The Art of Parisian Living
3 Au Bon Jardinier (“The Good Gardener”) Fruits and Vegetables
9 A la Mère de Famille Confectionery
10 Oldest Building and Charcuterie-Traiteur Jeusselin
15 Cler Fleurs and Butcher Shop
18 Pharmacy
A stroll down this street introduces you to a thriving, traditional Parisian neighborhood and offers insights into the local culture. And although Rue Cler is a wealthy district, it retains an everyday charm still found in most neighborhoods throughout the city. This charming dimension of Paris is slowly changing, however. With increasing affluence, mobility, and tourism, businesses that offer workaday practicalities are slowly morphing into upscale shops and cafés. But the Parisian love and appreciation of community persists, and it can be sampled even on touristy and affluent Rue Cler.
Shopping for groceries is the backbone of daily life here. Parisians shop nearly every day for three good reasons: Refrigerators are small (tiny kitchens), produce must be fresh, and it’s an important social event. Shopping is a chance to hear about the butcher’s vacation plans, see photos of the florist’s new grandchild, relax over un café, and kiss the cheeks of friends (for proper kissing etiquette, see “Le French Kiss” sidebar, later).
Rue Cler—traffic-free since 1984—offers plenty of space for narrow stores and their patrons to spill out onto the street. It’s an ideal environment for this ritual to survive and for you to explore. The street is lined with the essential shops—wine, cheese, chocolate, bread—as well as a bank and a post office. People from all walks of life live side by side: Before moving to the Elysée Palace (France’s White House), French president Emmanuel Macron lived on the seventh floor at 15 Rue Cler, right above Slim, the night-shift receptionist at one of my favorite Rue Cler hotels. And the shops of this community are run by people who’ve found their niche: boys who grew up on quiche and girls who know a good wine.
For those learning the fine art of living Parisian-style, Rue Cler provides an excellent classroom. And if you want to assemble the ultimate French picnic, there’s no better place. The Rue Cler Walk is the only tour in this guidebook you should start while hungry. Remember that your ability to enthusiastically embrace the local etiquette of greeting people in French as you enter each shop (see below) will raise the “happy quotient” of your Rue Cler experience.
Length of This Walk: Allow an hour to browse and café-hop along this short walk of two or three blocks.
When to Go: Visit Rue Cler when its markets are open and lively (generally Tue-Sat 8:30-13:00 & 15:00-19:30, Sun 8:30-12:00, dead Sun afternoon and Mon).
Getting There: Start your walk at the northern end of the pedestrian section of Rue Cler, at Rue de Grenelle (right by a bus #69 stop and a short walk from Mo: Ecole Militaire).
Tours: 
Download my Rue Cler Walk audio tour.
Shop Etiquette: Remember that these shops are busy serving regular customers; be careful not to get in the way. Be polite—say “Bonjour, Madame/Monsieur” as you enter and “Bonne journée (bohn zhoor-nay), Madame/Monsieur” when you leave. Buy something, but before making a purchase, watch the locals to see if self-service is allowed. Many shopkeepers prefer to serve you and don’t want you to touch the goods. If you aren’t sure of the protocol, ask, “Je peux?” (Can I?; zhuh puh). If you know what you want, point to your choice and say, “S’il vous plaît” (Please; see voo play). For extra credit, add, “Je voudrais” (I would like; zhuh voo-dray). And don’t forget “Merci beaucoup” (Thank you very much; mehr-see boh-koo).
Standing outside this neighborhood bar/café, survey the scene. In all four directions you’ll see the same Baron Haussmann-designed buildings with their uniform height, balconies, and iconic slanted mansard roofs. With ground floors devoted to retail and upper floors housing people, there’s a vitality here in the middle of a huge metropolis that you don’t find in many North American cities. Feel the community: people walking dogs, pushing strollers, and dragging shopping carts, and tourists with their roller bags heading in and out. Electric scooters, quick-rent bikes, and motorbikes take up space previously dedicated to parked cars. Electric wires—buried underground—are nowhere to be seen. Paris is a city of neighborhoods. And this one’s equipped with my favorite market street—a traffic-free mall serving this community—Rue Cler.
