HISTORICAL CAFES IN PARIS
Les Deux Magots

The café Deux Magots, true Parisian institution created in 1885 is in the hands of the family Mathivat originating from The Auvergne since 1919. Its terrace looking over the church Saint-Germain des Pres continues to attract the foreign client in good weather. As a result, the Deux Magots, has a clientèle composed of 70% tourists and 30% regulars. The décor hasn't changed an iota. The benches in red moleskin and the mahogany tables have passed the test of time. The waiters dressed in black and white are equally part of the décor of this historical place.

Its the two statues representing Chinese mandarins and looking serenely over the room that gives the name to this emblematic establishment of Saint-Germain des Pres. “Magot” means “stocky figurine from the Far East”. These two “magots” are the only remains left from the old silk shop that in 1885 became a liquor bar. Verlaine, Rimbaud and Mallarmé, amongst others, took th ehabit of meeting and sipping absinthe on the terrace.
It wasn't until the 20's that the Deux Magots obtained it's noble letters and became the general district of artists and left-wing intellectuals.
In 1925, André Breton and his surrealist friends, Louis Aragon, Paul Eluard, Robert Desnos, Antonin Arrtaud met regularly.

When the new war started, the Deux Magots became a place for political debate. At the liberation, the existentialists, with Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in front took up their abode there. They each had their own table attributed and came to write each day without fail. They were soon joined by Boris Vian and Albert Camus. The Myth of Saint Germain was born.
Foreign writers and artists like James Joyce, Bertold Brecht or even Stefan Sweig, Picasso or Hemingway.... came to meet here.

Today one comes to the Deux Magots to taste a hot chocolate old style or to sip a coffee served in the pot, but especially to see and be seen. Because sitting at the Deux Magots, you are sure to come across a personality from the art world, literature, fashion, entertainment and politics. However, the café remains above all a literary café.
Philosophical cafés are held most often on Sunday mornings. At the time of the world demonstration “Read at parties”, the texts of Simone de Beauvoir are read inside the Deux Magots, there where she came to sit to write with Jean-Paul Sartre.

And the literary prize of the Deux Magots rewards each year a writer since 1933. 2008 will see the 75th award ceremony.
The Deux Magots also gives the Pelléas prize that rewards a literary work dedicated to music and the Saint-Germain prize, in association with the brasserie Lipp and Sonia Rykiel, who crowns each year an artist from a different discipline (architecture, cinema, theatre, drawing, fashion...).

The Deux Magots in Japan
Bunkamura – Tokyo
Since 1989, the café Deux Magots has been declined in Tokyo, in the district of Shibuya in the heart of a cultural centre, the Bunkamura. Decorated by the French architect J.P. Willmotte, the Bunkamura consists of a museum, cinemas, an art gallery, a theatre and the biggest opera in Japan, Orchad Hall. A shop offers gastronomic products under the name of Deux Magots, and a bakers of the same name.
Finally, the literary prize of Bunkamura is awarded each year, during September, in the café Deux Magots, to a Japonese writer. The first laureate to receive this prize, in 1991, was Yamada Koichi for his work “François Truffaut, a special cinematographic life”.