Last updated on March 9th, 2026
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Whether you are strolling through Jardin de Tuileries, shopping around Saint-Germain-des-Prés, or exploring the charming streets of Montmartre—here are the best spots to visit for the best specialty coffee in Paris to fuel your adventures!
Oh, Paris! With its charming streets straight out of a movie, more museums than you can visit on any given trip, and its many boulangeries filled with pastries that look too good to eat.
Paris is known for many things, but coffee isn’t something I would particularly think of when I think of Paris.
In my mind, Paris has cafes with salads and crepes and some kind of caffeinated drink to serve after the meal, with no real attention given to the coffee being served.
But it seems like that is no longer the case, with more specialty coffee shops opening around Paris and perfecting their craft to a T.
Some mix their local style of small, intimate cafes with vintage tile work, while others opt for an ultramodern twist with a full-on black facade in the middle of a cream-colored street.
Specialty coffee in Paris is well and thriving, and I’m all here for it!
So after visiting Paris over five times now, trying various coffee shops—and inducing way too many coffee shakes in the name of research—here are my top spots for the best specialty coffee in Paris!
⭐️ Exploring Paris one coffee shop at a time? If it’s your first visit, our Paris for first-timers guide is a great place to start—it covers essential travel tips, top things to do, where to stay, best places to eat and drink, and more.
Best Specialty Coffee In Paris: A Coffee Lover’s Guide
Substance Café: The best specialty coffee in Paris
Specialty coffee represents the highest level of quality coffee you can buy, with intense attention to every step of the process, from cultivation, roasting, and preparation. And if there’s one place that embodies all of that, it’s Substance Café.
I don’t even know where to begin. I’ll just say that if you’re looking for specialty coffee in Paris and only have time for one place, it must be this place.
Substance Café is a reservation-only specialty coffee shop in Paris. This doesn’t mean that you have to pay for a reservation, nor are you expected to consume a specific amount; it functions as a normal coffee shop.
The magic here is that there are reservations in place since the wonderful barista, Joachim, takes the time to welcome each customer and helps you discover what you want to drink and how.
I’ve been to “similar” places, such as the famous Glitch in Tokyo, and left completely disappointed by the experience, lack of genuine interaction, and the pushiness of the barista to try the most expensive beans.
Café Substance is nothing like that.
Joachim is the most genuine, passionate, friendly, and welcoming barista I’ve ever met, and he takes the experience of having a coffee to a whole new level.
So much so that we ended up staying the whole two hours of our reservation, and tried two espressos with different kinds of beans, one incredible flat white, and finally got to try Geisha in a pour-over.
It was all incredible; the experience itself is unforgettable, and it made me appreciate coffee on a whole new level.
A specialty coffee shop I will recommend over and over, and one I will visit every time I’m in Paris.
The Monocle Café & Shop: Cozy spot to lounge around
Another one of my favorite coffee shops in Paris, all around, is The Monocle Café & Shop.
The Monocle Café & Shop is like a unicorn of the Paris coffee shop scene, a spacious, well-located coffee shop with delicious coffee, a small food menu, and pastries.
In contrast to many incredible coffee shops in the city center, which normally tend to have space for only about five people to sit, and only offer coffee and cookies.
Visiting this coffee shop is one of my favorite things to do in Paris when it rains, since you don’t feel the rush of having to leave such a small cafe; the place is super cozy and designed for people to hang out. Which I love!
With their delicious coffee, pastries, soups, and toasts, it’s easy to spend some time here.
Their shop at the back is also really fun to browse through. I always buy their yearly agenda, and I love to get little presents from their curated goods.
Jōhō: Iced coffee lovers’ paradise
Jōhō is a cozy coffee shop in the popular Le Marais neighborhood, known for its delicious iced coffee creations.
Their signature menu offers iced matcha latte, regular iced latte, and an iced americano— all with homemade vanilla cream—making it a very popular spot during the warm summer months.
We visited in November, and I did not dare have an iced coffee, so I had a regular hot latte, and it was great—perfect temperature, and very tasty espresso.
The space is narrow with not a lot of seating space… like really not a lot.
Your best bet is the two to three small tables at the back of the coffee shop, so really not the best option if you are looking for a place to spend time, but a great spot for a great coffee on the go while exploring Le Marais.
Boot Café: Picturesque coffee shop that lives up to the hype
I’m sure you’ve seen Boot Café on Instagram, even if you didn’t know.
Boot Café is a tiny coffee shop housed inside an old shoe-repair shop, which you can see from its charming old-school blue-wood facade—a refreshing touch among the rise of hyper-minimalist coffee shops.
I’ll be honest and say that I never made the effort to visit it when in Paris, since the place is almost too Instagrammable, which led me not to expect much of the coffee.
But I’m happy to report that I was wrong.
This charming coffee shop takes its coffee seriously, and after having a flat white here, it has immediately gone to the top of my list of the best specialty coffee in Paris.
The coffee is prepared to perfection; perfect drinking temperature, silky foam, and I loved that even for a flat white, the espresso wasn’t insanely overpowering, just rich enough.
A very happy surprise to find out that the coffee shop on everyone’s feeds is not only photogenic, but also delivers great specialty coffee.
KB CaféShop: Perfect slow-down moment in Montmartre
If you’re planning to spend a day in Montmartre, then the best place to start your day exploring this charming neighborhood is at KB Caféshop.
