Boot Cafe

If not for the gleaming red boot protruding overhead on a narrow side street in the 3rd arrondissement, you might miss this tiny little cafe entirely. It may not seem like anything to write home about (then again, you could probably fit the whole cafe into the envelope, anyway), but I was delightfully surprised by the kick this little cafe could pack.

There are maybe five or six places to sit total, so if you can score a table, you are one of the lucky few. I was meeting up with another au pair/blogger friend, and we managed to squeeze past another pair of Americans to snag a pair of funky stools for ourselves. As we leaned toward the bar counter to order (no need to stand in line, since there was no room for a line, anyway), we were cut off by a fiercely fashionable Parisienne who decided she didn't have time for us to decide between the equally tempting cafe creme or cafe machiatto. But we forgave her, because how can you be mad at someone who can pull off a leopard fedora that well?

We ordered our cafe cremes (baseline: I'll get more creative when I'm not comparing cafes) from the uber hipster barista, who greeted our scratchy American accents with a rare and much-appreciated smile. I was impressed with her persistently good service, a rare quality here in Paris. In fact, it's more a gem to discover than a place itself.

Hot drinks in hand, it was time to take in the scenery. I was amazed they could pack so much character into such a small space. The walls were plastered with funky postcards and posters of musicians whose glory days are long gone. A random assortment of cactuses and flowers filled in between records and magazine covers. Fresh fruit mingled with canvas bags sporting the cafe's name. It had all the half-crazed decor of a college dorm room with all the cool, half-lidded look of a on-trend Parisian cafe. Oh, and the coffee wasn't bad either.