Getting a great cup of coffee in Paris Marais coffee shop Loustic

A new wave of cafes and coffee shops is serving a better brew. We pick the best of the bunch.

Chic Parisians on café terraces sipping coffee served by a waiter in traditional black and white livery. It’s a classic guidebook image. But behind the pretty picture, there often lies a less attractive reality.

“As a rule French coffee is fairly woeful,” says Channa Galhenage, who’s British and left behind a career in human resources to open coffee shop Loustic in the former premises of a handbag wholesaler in the 3^rd arrondissement.

Channa Galhenage, opened Loustic in 2013

Latte Loustic

Good coffee and good cookies

Selection of muffins at Loustic Café

The interior of Loustic Café – a cozy and stylish space, decored by Dorothée Meilichzon

“Most of the coffee-making equipment you see in brasseries and cafes is rubbish and the technique is wrong,” Galhenage says. “France is the 5th biggest per capita consumer of coffee in the world, yet for most Parisians their morning coffee is like swigging a dose of medicine.”

According to Galhenage, Paris’s descent into the coffee doldrums has been further compounded by the recent and rapid proliferation across the city of well-known, international coffee-bar chains.

“They’re like Disneyland or McDonald’s to me,” Galhenage says. “Frappuccino, gimmick ingredients, silly names… It’s coffee as entertainment or “experience.” At Loustic, I wanted our selling point to be simply a great cup of coffee.”

With that in mind, Loustic offers a wide and ever-changing range of coffees brewed on a classic Florentine Marzocco machine and from beans that are carefully sourced from Panama, Columbia, Burundi, and all points in-between.

Loustic also sells a wide range of teas, light snacks, tarts and muffins, as part of a good value fixed-price menu. And all in welcoming, funkily-decorated surroundings that seem designed to encourage customers to sit back and savour their lovingly-brewed shot of caffeine.

Bright lights on the shop-front announce Loustic’s presence on a street that is increasingly gentrified but previously best known for its low-end fashion outlets. Yet if Galhenage was initially concerned about attracting the notice of passersby, he need hardly have worried.

As Loustic heads towards its second anniversary, it is firmly established as a popular neighbourhood hangout whose regulars include local mums with children in tow, gallery owners, writers, students and office workers. Meanwhile, tourists are drawn to the address by positive online reviews.

“Coffee here is of a consistently high quality,” says American Fred Leffler. “Coffee in the neighbourhood French cafés is at best indifferent and sometimes downright grim. Plus the atmosphere here is a delight: it’s a chill and very friendly place.”

Even native Parisians are impressed. “As a citizen of France,” says Isabelle, who’s a Loustic regular, “it’s maybe a little embarrassing that the English come to Paris and make better coffee than the French. But in this case it’s true,” she says with a smile and a Gallic shrug.

Channa Galhenage beams at such compliments. He’s a man on a mission, he says. But it’s not to turn Loustic into a chain and make himself a millionaire in the process. In fact, he’s quite happy to recommend rival establishments such as the Caféothèque on the Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville that he believes serve coffee to his own exacting standard.

The barista preparing cappucino at Loustic

The right place to enjoy a high quality cup of coffee in the 3rd arrondissement

“I’m simply passionate about coffee,” he says, “and at Loustic, we treat beans like a grand cru. My goal is for the French to treat coffee with the same respect as they do their wine and to enjoy an espresso or a latte just as much as a fine Burgundy.”

The best coffee in Paris