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BELOW MY TOP 40++ CHEAP ADRESSES IN PARIS !!
I made this small guide for you to find out good, unusual and cheap addresses to avoid the usual traps.
It’s places i like to hangout in with friends. I also included some addresses to work in a quiet environment for free, as well as usefull ressources in case you came to do some art related stuff.
Oh, and if you need the map of the arrondissement, you’ll find it here
Let me know if you see any adjustments to do in those recommendations, and please share me yours ! And please don’t mind my bad english writing uuuuurk
HOPE YOU’LL ENJOY YOUR STAY !!
bises, yves
Some extra tips:
Careful with pickpockets
The myth about Parisian pickpockets is true. Never leave your bags unattended in a bar/café/party— and not only if you look like a tourist (I did get my computer stolen while having a drink with some friends in a quiet bar on a fancy street, rrrr). One piece of advice: most places in Paris now accept card payments, don’t bother with cash.
Go east
Just never hang out in the west side of Paris. It’s empty, it’s boring, it’s bourgeois, and it’s empty (again), and you’ll find nothing but tourists. Which means, if you go, pickpockets will find you too. In this area, I barely ever went except for visiting the Palais de Tokyo, the most important contemporary art center in Paris (but the ticket is quite expensive, so I haven’t included it here). All the artistic things are happening in the east. choose your side 🙂
Ask for the price first
As prices can rise really high in some restaurants (e.g., €12 for a cola… pfff ridiculus), it’s usual to ask for the price of your drink *before* you’re ordering to avoid salty suprises .
Don’t go to tourist-area cafés and restaurants
How to spot them: english flags on the menu and american tourists inside (lol). Don’t go—it’s usually a trap! You can probably find a cheaper brasserie if you walk 5 minutes into some less fancy streets.
Oh and don’t go to café around train stations, waiters are super mean there and quite expensive.
For transport
I recommend using the public bike service, Vélib’. It’s the worst way of transport but still better than all the other ones. (I used it for 9 years—it doesn’t work well, but it’s cheaper, more convenient, and more fun than taking the metro or the taxi.)
If you want totally free transport, just prepare yourself a fake address to give to the metro police if they catch you without a ticket. Don’t pay on the spot—just say you’ll pay once you receive the fine. 🙂
Mister good beer
In this app, you can find for the cheapest beers in the bars around. (you’ll need to install the app on your phone (doesnt works on your phone)
Free art
Forget about lining for hours to visit the Louvre. There’s a lot of free museum, and some of them are really cool and deserted! You can find the list of free museums here. Some are free only during the first sunday of the month. there’s also extra gratuity for people under 26 as well as for students, artist living in france and job-less people. If you don’t fit in the requirement, you can try bargaining at the entrances saying you don’t have money and they’ll probably give you the discount as many employees of museums are often artists as well 🙂
| What's the name | what is that ?? | I go there to… | what so speacial ? | tips/comment on the acess | wich arrondissement | what's the adress? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bibliothèque de l'Institut national d'histoire de l'art | library | work | beautiful library, full of people that look super smart reading super complicate books about art. | Important : need to be a registred artist/art student to have access. There's one room available for everyone without registration but might get crowded | 02nd | 58 Rue de Richelieu, 75002 Paris |
| Le marais art galleries | area | take a walk | as they say "les galeries d'art sont le plus grand musée gratuit de France" = art galeries are the biggest free museum of france, lol. I recommend the one around Le marais that are currently the best ones on the average. Carrefull there's a trap : the galleries in Place des Vosges are famous to be the worst one (commercial sculptures and fake street art). | During openings (usualy on thursday night), you can to eat and drink for free. check out : Galerie Anne Baraut Galerie Florence Loewy Galerie Kamel Mennour Galerie Continua Galerie Templon Galerie Perrotin | 03rd | 9 Rue de Thorigny, 75003 Paris |
| Bistrot de l'horloge | bar | drink a drink | cheap bar, good location (near Pompidou center) and above all quiet (no car around) | open from 4pm | 03rd | 7 Rue Bernard de Clairvaux, 75003 Paris |
| La mutinerie | bar | its queers, women, trans people, dykes, and bisqueers, women, trans people, dykes, and bis meeting spot. I don't often go there but i thought it might be interstesting to add it in the list 🙂 | beside being a lesbian bar, it's a place that need support because they are recently facing financial struggle !! | 03rd | 176-178 Rue Saint-Martin, 75003 Paris | |
| Le temple céleste | restaurant | grab some chinese food | you can buy 5 baozi (stuffed bread) for 5€. best price around, it's quite fast and hot and good. | 03rd | 9 Rue Volta, 75003 Paris | |
| La gaité lyrique | venue | work | good place for working on a computer, also have good parties and exhibitions. Also good for free toilets lol | 03rd | 3 bis Rue Papin, 75003 Paris | |
| L'attirail | bar | drink a beer | cheap beers (3,50€) + they offer potatoes each half hour | There's actually 3 different bars by the same owner in the same area of paris | 03rd and 10th | 9 Rue au Maire, 75003 Paris |
