What is it about cafes that inspire writers and artists alike? Is it the smell of coffee that energizes the brain? Does a break from the home office ignite new creative thinking? Whatever the reason may be, creative minds have sought out the romantic settings of cafes for decades as a hub for creativity. From Hemingway to Fitzgerald, here are the most famous cafes in the world for creatives.
Before you travel, learn how to plan a creative retreat to get the most out of your next trip and boost creativity.
Founded in 1911, Café de la Rotonde is a famous café in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France that has maintained its bohemian charm over the years. Defined as a “brasserie”, this French restaurant has a relaxed setting renowned as an intellectual gathering place for notable artists and writers during the interwar period. During this period, the owner would allow starving artists to sit in the café for hours and even look the other way when they broke off the ends of baguettes. Hemmingway famously wrote about the cafe in his novel, The Sun Also Rises, “No matter what café in Montparnasse you ask a taxi-driver to bring you to…they always take you to the Rotonde.”
Famous Creative Visitors
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Ernest Hemingway
- Nina Hamnett
- Pablo Picasso
- Gertrude Stein
- T.S. Eliot
- Emmanuel Macron
- Diego Rivera
- Federico Cantú
- Ilya Ehrenburg
- Tsuguharu Foujita
- Alexandre Jacovleff aka Alexander Yevgenievich Yakovlev
One of the best and most famous cafes in the world is located in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The iconic French-style cafe opened in 1858, making it Argentina’s oldest café and was inspired by Fin de siècle coffee houses, named after the famous Parisian café located on Boulevard des Italiens, known as a gathering spot for the elite of Parissiense culture in the 19th century. Currently, the basement works as a stage for jazz and tango artists and for the presentation of book and poetry contests.
Famous Creative Patrons
- Albert Einstein
- Alfonsina Storni
- Baldomero Fernández Moreno
- Juana de Ibarbourou
- Arthur Rubinstein
- Ricardo Vines
- Roberto Arlt
- José Ortega y Gasset
- Juan Manuel Fangio
- Jorge Luis Borges
- Federico García Lorca
- Hillary Clinton
- Robert Duvall
- Molina Campos
- Benito Quinquela Martín
- Lisandro de la Torre
- Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear
- Carlos Gardel
- Juan Carlos de Borbón
This traditional palatial café located in Vienna, Austria, first opened in 1876 and quickly became a key meeting place amongst the Viennese intellectual and creative scene. The café was often referred to as the “Chess school” (Die Schachhochschule) because of the presence of many chess players who used the first floor for their games.
Famous Creative Patrons
- Peter Altenberg
- Theodor Herzl
- Alfred Adler
- Egon Friedell
- Hugo von Hofmannsthal
- Anton Kuh
- Adolf Loos
- Leo Perutz
- Robert Musil
- Stefan Zweig
- Alfred Polgar
- Leon Trotsky
- Josip Broz Tito
- Sigmund Freud
Caffè Gambrinus is a historic cafe in Central Naples, Italy founded in 1860. Named after a legendary European culture hero, Gambrinus is celebrated as an icon of beer, joviality, and joie de vivre (a French phrase used to express a cheerful enjoyment of life, an exultation of spirit). Throughout its long history owners have commissioned artists to decorate the interiors and evoke the spirit of the Belle Epoque. Artists include Luca Postiglione, Pietro Scoppetta, Vincenzo Volpe, Attilio Pratella, Giuseppe De Sanctis, Giuseppe Casciaro, Gaetano Esposito, Vincenzo Migliaro, Vincenzo Irolli, Eduardo De Filippo, and Vincenzo Caprile.
Famous Creative Patrons
- Gabriele D’Annunzio
- Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
- Oscar Wilde
- Gabriele D’Annunzio
- Ernest Hemingway
- Matilde Serao
- Princess Sissi and Jean Paul Sartre
- Guy de Maupassant
- Émile Zola
- Benedetto Croce
One of the oldest cafes in Prague, Cafe Montmartre has been an intellectual hub for German and Czech writers before it’s closing during the Second World War. The cafe remained closed for over 50 years before being revived in the 1990s, but can now be enjoyed once again by all creative visitors.
Famous Creative Patrons
- Max Brod
- Franz Kafka
- Jaroslav Hašek
- Egon Erwin Kisch
Caffè San Marco (Trieste, Italy)
Located in beautiful Trieste, Italy, Caffè San Marco is a historic café founded in 1914 where it quickly became famous as a rendezvous for intellectuals and writers alike. The café was destroyed by Austro-Hungarian troops during the first World War but was reopened when hostilities ended. The interiors and beautiful frescoes reflect the Vienna Secession style popular when the café was founded and includes art attributed to famous Italian painter Vito Timmel.
Famous Creative Patrons
- Italo Svevo
- James Joyce
- Umberto Saba
- Claudio Magris
Founded in 1840, Bewley’s has grown from a small beverage company to an international establishment producing tea, coffee and operating more than twenty cafes in Ireland and six overseas. Their flagship cafe ‘Bewley’s Grafton Street’ has been in operation since 1927. It has been a Dublin landmark and favorite for some of Ireland’s most elite creatives and has continued to survive throughout many renovations and closures.
