Hemingway drank his way around plenty of cities, but Paris is where the mythology really stuck.
He arrived in 1921 as a young journalist, lived cheaply, wrote in cafés, drank with other expatriate writers and artists, and later turned those years into A Moveable Feast. Some of the places associated with him have disappeared. Others have survived so successfully that they now charge you handsomely for the privilege of imagining Papa at the next table.
Hemingway drank his way around plenty of cities, but Paris is where the mythology really stuck.
This is not a list of every Paris café that has ever put Hemingway’s name on a menu. It’s a guide to the places with a real connection to him that you can still visit today—plus a ghost worth knowing about.
Some are touristy now. Hemingway probably wouldn’t hang out in all of them if he were alive. That is beside the point.
Have a drink, look around, and try to picture Paris when a broke young writer could spend an afternoon at a café table without anyone asking for the table back.
“Favorite” is inevitably a little fuzzy: Hemingway’s Paris mythology has grown dramatically over the last century. HoodTip checked the historical connection for every stop and distinguishes the places he knew from the places you can still drink today. Read the City of Paris Hemingway history →