| L'académie du climat | café | drink a drink | good coffee in a good location where you won't find any other cheap place in the area | check the opening hour before | 04th | 2 Pl. Baudoyer, 75004 Paris |
| BPI (Pompidou library) | library | work | beside the art center, pompidou is also housing a great public library, full of art books | carefull during the period of student exams (december and june), it get really crowded | 04th | Place Georges-Pompidou, 75004 Paris |
| Daccord | café | tea/cake | not only the boss is super nice but she's also doing the best cakes i've ever eaten of my entire life | there's not any exterior signs | 05th | |
| La clef | cinema | whatch good films | it's the only associative cinema of paris and they are showing amazing films | 05th | 34 Rue Daubenton, 75005 Paris | |
| Les arènes de lutèces | area | lay on the sun on romanian ruins | quite secret place, the former romainian arena, now surrounded by building. A good place to chill with a drink you can buy in grocery shop around | 05th | 49 Rue Monge, 75005 Paris | |
| La k'fèt | bar | dancing | the cheapest beers of paris (2€ the pint), located in the basement of l'ENS, the most prestigious french university. If you're lucky you can even get into a free drink party run by some student associations. | you need to pretend to be a student to enter (they will probalby ask you to write down your name if you arrive late) and once inside ask for the localisation of La Kfet. Carefull, you need to be super smart to get accepted in this school, so do your best to look so. | 05th | 45 Rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris |
| La grande mosquée de Paris | café | drink a morocan tea in a beautiful mosqué | it's not cheap, but the experience worth it | 05th | 2bis Pl. du Puits de l'Ermite, 75005 Paris | |
| Créperie Oroyona | restaurant | eat crêpes | cheap crepes (5,50€ for the salty and the sweet one + cider) +++ the owner is quite funny, feel free to ask him about his art career and the relation between paintings and crêpes | 05th | 36 Rue Mouffetard, 75005 Paris | |
| Creperie Genia | restaurant | eat crêpes | cheap crepes (5,50€ for the salty and the sweet one + drink). On the other side, the service is not at all fancy. I therefore recommend eating it outside while walking along the seine | fun fact : the menu is in spanish because latino tourists think it's the latino district (quartier latin) so they gather in this area. | 05th | 7 Rue de la Harpe, 75005 Paris |
| Ecole des Beaux arts de Paris | Art school | visit art exhibition and party | A beautiful place, not open for tourists, full of students shows. Quite unique place in paris. There's two museums inside, and you can also book for spending some time in the library reading their amazing collection of art books. | Ecole des Beaux arts de Paris is not officialy open to the public. tips to enter if you look like an art student : just look at your phone when passing the entrance. Otherwise, just say you want to book a meeting at the school's library. Another tips : if Café Elisa (the student bar located inside the building) is open, you can get cheap drinks, and if you're lucky, good parties. | 06th | 14 Rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris |
| Musée de la vie romantique | café | date | the coffee inside the musuem is really cute and not so expensive if i remember correctly. The museum is free 🙂 | i recommend to go there when the weather is good. you don't need to visit the museum to get to the coffee shop | 09th | 16 Rue Chaptal, 75009 Paris |
| Bouillon Chartier Grands Boulevards | restaurant | eat traditionnal french food | it's a great place to try all kind of french cuisine for a cheap price (1,90€ for the oeuf mayo… wahh). the quality is not amazing and it's also quite noisy therefore definitly a parisian must-do. | don't worry about the line at the entrance, it's really fast. There's other ones you should check out : Bouillon Republique, Bouillon Pigalle… | 09th | 7 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, 75009 Paris |
| Dishny | restaurant | eat vegetarian cheap indian food | good for a quick lunch around the area | all the indians restaurants around are quite cheap and good | 10th | 25 Rue Cail, 75010 Paris |
| Le Zorba | venue | see good concert | don't mind the small and dirty bar, the intersting part is down the stairs where you'll find a small and dirty music stage. I played there twice and it was always fun. Realy niche programmation | usually this instagram account is taking care of the programmation : https://www.instagram.com/lasalepepiniere/ | 10th | 137 Rue du Faubourg du Temple, 75010 Paris |
| Le canal saint-martin | area | take a walk (with a beer?) around a canal | there's no more car allowed, when the weather is good, it's a great place to hangout, seat along the canal or | you can buy cheap beers by going to the Franprix supermarket | 10th and 11th | canal saintmartin |
| Nonette Bánh Mì | restaurant | grab a sandwich | Bánh Mì is a vietnamese sandwich made out of french baguette… what a mix | many chinese restaurants in the area of belleville, cheap and good miam miam | 11th | 71 Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Paris |
| La ménagerie de verre | venue | see contemporary dance show | best performance programmation to my opinion. also have a good café inside but not cheap i repeat : not cheap | 11th | 12 Rue Lechevin, 75011 Paris | |
