Café de la Paix, café on Place de l’Opéra since 1862

The Café de la Paix, the café and restaurant on Place de l’Opéra at the corner of Boulevard des Capucines, opened on 30 June 1862 with the Grand Hôtel de la Paix, of which it is part. The architect Alfred Armand designed both in the Napoleon III style, in Haussmann’s Paris.

The 1867 World’s Fair made it known abroad. Near the Palais Garnier, it received Massenet, Zola, Tchaikovsky and Maupassant, then Diaghilev, Oscar Wilde and the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII. Hemingway set a short story here, and Walt Disney slipped it into The Aristocats.

On 1 September 1897 the concession passed to Arthur Millon, who built a great hotel group, left in 1913 to his son André and sold in 1972. The room and its décor were listed as historic monuments in 1975 and renovated in 2002.

On the ground floor of the hotel, now the InterContinental Paris Le Grand, the restaurant serves the classics of French cooking, foie gras, tartare, sole and onion soup, with oysters and shellfish from the écailler’s counter. On the terrace facing the Opéra, guests stop for a coffee or a house pastry until late in the evening.