Famous Creative Patrons
- James Joyce
- Patrick Kavanagh
- Samuel Beckett
- Sean O’Casey
Founded in the early 1800s. Literary Café (Literaturnoye Kafe) is a historically significant restaurant in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that was frequented by famous writers of Russian literature. A reminder of the past, this cafe has maintained its 1800’s interior decoration and is an immortalized icon of Russian culture. One notable story of the cafe says Aleksandr Pushkin took his last drink—a fresh-squeezed lemonade before setting out to a fatal duel in 1837.
Famous Creative Patrons
- Alexander Pushkin
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Mikhail Lermontov
- Taras Shevchenko
- Nikolay Chernyshevsky
Jazz Cafe Bar Dug (Tokyo, Japan)
A throwback to the jazz cafes that thrived in the 1960s, Dug Jazz Bar and Cafe is considered one of the most legendary spots in Tokyo, Japan. The original cafe was owned by photographer Hozumi Nakadaira, and although it’s under new management, many of his photos remain along with the ambiance that can still be described as dark and intimate, perfect for creatives looking for a moody jazz setting and whiskey on the rocks.
Famous Creative Patrons
The cafe was mentioned in Haruki Murakami’s novel, Norwegian Wood, noted for his love of jazz bars for inspiration.
Formerly known as the George and Dragon, The George or George Inn is a public house established in the medieval period and is the only surviving galleried coaching inn in Southwark, London.
Famous Creative Patrons
- William Shakespeare
- Charles Dickens
Vesuvio Cafe is a historic bar in San Francisco, California, United States, and was founded in 1948. Just across from the infamous City Lights Bookstore it was known as a beat hotspot during the glory days and was often frequented by Beat Generation celebrities.
Famous Creative Patrons
- Jack Kerouac
- Neal Cassady
- Allen Ginsberg
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
El Floridita (Havana, Cuba)
Opened in 1817, El Floridita is a historic fish restaurant and cocktail bar in the older part of Havana that sits across from the National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana. Famous for their daiquiris and a favorite hangout of Ernest Hemingway, the bar boasts a life-size bronze statue of him along with a plaque with his quote, “My mojito in the Bodeguita del Medio and my daiquiri in the Floridita.”
Famous Creative Patrons
- Ernest Hemingway
- Ezra Pound
- Martha Gellhorn
- John dos Passos
- Graham Greene
Cervecería Alemana (Madrid, Spain)
First opened in 1904, Cervecería Alemana is a bar with a décor that has remained virtually unchanged. Since 1980 La Alemana has been recognized as a Madrid Traditional Commercial Establishment by the Chamber of Commerce of Madrid, as part of the so-labeled hundred-year-old establishments in the city. In a piece in a 1960 issue of LIFE magazine, Ernest Hemingway called it “a good café and beer place on the Plaza Santa Ana in Madrid which I had frequented for many years.”
Famous Creative Patrons
- Ernest Hemingway
- Valle Inclán
- Jardiel
- the Paso family
- oVíctor de la Serna
- María Guerrero
- Rivelles
- Rafael El Gallo
- Diego Puerta
- Ava Gardner
Café A Brasileira (Lisbon, Portugal)
Located in the historic cultural city of Lisbon, Portugal, Café A Brasileira (The Brazilian Lady Cafe) is one of the oldest and most famous cafés in the old quarter. First opened by Adrian Telles to import and sell Brazilian coffee in the 19th century, this cafe quickly became the meeting point for intellectuals, artists, writers, and free-thinkers. The most famous creative visitor was Fernando Pessoa, who still sits outside, forever in bronze.
Famous Creative Patrons
- Aquilino Ribeiro
- Alfredo Pimenta
- José de Almada Negreiros
- António Soares
- Eduardo Viana
- Jorge Barradas
- Fernando Pessoa
- José Pacheco
- Bernardo Marques
- José Pacheko
- Stuart Carvalhais.
A hotspot for creatives and intellectuals during the 1930s, this classic bar has been restored to its glory days. Originally established in 1939, Zonars was the brainchild of Karolos Zonaras, a Greek chocolatier and visionary based in the States who intended to establish Zonars as “the best restaurant in the best location in Athens.”
Famous Creative Patrons
- Jorge Luis Borges
- Henry Miller
- Melina Merkouri
- Odysseas Elytis
- Mister Valentino
- Konstantinos Markoulakis
- Marina Abramovic
- Lawrence Durrell
- Evelyn Waugh
- Manos Chatzidakis
- Sophia Loren
- Anthony Quinn
- Nana Mouskouri
- F.W. de Klerk
Located inside the Hotel Monteleone and overlooks Royal Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the Carousel Piano Bar & Lounge has been an iconic and world-renowned destination since 1949. The 25-seat circular bar revolves around world-class bartenders and famous cocktails. In addition to the rotating bar, an adjoining room includes booths and tables with live entertainment offered nightly. Capote even used to claim, over drinks, that he had been born there. “He wasn’t,” the hotel assures us. “Though his mother lived at the historic hotel during her pregnancy, she safely made it to the hospital in time for Truman’s debut.”
Famous Creative Patrons
- William Faulkner
- Tennessee Williams
- Truman Capote
- Ernest Hemingway
- Ronnie Kole
- Dennis Quaid
- Gregg Allman
- Winston Groom
- Eudora Welty
- Anne Rice
- Rebecca Wells
- Liberace
- Louis Prima
- Sally Struthers
- Michael Jordan
Zach is an international writer, photographer, filmmaker, martial artist, and creator of Creative Enso, the Zen art of creative living. His goal is to empower and inspire creatives to live healthier, happier, and more creative lifestyles.
