Aux Folies

There's a café/bar down the street that's as emblematic of Belleville as the Chinese restaurants, the halal butchers, and the hill itself. It's called Aux Folies, and it's bobo central.

Busy all hours of the day, it's packed starting around 5 pm and continuing past midnight. No matter what the weather, as long as it's nighttime, every table outside the place will be occupied by smoking bobos. (Just in case you forgot, "bobo" stands for "bourgeois bohemian" and corresponds to "Williamsburg Trust-funders.")

Alyssa's shrug says it all. Of course the place is constantly crowded - it's way hip! And I'm not even being sarcastic. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em - that's what we did!

Hipness means: neon signs; pinball machine; tables and walls plastered with lacquered-over concert programs, sheet music, and ads from back in the day; the wicked cool, graffiti-covered, underground art gallery-laden Rue Dénoyez adjacent to the café.

It's only a minute up Rue de Belleville from Métro Belleville. And just in case you needed any more reasons to check it out, there's this tabletop, too amazing for words: