Where to Eat Near Musée d’Orsay: Breakfast, Lunch and Drinks

Les Antiquaires is the straightforward lunch choice when you leave Orsay hungry. Stay inside for Café Campana if you want to keep looking at paintings afterwards. Walk south toward Saint-Germain for coffee, pastry and cocktails if the museum is your main sightseeing stop of the day.

The places below serve different purposes. You do not need to turn lunch into another expedition, but there are good reasons to venture beyond the museum doors. The addresses matter: several of these businesses have other Paris locations.

Les Antiquaires: a seat close to Orsay

Les Antiquaires, 13 rue du Bac, works when proximity and a proper café table are the priorities. It opens at 7am daily, well before its main kitchen begins continuous service at 11am. Inside are tan leather banquettes, mirrors and a substantial wooden bar; outside is a pavement terrace.

This is the convenient choice for an early museum day. The room gives you somewhere to sit over coffee without building the whole morning around breakfast. Do not read the restaurant’s 11am kitchen opening as the café opening time.

Coutume Babylone: go for the coffee

Coutume Babylone, 47 rue de Babylone, makes more sense if you are starting around Sèvres-Babylone. It is a specialty-coffee address with brunch, rather than the closest café to Orsay.

Choose it when coffee is part of the pleasure of the morning. From here, continue north toward the museum. If you are already at the entrance with a timed ticket approaching, this is a detour you can save for afterwards.

Des Gâteaux et du Pain: pastry on rue du Bac

Des Gâteaux et du Pain, 89 rue du Bac, is Claire Damon’s bakery and pâtisserie. A croissant or pain au chocolat is the breakfast order; for an afternoon treat, look at the seasonal fruit pastries instead. Her pastry page explains the emphasis on fruit and the range of viennoiseries.

This belongs on a walk along rue du Bac. Buy what catches your eye in the case rather than arriving with a fixed list of seasonal cakes. Use the Bac branch for this route, not the other shop on boulevard Pasteur.

Les Antiquaires: finish the visit, then sit down nearby

The same rue du Bac bistro is useful for lunch, especially when you emerge later than expected. Its kitchen runs continuously from 11am into the evening, so you are not trying to squeeze a museum visit into a narrow lunch service.

Choose it for a traditional bistro setting and a short move from the museum. This recommendation is about the room, location and service pattern; use the restaurant’s current menu to choose your meal.

Café Campana: keep lunch inside the visit

Café Campana is on the fifth floor, beside the Impressionist galleries and one of the museum’s great clocks. The Campana brothers designed the room with organic shapes and gold-toned lights. Come here for a practical pause that still feels part of Orsay.

The museum describes a changing menu of salads, cooked dishes and desserts. You need museum admission, and reservations are not accepted. It is a sensible option halfway through a longer visit, especially if you would otherwise leave just to eat.

Orsay’s Restaurant: choose it for the room

The museum’s Restaurant occupies a listed Belle Époque interior. Choose this over Campana when the setting is part of what you want from lunch. Both require a museum ticket.

The Restaurant’s lunch service ends earlier than the museum visit does, so look at the dining hours linked above when choosing your entry slot. Campana and the Restaurant are separate spaces, not two names for the same café.

CRAVAN, 165 boulevard Saint-Germain, is a fourth lunch option if you want the afternoon to continue in Saint-Germain. Its published lunch menu runs from noon to 3pm.

The menu includes a chicken-and-bacon club sandwich, a lobster roll with bisque mayonnaise, and a sando with egg, cabbage and yuzu kosho. The sando also includes katsuobushi, so it is not a vegetarian pick. Choose the sandwich you actually want and make this the start of a neighborhood afternoon, rather than walking back to the museum afterwards.

For a fuller day around the galleries, use our Paris museum itinerary. If you are still deciding which museum deserves your time, start with Louvre or Orsay.

CRAVAN’s Saint-Germain house occupies a seventeenth-century building, with interiors by Ramy Fischler, multiple bars and a bookstore developed with Rizzoli. It is a reason to stay on the Left Bank into the evening.

The Grand Bar menu includes a cognac-based Boulevardier and a nonalcoholic Ginger with lemon and sparkling water. Those give you two useful starting points: something spirit-led, or something without alcohol. The different bars have their own lists, so order from the one in front of you.

Use the boulevard Saint-Germain address. CRAVAN’s original bar is at 17 rue Jean de la Fontaine in the sixteenth arrondissement, well outside this walk.

• For a museum-focused day: breakfast nearby, Orsay, Campana partway through, then finish the galleries.
• For art followed by a neighborhood afternoon: Orsay, lunch at Les Antiquaires, then continue south along rue du Bac for pastry and Saint-Germain.
• For a later museum visit: coffee or brunch at Coutume, walk north to Orsay, then return toward Saint-Germain for dinner or drinks.

Choose one version. There is no need to visit every place on this list. If you want breakfast and lunch on the other side of the river instead, see where to eat near the Louvre.