| Bois de vincennes | area | walk around, party | greatest parisian park, you can have a long promenade during day. By night, the whole park is used as a place for party where you can find raves from hardcore music to french pop. | In order to find rave parties, you just have to follow the sound ! be aware that it's quite dark by night. I recommend using velib bikes to get there, there's a bike station right in the middle of the park. | 12th | Porte Dorée 75012 Paris France |
| Guerrissol | shop | buy secondhandclothes | you can find a lot of options by going in the same street. it's not touristic as vintage shops in Le marais, so probably better for finding good deals | there's about 10 different guerrissol in Paris, but my favorite ones are Avenue de Clichy | 17th | 19 Av. de Clichy, 75017 Paris |
| Le 82 | bar | dancing | it's quite a cheap bar and you can danse on commercial music until 2am | nearby montmartre and some concert venues (la cigalle…) | 18th | 82 Rue des Martyrs, 75018 Paris |
| Le petit joseph dijon | bar | drink a drink | small and really french anarchist ambiance. not specially cheap but i like this place | 18th | 3 Rue Joseph Dijon, 75018 Paris | |
| Parc des buttes chaumont | area | take a walk | weird park created in the 18th mimiking the alps montain and greek temples… Not touristic but full of parisians when the sun come out. | 19th | ||
| La Péniche l'antipode | bar | drink a beer | i love this place, there's allways available sits and the location is convenient + you're in a barge wich is quite nice. A bar on a barge lol | 19th | 55 Quai de la Seine, 75019 Paris | |
| Le doc | venue | attempt art events by local artists | Former squat, this now-legal artist run space hold a great programmation of exhibitions and concerts | you need to check their programm first, there's no event all the time | 19th | 26 Rue du Dr Potain, 75019 Paris |
| La gare de jazz | venue | jazz concerts | really good free jazz/expé concerts, but carefull, you're not allowed to talk during the shows | there's a food-truck to buy caribean food at the entrance. The basement is a techno night club by night. the ticket is not cheap but some parties are nice 🙂 | 19th | 1 Av. Corentin Cariou, 75019 Paris |
| Pizzeria La tavola calda | restaurant | pizzaaa | not the best pizza of paris, but the location is great considering the price.(10€ for the margharita if i remember correctly). Also it's quite calm. | 1st | 39 Rue des Bourdonnais, 75001 Paris | |
| Père populaire | bar | Drink a drink | Super nice bar, full of parisians working during days, tchatting during night. Coffee is 1€ and beers are cheap. it's this kind of bar where everyone is super sexy and super parisian | 20th | 46 Rue de Buzenval, 75020 Paris | |
| le relais de bellevile | Bar | drink a drink | it's a place where many of my friends are hanging out… quite arty if I may say | 20th | 34 Rue de Belleville, 75020 Paris | |
| Puce de saint-ouen (flea market) | area | take a walk | a crazy place for second hand furnitures. Recently, it got quite expensive unfortunately | be carefull with pickpockets please ! | 93 (outside paris) | 87 Rue des Rosiers, 93400 Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine |
| Non-étoile | venue | attempt art events by local artists | well, it's the artist-run space I funded so i might not be objective but best place of paris, of france, of the world. | you need to check their programm first, there's no event all the time. Also, it's usualy ending up early (max 9pm) Openings are usualy on thursday night and they have an non-official bar that is opening during their event | 93 (outside paris) | 12 Rue de Vincennes, 93100 Montreuil |
| Maison pop | venue | fab-lab | beside the museum and the music scene, la maison pop also have an cheap fab-lab with laser cut, 3d printing… | check out also their cool programmation | 93 | 9 bis Rue Dombasle, 93100 Montreuil |
| Gibert Joseph | library | buy second-hand book | it's the historical second-hand books, good place to find really specific books, cds… not touristy and well located | 6th | 26 Bd Saint-Michel, 75006 Paris | |
| Le monte-en-l'air | library | buy books | cute team, cute place and cute selection of books. They are doing many book lauch events | if you still books they will pretend not seeing it. wich is cute. But if you want to steal books I'd rather advice steeling from la FNAC for ethical reasons | 20th | 2 Rue de la Mare, 75020 Paris |
| La réserve des arts | art shop | buy everyhing I need for creation | La réserve des arts is a crazy place to buy big furnitures for it's actually the place where museums and fashions shows are giving all their leftovers. It's great to buy wood, metal, textile… for a insanely cheap price ! must go for artists and designers ! And the team is really nice | they have two different spaces, one small in Paris 14th, and the other one, big, in Montreuil. You need to be an artist to be able to get in. If you're french they'll ask you your professional number, but I gess if you're foreigner they'll trust your word. | 14th and 93 | LA BOUTIQUE - Paris 14ème Angle de la rue Général Humbert et rue Prévost-Paradol 75014 Paris (en face de la régie de quartier) |
| La cantine de l'aiguillage | Restaurant | a fancy lunch in a trashy environnement | Good place for a fancy lunch not too pricy (around 20€). The food is full of surprise and the chef is also voguing lol, what other reasons do you need ? | It's a place you'll need to book before if you want to find a sit | 14th | |
| La colline | Restaurant | a good brasserie lunch | a bit cliché brasserie, serving classic french cuisine for a really fare price considering the quality. About 20€ the lunch, 30€ for the dinner | 10 Rue Pixérécourt, 75020 Paris |
