If you want to shop and eat in the same place, the Broken Arm is for you… and even if you don’t, it’s still a fantastic place to grab lunch.
The idea behind the Broken Arm is that the a concept store, which sells a carefully curated selection of clothing, shoes, and art books, is attached to a small, cozy café. The store features only 40 designers, each of which was hand-picked by all three co-owners, and the same sense of minimalism and intensely curated products is just as present at the café, with a great ever-changing lunch menu featuring fresh, seasonal dishes and homey comfort-food desserts.
On the day of my visit, the menu included one of my all-time favorite dishes: vitello tonnato, or veal with tuna sauce. The dish was seasoned with giant capers, excellent olive oil, and a big handful of arugula.
My sister, who converted me to ordering fish in restaurants, got the cod with asparagus and tomatoes. The sauce was almost a broth, and it was positively full of flavor.
This café is located in the trendy North Marais, and as such, it had to make a choice: be a restaurant or an office. It opted for the former, which means no WiFi and no computers allowed. Honestly, that’s just fine with me: not only is my actual office (aka Season Take Away) literally just up the block, I love the atmosphere here: while the food is great (and yeah, it’s not cheap) it has the vibe of what French people call une cantine. The literal translation is a school cafeteria, but in Parisian parlance, it’s come to refer to a regular lunch or dinner spot, where you know the menu by heart and the people behind the bar know your drink order. And that’s exactly the kind of place I love to discover.
The Broken Arm Р12, rue Perr̩e, 75003