Café Roussillon, with its traditional bar, is a neighborhood fixture. Cafés like this often post a decal on their door (for example, Edenred restaurant ticket) reminding local workers they accept lunch coupons (look on the lower left side as you enter). In France, an employee lunch-subsidy program is an expected perk. Thanks to strong tax incentives designed to keep the café culture vital, employers issue coupons or credits for each day an employee works in a month, good for a half-price lunchtime plat du jour (daily special). Sack lunches are rare, since a good lunch is sacred...and subsidized.
• If you’re shopping for designer baby clothes, you’ll find them across the street at...
The French spend at least as much on their babies as they do on their dogs—dolling them up with designer jammies. This store is one in a popular chain. Little children around here are really sophisticated. (They even speak French.) And they just aren’t comfortable unless they’re making a fashion statement (such as underwear with sailor stripes).
In the last generation, an aging and shrinking population was a serious problem for Europe’s wealthier nations. But France now has one of Europe’s biggest baby populations—the French average two children per family, compared to 1.6 for the rest of Europe. Babies are trendy today, and the government rewards parents with big tax incentives for their first two children—and then doubles the incentives after that. Since childcare is subsidized and public school starts at age three, most new mothers can get back into the workforce quickly.
Making babies is good business—and revered. Notice how locals give pregnant women the royal treatment: They get priority seating on subways and buses, and they go straight to the front of any line—no waiting on swollen feet. And the French love to ogle babies. The community celebrates every new addition.
• Cross Rue de Grenelle to find...
Each morning, fresh produce is trucked in from farm fields to Paris’ huge Rungis market—Europe’s largest, near Orly Airport—and then dispatched to merchants around the city. Shopping bags are rare—locals bring their own two-wheeled carts or reusable bags. The earth-friendly French also resist excessive packaging.
Notice what’s local and what’s not during your visit. Look at the price of those melons. What’s the country of origin? It must be posted by law (look above the produce for Espagne, Maroc, Hollande, etc). If they’re out of season, they come from Guadeloupe. Many people buy only local products (sticking with produce labeled “Fr” for France). Parisians—who know they eat best by being tuned in to the seasons—shop with their noses. Try it. Smell the cheap foreign strawberries. One sniff of the torpedo-shaped French ones (gariguettes), and you know which is better. Locals call those from Belgium “plastic strawberries”—red on the outside, white on the inside. Find the herbs in the back. Is today’s delivery in?
The Franprix across the street is a small outpost of a nationwide supermarket chain. Opposite Grand Hôtel Lévêque is a traiteur asiatique. Fast Asian food-to-go is popular in Paris. These shops—about as common as bakeries—have had an impact on traditional Parisian eating habits.
• Between the Franprix and Grand Hôtel Lévêque is...
This small café, a fine choice for a drink or bite with a view, used to be a tabac (tobacco shop). It’s a good example of how this once working-class market street is becoming increasingly upscale. Not so long ago, only one place on the entire street offered outdoor tables. Then others joined in, each displacing a humbler shop that addressed neighborhood needs. Now some locals regret that these shops are being lost to trendy café crowds.
• Just past Grand Hôtel Lévêque is...
Shoppers often visit the neighborhood wine shop last, after they’ve assembled their meal and are ready to pick the appropriate wine. Wines are classified by region. Most “Parisians” (born elsewhere) have an affinity for the wines of their home region. You can travel throughout France by taking a spin tour of wines on the shelves. You’ll see a locker for the most expensive wines, one small section for foreign wines, and a shelf for craft beers. Many are Belgian beers, but French labels are becoming more common as the French embrace craft brewing. Notice the prices: Most wines are €20 or less, and several sell for under €6. You can get a good bottle for €12. Wines of the month are stacked in the center and are usually great deals. The helpful clerk is a counselor who works with your menu and budget to help you select just the right wine. They can pop a bottle of white wine into “Le Chiller” and have it cooled for you in three minutes, and sell you cheap wine glasses for a picnic.
• Next door, smell the...
