Les Deux Magots

The legendary Saint-Germain café whose two Chinese figurines — the magots — give it its name, and whose regulars once included Hemingway, Picasso, and Simone de Beauvoir. Order a hot chocolate or a café crème, simple things done well in an extraordinary setting. Come for a morning terrace coffee, or the apéritif hour watching the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church square. The prices are touristy, but you are paying for history. It is a monument to literary and artistic Paris — a café where the twentieth century's great minds actually sat, with a perfect view of the oldest church in the city. The coffee is incidental; the continuity with the past is the point.