We all have our favourite local joint; bars where you can arrive at 4pm and not leave until 2am, where one day you might take your best friend, the next your mum, the next a Tinder date. Though not elegantly or even particularly invitingly done out, La Couronne de Belleville plays that role for many in the 20th arrondissement. Customers will happily spend hours on end here, making the most of the cheap bar prices (€2.50 pints), a large terrace and tip-top €6.50 pizzas. Of course it’s not the cleanest of places, and the service can be pretty haphazard. But that’s kind of the thing with local bars: they’re somewhat like siblings, in that whatever their flaws, you gotta love them.
TRANSLATION: FLORA HUDSON