A long, narrow, canopied cheese table brings the fromagerie into the street. Wedges, cylinders, balls, and miniature hockey pucks are all powdered white, gray, and burnt marshmallow—it’s a festival of mold. The street cart and front window feature both cow (vache) and goat (chèvre) cheeses. Locals know the shape indicates the region of origin (for example, a pyramid shape indicates a cheese from the Loire). And this is important. Regions create the terroir (physical and magical union of sun, soil, and generations of farmer love) that gives the product—whether wine or cheese—its personality. Oh là là means you’re impressed. If you like cheese, show greater excitement with more làs. Oh là là là là. A Parisian friend once held the stinkiest glob close to her nose, took an orgasmic breath, and exhaled, “Yes, it smells like zee feet of angels.” Go ahead...inhale.
Step inside, say “bonjour,” and browse through more than 200 types of French cheese. A fromagerie is lab-coat serious but friendly. Also known as a crémerie or a “BOF” (for beurre, oeuf, and fromage), this is where people shop for butter, eggs, and cheese. (In fact, notice the circa-1950 photo posted to the right as you step in, showing this very shop when it was named simply “butter and eggs.”) Just like wines, quality cheeses need to be aged in the cool, humid environment of a cave (cellar). Under the careful watch of an affineur (the “finisher”), some cheeses will rest a few weeks, others for months. Like produce, cheeses are seasonal, as the milk produced by cows or goats changes flavor according to the animal’s varied diet. Ask what’s in season.
In the back room, the shop keeps les meules—big, 170-pound wheels of cheese, made from 250 gallons of milk. The “hard” cheeses are cut from these. Don’t eat the skin of these big ones...they’re rolled on the floor. But the skin on most smaller cheeses—like Brie and Camembert—is part of the taste. “It completes the package,” says my local friend.
If buying soft cheese, tell the shop when you’re planning to eat it—they’ll squeeze the cheese to make sure it’ll reach la maturité parfaite on the day you want to consume it. One of your authors’ favorites is Epoisses, from Burgundy.
If you order a set menu at dinner tonight, you can enjoy the cheese course just before or instead of dessert. On a good cheese plate, you’ll have a hard cheese (perhaps a Comté, similar to a white cheddar), a softer cheese (maybe Brie or Camembert), a bleu cheese, and a goat cheese—ideally from different regions. Because it’s strongest, the goat cheese is usually eaten last.
• Across the street, find the fish shop.
Fresh fish is brought into Paris daily from ports on the English Channel, 110 miles away. In fact, fish here is likely fresher than in many towns closer to the sea, because Paris is a commercial hub (from here, it’s shipped to outlying towns). Anything wiggling? This poissonnerie, like all such shops, was upgraded to meet Europe-wide hygiene standards. Because fishermen don’t fish on Sunday and freshness is a must, this shop is closed on Monday. Admire the large stained-glass mural before leaving.
• Next door, under the awning (get close to see), is a particularly tempting Rue Cler storefront.
Now a seafood and oyster bar (La Sablaise), the mosaics and glass set over the doorway advertise horse meat: Boucherie Chevaline. While you’ll no longer find horse meat here, the classy old storefront survives. Created in the 1930s and signed by the artist, it’s a work of art fit for a museum—but it belongs right here, and that’s where it will stay.
• A few steps farther, across the street, is...
This shop has been in the neighborhood for 30 years. The owner sells modern treats but has always kept the traditional candies, too. “The old ladies, they want the same sweets that made them so happy 80 years ago,” she says. You can buy chocolate by the piece (about €1 each). You’re welcome to assemble a small assortment.
Until a few years ago, the chocolate was dipped and decorated right on the premises. As was the tradition in Rue Cler shops, the merchants resided and produced in the back and sold in the front.
• Next door is the neighborhood’s...
Rue Cler’s oldest building is at #37—the one with the two garret windows on the roof. It’s from the early 1800s, when this street was part of a village near Paris and lined with structures like this. Over the years, Paris engulfed these surrounding villages—and now the street is a mishmash of architectural styles.
