Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, brothers Jules and Edmond de Goncourt, Amedeo Modigliani, Paul Fort, André Breton, Pablo Picasso, Jean-Paul Sartre, André Gide, Paul Eluard, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Man Ray and Ezra Pound.