In Paris, a battle of the buzz: Traditional cafes & bistros vs modern specialty coffee shop

It’s a Parisian scene as iconic as the Eiffel Tower: The sidewalk cafe, where outside, rattan bistro chairs and tables invite passersby to linger and engage in people-watching, and inside, strangers mill about the bar and exchange small talk over astringent espressos and glasses of wine.

But over the past 15 years, a distinctly Anglophone, caffeinated import has been putting the squeeze on Paris’ cafes and bistros: The specialty coffee shop. With their carefully curated aesthetic, artisanal fare and rapid growth, coffee shops, some say, have increasingly poached the attention, time and euros of Parisians as well as the millions of international travellers who visit the French capital every year.

Since the early 2010s, when the first wave of niche coffee shops opened in France, their number has risen 74 per cent across the country to 3,500, with a new coffeehouse now opening every week, according to Collectif Cafe, a trade association.

“Do coffee shops pose a danger to us? The answer is yes,” said Alain Fontaine, owner of Le Mesturet bistro in the Second Arrondissement who petitioned the French government for six years to protect cafes and bistros with a special cultural-heritage status. They received it in September. “In the long run, it could shut down businesses like ours,” he said.

Parisian cafes and bistros have faced competition before, in the form of fast-food and coffee chains (notably Starbucks), at-home coffee machines (notably Nespresso), food delivery services, declining alcohol consumption, remote work and changing consumer habits.

In the 1960s, France counted about 200,000 bistros and cafes across the country. (The distinction between cafes and bistros has blurred over time; both serve food and drink.) Today, that number has fallen to about 40,000, Fontaine said.

The post pandemic years witnessed much of the growth of the specialty coffee shop, with some new establishments offering takeout only, while others are laptop-friendly. Many are similar in design — small and minimalist, often with a Scandinavian aesthetic. Some also sell flowers or vintage goods, or draw inspiration from Asian ingredients.

Much of their early success can be attributed to a growing sense among connoisseurs that the inky and bitter espressos served at Paris cafes can taste shockingly bad.

Every morning before work, Eve Bantman, 49, a researcher at a Paris think tank, pops into her local cafe and slides up to the zinc bar, where she banters with the staff and a crew of regulars that include street cleaners and staff at the Louvre. Bantman cherishes the sense of community there. But while her friends knock back their 1.40 euro (about US$1.45) espressos, Bantman nurses a Perrier.

“There are about 15 of us every morning, and it’s packed,” she said. “And the coffee is an undrinkable disaster.”

This morning stop is for good company, but for good caffeine, Bantman then picks up a 3 euro cortado or piccolo, to go, from her regular coffee shop before heading to the office.

THE COFFEE

Australian and American expats, along with well-travelled French entrepreneurs, opened the doors of the first coffee shops, building on-site roasteries and introducing Parisians to milky flat whites, cortados and other beverages made with expertly extracted espresso.

Tom Clark, an Australian who opened his first Coutume Cafe shop on the Left Bank in 2011, said he recognised an opportunity to improve Paris’ coffee scene.

“I saw that the French culture was perfectly in sync with specialty coffee culture,” he said. “They really appreciate the idea of where a product comes from, the notion of terroir, like wine and cheese.”

One recent afternoon at the coffeehouse Partisan Cafe Artisanal, a favourite stop in the Upper Marais for those in the fashion and creative industries, Sade crooned overhead while a parade of coffee seekers, including Salome Bravard, 24, filed in.

A fashion photographer, Bravard said she preferred meeting friends at coffee shops over cafes because the atmosphere is friendlier, the aesthetics are cosier and, of course, the coffee is better.

“Our generation needs to go to a place where they can take a photo with their coffee and share it on social networks,” she said. “People in their 40s and upward aren’t necessarily looking for that at all.”

Clark calls this younger generation the “coffee natives.”

“We’ve been around for 13 years, and I remember giving out free babyccinos to customers when they were 5 years old,” he said, referring to an order of warmed milk topped with foam and cocoa powder. “Now they’re 18.”

They grew up going to coffee shops with their parents, he said, and never knew life without latte art.

THE CULTURE

It’s hard to overstate the importance of Parisian cafes in French culture. Historic cafes like Le Procope, Cafe de Flore and Les Deux Magots hosted philosophers, artists, writers, intellectuals and revolutionaries as they engaged in debate, birthed groundbreaking artistic movements and hatched plans to overthrow the French monarchy.

French writer Honore de Balzac is said to have described the cafe counter as “the people’s parliament,” democratic spaces where people of all political stripes and classes rubbed shoulders.

At Cafe Ventura on a quiet weekday morning, it became quickly apparent that the main server, a greying man in his 50s, and the young moustachioed barman ran a two-man show based on a repartee between each other and their regulars.

When an older woman entered the Pigalle neighborhood cafe, she was greeted with warmth and relief. The comments flew fast and furious.

“Ah, there she is,” said one waiter.

“We were worried,” said the other.

“I’m not dead,” she quipped, without skipping a beat.

Cafes have long fostered a sense of community in France. In September, the French minister of culture, Rachida Dati, recognised this, too, and inscribed bistros and cafes into the country’s National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which works to protect and promote French social practices and artisanal know-how.

The petition submitted by Fontaine, owner of Le Mesturet bistro, emphasised that “bistros and cafes are distinguished by a personalised quality of service by creating a unique atmosphere. They are characterised by the rich interaction between bistro owners, waiters and customers within this cultural space.”

In modern sociological parlance, cafes and bistros are Paris’ “third place” — a location of social interaction outside work and home, where lonely seniors go to chat with the bartender, or where students and others can escape from small apartments.

Over time, the concern is that the cafe’s role as the heart of Parisian society will become obsolete, Fontaine said, as the younger generation turns to the coffee shop.

“There’s no depth to the coffee shop, there’s no history, there’s no patina,” he said.

THE CONTRARIANS

But coffee shops can become community spaces as well.

At Cafe Jirisan, in the Second Arrondissement, one of Paris’ many Asian coffee shops, lines of people wait outside for souffle cheesecakes and matcha lattes. Inside, the space evokes a rustic cottage, where Korean and French titles line bookshelves and an artificial fireplace flickers in the corner.

“When I go into a cafe, I imagine a warm atmosphere, but I want to feel at ease,” said owner Hera Hong, a South Korean expat. “What I like to see is people who stay and knit, read their books, a bit like a grandmother’s home.”

Not all cafe managers share Fontaine’s concerns. Jerome Martinho, manager of Cafe Ventura, said these worries were unfounded.

“I don’t think we have the same clientele,” he said, adding that he believes coffee shops cater to a niche market, while cafes offer more — a greater selection of food and coffee, as well as alcohol — in one space.

By Vivian Song © The New York Times

This article originally appeared in The New York Times