Occupying the ground floor of this house is Charcuterie-Traiteur Jeusselin. Traiteurs (people who “treat” food) sell mouthwatering deli food to go. Because Parisian kitchens are so small, these gourmet delis are handy, even for those who cook. Home chefs can concentrate on creating the main course and then buy beautifully prepared side dishes to complete a fine dinner.
Charcuteries, by definition, are pork butchers specializing in sausage, pâté, and ham. The charcuterie business is fiercely competitive in France, with countless cooking contests allowing owners to test their products and show off their skills. Jeusselin proudly displays its hard-earned diplomas on its back walls (right side) and hard-won awards on the right side of the storefront. Even with such accolades, many charcuteries have had to add traiteur services to survive. They’re now selling prepared dishes, pastries, and wines to-go.
The photogenic Italian charcuterie-traiteur Davoli sits right across Rue Cler. A few doors down from Jeusselin, a Lebanese traiteur has opened recently. Each day these three places go tête à tête, cooking up plats du jour. These charcuteries put out their best stuff just before lunch and dinner. If you want a roasted chicken off the spit, pick one up—cooked and hot—at 11:00 or at 17:00, when Parisians buy provisions for that day’s meals. Note the system: Order, take your ticket to the cashier to pay, and return with the receipt to pick up your food.
• The ice cream shop next door to Jeusselin, Glacier Artisan Martine Lambert, serves what many locals consider Paris’ best ice cream. A few paces from here you’ll find...
Café du Marché, on the corner, is the place to sit and enjoy the action (see listing in Eating in Paris, on here). It’s Rue Cler’s living room, where locals gather before heading home, many staying for a relaxed and affordable dinner. The owner has priced the menu so that residents can afford to dine out on a regular basis, and it works—many patrons eat here five days a week. For a reasonable meal, grab a chair and check the chalk menu listing the plat du jour. Notice how the no-indoor-smoking laws have made outdoor seating a huge hit.
Across Rue Cler, the sterile Aldi grocery store sells at discount prices. Because storage space is so limited in Parisian apartments, bulk purchases (à la Costco) are unlikely to catch on here. The latest shopping trend is to stock up on nonperishables online, pick up produce three times a week, and buy fresh bread daily. Compare this storefront with the elegance of the other shops on this street. Its moderne exterior suggests some corruption around the building permit. Normally, any proposed building modification on Rue Cler must undergo a rigorous design review before the owner obtains the required permit.
City Hall is enthusiastic about making the town bike-friendly. Notice the loaner bikes parked in the Vélib’ rack. There are many of these self-service stands around town (for more on using this system, see www.velib-metropole.fr [URL inactive]). The system is intended to let people take short one-way rides by bike.
• From Café du Marché, hook right and side-trip a couple of doors down Rue du Champ de Mars to visit...
A fine-foods boutique like this stands out because of its gentle owners, Pascal and Nathalie. Their mission in life is to explain to travelers, in fluent English, what the French fuss over food is all about. They’ll tempt you with fine gourmet treats, Berthillon ice cream, and generous tastes of caramel, balsamic vinegar, and French and Italian olive oils, including truffle oil. Their salted caramels from Normandy and small jars of mustards and jams make good souvenirs.
Across the street is a real estate agency advertising condos and apartments for rent or sale. The touch screen in the window gives the details: the arrondissement (neighborhood, indicated by the number after “Paris” in the address), whether it’s an apartment for rent (location) or a condo for sale (vente), how many rooms (pieces—includes living and family rooms), square meters (25 square meters is about the size of a spacious hotel room), and the monthly rent or sales price.
• Return to Rue Cler. The neighborhood bakery on the corner is often marked by a line of people waiting to pick up their daily baguette.
Since the French Revolution, the government has regulated the cost of a basic baguette (meaning “wand” or “stick” of bread). By law, it must weigh 250 grams and consist of only four ingredients: flour, yeast, salt, and water. Parisians specify their preferences when they place a boulangerie order—some like their baguette well done, and others prefer it doughier. More than one trip a day to the bakery is normale in Paris, as a good baguette can become stale in a matter of hours. To keep it fresh, wrap it in a cloth, never a plastic bag.
