A small, much-loved café and wine bar on a leafy square between the Panthéon and the Sorbonne, the Nouvelle Mairie has been a fixture of Latin Quarter student and academic life for decades, and an early champion of natural wine in Paris. The chalkboard runs to a short list of organic growers by the glass and a handful of honest bistro plates — charcuterie, a daily special, oysters in season.
The terrace, under the trees on the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, is the place to be on a warm afternoon. No bookings, often full, cash-friendly, and entirely without pretension — exactly the kind of unhurried wine-bar evening the quarter does best.