KB Caféshop is a locally loved neighborhood coffee shop, located on a street corner on top of a hill, offering lots of outdoor seating space, making it a prime location for people-watching while sipping your cafecito.
I visited multiple times during our last stay in the city, and the coffee was always prepared to perfection. We love a consistent coffee shop!
If you need a snack or a light breakfast, they also offer a few tasty-looking pastries from bakeries and other businesses nearby.
If you’re visiting during sunny months, the outdoor seating space is generous and perfect for slowing down with your coffee, catching some vitamin D.
Coutume: Straight to the point specialty coffee in Paris
Coutume is a specialty coffee shop in Paris, with a few locations across the city.
This straight-to-the-point coffee shop is all about coffee, leaving aside the over-the-top coffee shop design and marketing, opting for a simple, yet cozy vibe.
Inside the shops, they have an “ethos”, explaining how they pride themselves on serving high-quality coffee and teas, all prepared by specialists, and you can tell.
A simple cappuccino is prepared to perfection, with good froth, perfect drinking temperature, and is very tasty.
They have various locations. I visited the one in Grand Epicerie de Paris in Bossy, where you can sit and people-watch out the window.
Their Babylon location looks perfect for a delicious brunch with a great coffee—a rarity nowadays. Definitely a spot to keep in mind when looking for the best specialty coffee in Paris.
Motors Coffee: Modern specialty coffee shop in Paris
Motors Coffee is an easy-to-spot modern specialty coffee shop with an all-black facade, minimalist branding, worn-down walls, and a snug seating space.
The coffee was actually delicious, but the service wasn’t ideal, with the “too cool for you” attitude that some specialty coffee shops sadly have sometimes.
But the coffee and the chocolate chip cookie were both too good to care about the attitude. So, honestly, I would still go back.
Café du Clown: Intimate cafe with excellent coffee
Café du Clown is a snug specialty coffee shop with lovely and welcoming staff located in the Marché Couvert Saint-Germain, a popular area, but away from the crowds.
This little Parisian coffee shop is a nice mix of old and new, with amazing third-wave coffee and a traditional-looking facade.
Its location makes it the perfect place to grab a strong pick-me-up while exploring this beautiful area of Paris—and I say strong since all their drinks are double espresso, with no option for decaf.
This coffee shop also came highly recommended by the amazing barista of Substance Cafe, whom I would follow into battle.
The coffee: Modern Japanese-inspired specialty coffee shop
Another great place serving specialty coffee in Paris is “The Coffee”, a minimalist Japanese-inspired coffee shop with a few locations sprinkled around the city.
By the look of it, I really thought it was a Japanese-originated company—it truly reminded me of some of my favorite Tokyo coffee shops—but it actually is a Brazilian native, fully inspired by the to-go culture of the Japanese, raising third-wave coffee shops. Nonetheless, the coffee is delicious.
We visited the shop located in the Latin Quarter, by the Pantheon, which caught my attention with its perfect Google reviews score—seriously, 5.0 out of over a hundred reviews.
It quickly became very clear that the high reviews were well deserved, the service was very welcoming and informative, and the drinks were made to perfection.
The interesting thing about The Coffee compared to other specialty coffee shops in Paris is that it plays with classics, whereas most specialty coffee shops like to minimize their menus.
I loved how The Coffee creates fun versions of these; they even have their own menu for their unique drinks, such as the Caramel Flat white, which I ordered and loved.
As a Japanese-influenced coffee, they obviously serve classic matcha-based drinks, as well as some with a fun twist, like their Vanilla matcha latte. However, we stuck to the classic and ordered a regular matcha latte, which was also delicious.
Cortado: Specialty coffee shop with Spanish flair
A new Paris coffee shop to have on your radar is the young and fun Cortado.
Cortado is a Spanish coffee shop in Le Marais, just around the corner from the popular Le Marché des Enfants Rouges.
While I first heard about this place because of social media hype, I was still excited to visit since I saw they use Nomad beans for their coffee, one of my favorite coffee shops in Barcelona.
And as expected, the coffee did not disappoint. The cortado is delicious—duh!
They also have a small food menu with Spanish classics like delicious pan con tomate y jamón ibérico, making it a great option if looking for a place to eat cheap in Paris, and have a great afternoon cafecito.
One of my other favorite elements about this coffee shop is its fun vibe, with Latin music always playing in the background. Maybe a little bit too loud for some people, but I loved it! Made me feel right at home.
Final thoughts on spots to visit for the best specialty coffee in Paris
After visiting Paris over five times now, and spending almost three months during our last stay exploring the city to the fullest and hopping from coffee shop to coffee shop, this curated list really highlights the best of the best in the city.
While there are more and more cute coffee shops opening in Paris all the time, with this coffee guide, I wanted to focus on the quality of the drinks more than the aesthetics or vibe of a place.
It’s just a plus that some of these amazing coffee shops also have cozy spaces to hang out, like the charming The Monocle Cafe, or the super cute and snug Boot Café.
All the coffee spots on this list are places I visited multiple times, and the places I’ll always return to whenever we are back in Paris.
So I hope you find my Paris coffee guide useful, and I hope you get to visit a few of these coffee shops, as they are all amazing!
Do you have a favorite specialty coffee shop in Paris that you would recommend? Let us know in the comments. We are always up for trying a new cafecito!