Locals debate the merits of Paris’ many boulangeries, often remaining loyal to their local bread-baker. Boulangeries must make their bread on the premises (otherwise, they can’t be called a boulangerie). Most hotels won’t serve breakfast until the corner bakery opens, to avoid having to set out yesterday’s bread and croissants for guests. Each spring, the city hosts a competition for the Best Baguette of Paris. The top prize? A cash award of €4,000 and the honor of providing the French president with baguettes for the coming year. This annual contest is the equivalent of Michelin’s star system for bakeries.
It’s said that a baker cannot be good at both bread and pastry—at cooking school, they generally major in one or the other. A Boulangerie diploma covers bread and viennoiserie, which includes all the breakfast items (croissants, pain au chocolat, and so on), and these bakers usually do tartes and anything with choux pastry (éclairs, for example). If you get a Pâtisserie diploma, your forte is pastries like macarons and fancy creamy cakes and chocolate creations. You can usually tell whether a boulanger or pâtissier runs a place by what a shop has more of—and what’s selling best.
At Artisan Boulangerie, the baker has bucked the trend, demonstrating equal skill at the two specialties. But Rue Cler regulars worry that his stand selling food to-go will distract him from what he does best—making top-quality bread and delicious pastries.
You can’t miss the cheek pecking in Paris. It’s everywhere (though a little less common after the pandemic), and it’s how Parisians greet each other. Here’s the skinny.
You won’t see any American-style hugging in Paris; that’s far too aggressive for the French. What you will see between acquaintances is a public display of proffered cheeks and puckered lips when saying hello and goodbye. Observe. The lips don’t actually touch the cheek—only the cheeks touch, and a gentle kiss noise is made (except when parents kiss children). You usually start by going left (so the right cheeks almost touch), then alternate to the right. The number of times varies with the region or circumstances—two, three, or four kisses. Parisians font la bise in social settings but rarely in the workplace. When being introduced for the first time (at a dinner party, for example), women kiss women, men kiss women, but men shake hands with other men. If you haven’t seen someone in a long while, Parisians often double the standard two kisses into four.
How many kisses are appropriate for an American? If it happens to you, my recommendation is to go for two with confidence, and then—hover and wait.
• A bit farther along is...
Shoe stores are almost as popular as bakeries in this city of footwear-loving fashionistas. (French-made Mephistos are cheaper here than in the US.) You may see the locals checking out your “foreign” shoes. In a city where many people don’t have cars, good shoes matter. The average Parisian’s daily life is active: walking to the Métro, to lunch, to the shops after work, and then home (probably up several flights of stairs). No need for the gym with this routine. (Hence, gyms here are rare, expensive, and not well maintained.)
• Across the street and a few steps away is...
Almost all Parisians who reside in the city center live in apartments or condos. Even the biggest, most luxury-laden city home shares walls with neighbors and has no yard. A lucky few may have access to a courtyard, but almost no one has a private garden. Parisians spend small fortunes bringing nature into their homes with plants and fresh flower arrangements. Notice the flower boxes on balconies—you work with what you have. When visiting friends in Paris, it’s de rigueur to give a gift of flowers, and it’s good form to have them delivered before you show up. Avoid chrysanthemums, as they are reserved for funerals.
Pop into the butcher shop a few doors down for a graphic peek at the meat Parisians are eating. Check out the sign listing nine cuts of beef (boeuf), three kinds of veal (veau), four cuts of pork (porc), and three cuts of lamb (agneau). This meat cutter replaced a longtime butcher who retired (and is putting a fright into locals). Traditional butchery is struggling to survive in France, as the younger generation no longer considers it a “desirable” career option, but it continues on Rue Cler.
• Walk to the end of Rue Cler, where it hits a bigger street flooded with cars and buses.
An electronic signpost (10 feet up) directs residents to websites for local information—transportation changes, surveys, employment opportunities, community events, and so on. Notice the big glass recycling bin nearby and the see-through garbage sacks. In the 1990s, Paris suffered a rash of trash-can bombings. Perpetrators hid rigged camp-stove canisters in metal garbage cans, which shredded into deadly “shrapnel” when they exploded. City authorities solved this by replacing metal cans with translucent bags.
