We keep three apartments in the centre of Paris, all within a twenty-minute walk of one another, and of the river.
Paris is the city we started in, and the one we know best. We chose Beaubourg, the Latin Quarter and the streets around the Madeleine not for the postcards but for the mornings: a bakery that opens at seven, a square where nothing happens, a light that comes off the stone rather than the sky.
Each apartment is small in the way Paris is small, and generous in the way Paris is generous. Whoever holds the keys lives nearby and hands them over in person, at the door.
Paris, our way
A guide to the city, written by the person who holds the keys.
Bread, then the river
Buy your bread on rue des Rosiers before nine and carry it down to the quai. The Île Saint-Louis is quietest from the back, along the quai d'Anjou, where the light comes through the plane trees before the tourists do.
Courtyards and a museum with no queue
The Marais hides its best rooms behind carriage doors. The Musée Cognacq-Jay is small, free, and almost always empty; the garden of the Hôtel de Sully is a good place to read.
Tables we would book for you
Ask us. We keep a short list of a dozen tables where you will not be rushed, and we would rather book them for you than see them printed here.
