There are combos that are timeless classics – peanut butter and chocolate, grilled cheese and tomato soup, dinner and a movie, Milk Duds and popcorn – and then there are combinations you didn’t realize you were missing. Flowers and coffee is one of them.
Meet Peonies, a Parisian coffee shop whose menu features a formule, not with coffee and a sandwich, like some of my other local faves, but coffee and a “petit bouquet” – a little bouquet of flowers.
Seriously… how did I not realize that I needed this in my life?
Aside from the flowers, Peonies falls pretty comfortably and unremarkably into the new anglo-style coffee shop category that’s been popping up left, right, and – well, mostly Right (Bank) in Paris. It’s got a handful of tables, some really good filter coffee, ever-changing salads, homemade granola, and a few great anglo-style baked goods like brownies and cakes, not to mention some intriguing tartines, including an avocado toast with cocoa nibs or ricotta with lemon curd and black pepper.
But it also has huge plate-glass windows for excellent natural light… and flowers everywhere. And honestly, there’s nothing to cheer you up after a rejected pitch, a tenth round of edits, or an altercation with Parisian bureaucracy than flowers. And coffee.
Now that the weather is getting nicer in Paris, I’ll be spending as much time as possible out of doors – after all, here in Paris, we’re a bit starved for sunshine. (Seriously, it’s why we’re so ornery most of the time.)
But when I need a place to sit on a more typically dreary Paris day – whether that means in a few weeks or (fingers crossed!) when winter comes back around, Peonies is on my list as one of the perfect places to let a bit of sunlight in.
Peonies – 81, rue du Faubourg Saint Denis, 75010