• Across the busy Avenue de la Motte-Picquet is a tabac.
Just as the US has liquor stores licensed to sell booze, the only place for people over 18 to buy tobacco legally in France is at a tabac (tah-bah) counter. Tobacco counters like this one are a much-appreciated fixture of each neighborhood, offering lots of services (and an insight into the local culture). Even nonsmokers enjoy perusing the wares at a tabac. Notice how European laws require a bold warning sign on cigarettes, with graphic, often grotesque photos—about half the size of the package—proclaiming, bluntly, “fumer tue” (smoking kills).
Tabacs serve their neighborhoods as a kind of government cash desk. All sell stamps, and most sell Navigo transit cards (including this one). Like back home, the LOTO is a big deal—and a lucrative way for the government to tax poor and less-educated people.
American smokers may not be able to resist the temptation to pick up a petit Habana cigar—your chance to buy a fine Cuban stogie.
• Appropriately, next door you’ll find a...
In France, as in much of Europe, pharmacists are the first point of contact for people who are ill. They make the first diagnosis and have the authority to prescribe certain drugs (and more recently, Covid tests and vaccines). If it’s out of their league, they’ll recommend a doctor. Pharmacies are also the only place to get many basic medical items, such as aspirin and simple reading glasses.
Inside, you’ll notice locals handing over a green ID the size of a credit card, with an embedded chip and a photo. This is the essential Carte Vitale, the French health insurance card. The national health-care system, Sécurité Sociale, pays about 75 percent of pharmacy, doctor, and hospital bills. Private employer-related insurance, a Mutuelle, covers a varying amount of the rest. Filling a prescription is often completely covered. The last time the World Health Organization ranked health-care systems by country, France came out on top. The French are deservedly proud of their nationalized health care. But budget shortfalls are forcing the government to cut back on parts of France’s social safety net. If there’s a strike during your trip, it likely has to do with the erosion of such benefits.
You may notice “sexy” ads in pharmacies, as well as more public displays of affection among Parisian couples than you’re accustomed to. The French are less inhibited about sex than Americans. In France, sex is approached from a practical perspective. Back in the 1990s, when France’s president, François Mitterrand, was the focus of a sex scandal (similar to the one that embroiled Bill Clinton), his infamous response to the prying press was simply, “Et alors?” (So what?). The French generally agreed. They like to say, “If he’s good behind his desk, that’s what matters.”
• Step back onto the sidewalk and consider this.
Walking down Rue Cler offers a window into how Paris charmingly combines a vibrant present with an ever-present past. A city of more than two million people—with all the complexity and challenges that brings—is organized in a way that maintains the refined culture that defines 21st-century France. History is all around you: Walk two blocks in one direction, down Avenue de la Motte-Picquet, and you’ll be on a former military parade grounds leading to the Eiffel Tower, built to celebrate the centennial of the great revolution that ended the concept of divine monarchs. Walk two blocks the other way, and under a glittering dome, you’ll find the tomb of Napoleon, the emperor who centralized the French government in ways that endure to this day.
And all around you, the modern world fits into the 19th-century parameters laid out by Haussmann: Cars give way to buses, bikes, and pedestrians; modern buildings are folded into the eight-story limits still enforced by the city government; and residences sit above ground-floor shops and restaurants, ensuring high population density to keep things vibrant day and night. Rue Cler is just one in a vast collection of neighborhoods that together make up Paris—a city as vital today as it has been for centuries.
• Your walk is done. I’m headed back to the bakery. If you bought a picnic along this walk, here are two good places to enjoy it: Leaving Rue Cler, turn left on Avenue de la Motte-Picquet for the Army Museum (find the small park after crossing Boulevard de la Tour Maubourg). Or, turn right to reach the Champ de Mars park (and the Eiffel Tower). Or if you’re ready to move on, the Ecole Militaire Métro stop is just down Avenue de la Motte-Picquet to the right.