Bon Voyage: Paris / Château d'Eau-Canal Saint-Martin
Neighborhood spotlight on the cool quartier for natty wine, craft coffee, and all them pastries.
After calling Paris home for almost a decade, I’ve accumulated a lot of little stars on my Google Maps. These favorites cover both sides of the Seine and are spread amongst Paris’s 20 arrondissements, which unfurl out from the center like an escargot. Within them are a handful of microneighborhoods—“quartiers” as they’re commonly called—that are almost like little villages. As we inch closer to the 2024 Summer Olympics, I’ll be sharing suggestions for how to best spend time in some of them. Feel free to choose your own adventure and show up when/how you’d like; the itinerary is meant to be a suggestion based on local intel and personal experience. Today, the Château d’Eau/Canal Saint-Martin area in the 10th arrondissement. Allons-y!
Getting Here and Around
There are a few metro stations anchoring this Right Bank neighborhood that in recent years has extended beyond the streets just off the Canal Saint-Martin, but the biggest is Republique. You’ll have to walk a few blocks north from the station, but it services many lines (3, 5, 9, 8, and 11). A bit closer, you’ve got Château d’Eau (Line 4) or Jacques Bonsergent (Line 5).
Early Morning aka Coffee & Pastries
This neighborhood boasts some of the best craft coffee joints—or at least, the OG craft coffee joint: Ten Belles—and while you can go later in the day, or even for lunch since they also make tasty sandwiches (using artisanal bread from their factory in the 11th), I like it in the a.m. Start with a filter or cappuccino, then cross over the canal to either Mamiche, Du Pain et Des Idées—or both!—for pastries. It depends on what you’re in the mood for, but I go to the former primarily for either a sweet treat in the form of a €1 chou (cream-filled puff pastry) or their turkey sandwich on a brioche bun for lunch; whereas I go to the latter for one of their “escargot” or pinwheels in whatever seasonal flavor combo they’re touting. (Recently, it was chestnut and citron—divine!) Both also have the usual: croissants, baguettes, and other specialty breads and baked goods. Mamiche is newer and, for lack of a better word, trendier; whereas Du Pain is like stepping back in time complete with art nouveau wall etchings. (Note: Du Pain is not open on the weekend and those chou tend to sell out!)