La Closerie des Lilas, Montparnasse brasserie since 1860

La Closerie des Lilas, the café on Boulevard du Montparnasse at the Carrefour de l’Observatoire, was already the meeting place, in the early 1860s, of painters from Charles Gleyre’s studio: Bazille, Renoir, Monet and Sisley, soon joined by Pissarro. Zola, Cézanne and Baudelaire came too.

In 1883 the former coaching inn beside the Bullier dance hall took the name Closerie des Lilas. Paul Fort played chess here with Lenin and met Apollinaire; the « Mardis de la Closerie » became a literary fixture. Hemingway wrote here, and it was on its terrace that Fitzgerald gave him the manuscript of The Great Gatsby to read.

Modigliani, Picasso, Breton, Sartre and Beckett came in turn. Between the wars the house took on an Art Deco décor. Since 1980 Jean-Claude Meynard’s painting Closing Time has hung above the bar, and since 1997 the Closerie has belonged to the Siljegovic family. Since 2007 the Prix de la Closerie des Lilas has crowned a French-language woman novelist each year.

At the end of Boulevard du Montparnasse, the Hemingway bar still welcomes its regulars to the sound of the piano. The brasserie serves oysters, pike quenelles and poached haddock, and the fine dining restaurant sits under its veranda.