The Right Bank gets the tourists. The Left Bank gets the writers, the painters, the philosophers, and the people who understand that the best café au lait in Paris is served at a zinc bar in the 6th arrondissement at seven in the morning, before anyone else has arrived.
The Left Bank — the Rive Gauche — is where Paris becomes itself. This is where Hemingway drank, where Simone de Beauvoir argued, where Picasso painted, where Sartre wrote, and where the idea of the intellectual café was invented and refined over the course of a century. Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the neighbourhood that anchors the 6th arrondissement, is still the most beautiful neighbourhood in the most beautiful city in the world, and the fact that it has become expensive and fashionable has not diminished it. It has merely added another layer.
The Musée d'Orsay is the essential Left Bank institution. Housed in a converted Beaux-Arts railway station on the banks of the Seine, it contains the world's greatest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art — Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin — all in a single building of extraordinary architectural beauty. The great clock windows at either end of the main hall frame views of the city that are themselves works of art. Go early, before the tour groups arrive, and spend the first hour with the Van Goghs on the top floor.
After the museum, walk along the Quai Voltaire to the Pont des Arts and cross to the Île de la Cité, or simply turn left and walk into the heart of Saint-Germain. The Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots are the famous ones — both excellent, both expensive, both worth it for the history alone. But the real pleasure of Saint-Germain is the smaller cafés and wine bars on the side streets: Rue de Buci, Rue de l'Abbaye, Rue de Seine. These are the places where the neighbourhood actually lives.
"The Right Bank gets the tourists. The Left Bank gets the writers, the painters, the philosophers, and the people who understand that the best café au lait in Paris is served at a zinc bar at seven in the morning."
For wine, the Left Bank is unrivalled. La Dernière Goutte on Rue de Bourbon le Château is a small, excellent wine shop run by an American expat who has spent twenty years finding the best small-production French wines. They hold tastings on Saturday mornings that are among the most enjoyable two hours you can spend in Paris. For a more formal wine experience, Caves Legrand in the Galerie Vivienne on the Right Bank is the destination, but the Left Bank's neighbourhood caves are more interesting and considerably less intimidating.
Steak Frites in Montparnasse
Montparnasse, just south of Saint-Germain, is where the Left Bank's literary and artistic history is most concentrated. La Coupole, the great brasserie on Boulevard du Montparnasse, opened in 1927 and has been serving steak frites, oysters, and champagne ever since. The room is vast and beautiful — Art Deco columns painted by the artists who drank there in the twenties, a ceiling that seems to float above the noise and the clatter. The steak frites here is one of the great dishes of Paris: a thick entrecôte, perfectly cooked, with a pile of thin, crisp frites and a béarnaise sauce that justifies the entire trip.
For something smaller and more neighbourhood, Le Relais de l'Entrecôte on Rue Saint-Benoît serves only one dish — steak frites with their secret sauce — and serves it brilliantly. There is always a queue, it moves quickly, and the formula is so perfect that the absence of a menu feels like a gift rather than a limitation. For lunch, the croque monsieur at Café de la Mairie on Place Saint-Sulpice is the best version of the dish in Paris, served at a terrace table overlooking the fountain and the church.
Jazz at Le Caveau de la Huchette
Le Caveau de la Huchette, in the Latin Quarter just east of Saint-Germain, is one of the oldest jazz clubs in Paris — a medieval cellar that has been hosting jazz and swing dancing since 1947. The room is small, the music is loud, and the dancers are extraordinary. It opens at nine in the evening and runs until four in the morning on weekends. This is not a tourist trap; it is a living institution, and the people who come here come to dance.
For cocktails before the jazz, Prescription Cocktail Club on Rue Mazarine is the best bar in the neighbourhood — a Prohibition-era speakeasy aesthetic, a menu of original cocktails, and bartenders who take their work seriously without taking themselves seriously. The Negroni here is one of the best in Paris. For something more classic, the bar at the Hôtel Lutetia on Boulevard Raspail is one of the great hotel bars in Europe — Art Deco, beautiful, and serving a martini that would make James Bond weep.
Paris Left Bank in Frame
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Gerald's Scorecard
Paris Left Bank, France
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Gerald's Final Word
I have been coming to the Left Bank for twenty years and it has never disappointed me. The Musée d'Orsay in the morning, a glass of Burgundy at La Dernière Goutte at noon, steak frites at La Coupole in the evening, and jazz at Le Caveau de la Huchette until the small hours — this is not a day in Paris. This is the day in Paris. The one you will tell people about for the rest of your life.
Best Day Ever.
— Gerald Shaffer, March 2026