Bordeaux and Palmiers

Petit fer à cheval
30, rue Veille du Temple

This sweet café and restaurant in the Marais district of Paris is one of the best places for people watching in the whole city. The neighborhood of the Marais is frequented by the Jewish population of Paris, but it is also the home of the famed l’As du Fallafel, which is one of the best (often declared “the best”) falafel joint in the city, which draws both Parisians and tourists to the fourth.

“But why the Marais?” you may ask. There are so many other neighborhoods in Paris that are just as fun and lively, if not more so. However, the Marais has one thing that these other sections do not: it was completely unaffected by the Haussmannisation of Paris that occurred in the late 1800s under the rule of Napoleon the Third. The Haussmann renovations replaced the tiny, spidering streets of Paris with the huge boulevards we see now, however most of the Jewish ghetto remained untouched, and so places such as Petit fer à cheval (the little horseshoe) were unaffected.

Here, the streets are impossibly narrow and the sidewalks even tinier. Most people forego cars in favor of wandering the tiny streets, window shopping or picking up some Jewish food from one of the many restaurants here. Petit fer à cheval, with its tiny terrace, the perfect size for this neighborhood, is right along one of the larger (but by no means large) streets, a perfect location for watching the variety of people who like to spend their time here, in the old Jewish ghetto.

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