Paris 20e arrondissement · The hill that talks back

Belleville & Ménilmontant

Père-Lachaise, the multicultural climb of Belleville with its Chinese and North-African kitchens and street art, and Ménilmontant's bars and music rooms. The city's most mixed, least polished, most alive eastern edge.

Where to eat in the 20e (4)

• La Cantine Chinoise€ · Chinese (Wenzhou)Two decades of Wenzhou cooking at the bottom of Belleville, run by Chef Lin and his son: hand-folded ravioli, beef noodle soup, baozi from the bakery counter. The plates land around six or seven euros, which is most of the appeal.
• Le Salon Miyanis€ · Algerian / Kabyle couscousA Kabyle kitchen on the Ménilmontant boulevard turning out couscous, tagines, chorba and grilled skewers at prices that read like a typo — the royal, with its three meats, lands under fifteen euros. Plain room, warm service, no pretense.
• Le Baratin€€ · Bistro & natural wineRaquel Carena's daily blackboard — offal, fish, sweet-sour edges — helped invent Paris bistronomy and still pulls chefs on their nights off. The natural-wine list runs deep.
• Le Jourdain€€ · Neo-bistroA tight, crowded neo-bistro between the Buttes-Chaumont and Jourdain, doing a market-driven plat at lunch and turning to small seafood plates and natural wine at night. The wine list is the rare one priced so the second bottle still feels reasonable.

Where to stay in the 20e (5)

• Hôtel Bridget€€ · Boutique hotelBehind a traditional façade on rue des Pyrénées, 32 rooms furnished from the flea markets — candy-coloured benches, salvaged pieces — in upper Ménilmontant near Père-Lachaise. Two métro lines within a few minutes.
• JO&JOE Paris Nation€ · Design hostelAccor's social-hostel format dropped into the 20th: bunk rooms and soundproofed doubles arranged around a bar and canteen, with a rooftop terrace that runs events through the warm months. Street-art finish, more considered than the price suggests.
• Mama Shelter Paris East€€ · Design hotelPhilippe-Starck-styled rooms in the local 20th near Père-Lachaise, with a seasonal rooftop and a loud restaurant — character well away from the centre.
• Nadaud Hotel€ · Budget hotelA 27-room family hotel on a quiet street fifty metres from the Gambetta gate of Père-Lachaise, run with an environmental bent and the rare offer of breakfast brought to the room over a generous morning window. Plain, clean, inexpensive.
• The Loft Boutique Hostel€ · Boutique hostelA 29-room hostel up the hill on Rue Julien Lacroix, in the thick of Belleville's bars and Chinese-Tunisian restaurants. Air-conditioned rooms, a shared kitchen, and a furnished terrace with a bar for the climb home.

Underground & cool in the 20e (4)

• La Bellevilloise€€ · Arts & music venueLodged in an 1877 workers' cooperative, La Bellevilloise stacks a concert hall, a basement club, an olive-tree-lined restaurant and a rooftop across four floors, and programs all of them hard — Sunday jazz brunches, weeknight café-concerts, DJ nights.
• Piscine Georges Vallerey€ · Olympic poolA 50-metre Olympic pool, originally built for the 1924 Games and refitted for the 2024 ones, with a roof that slides open over the water when the weather turns warm.
• Parc de Belleville€ · ViewpointOne of the highest parks in Paris, with a hilltop belvedere that opens across the rooftops to the Eiffel Tower — a locals' sunset spot above terraced gardens, with Belleville bars at the gate.
• Rue Dénoyez€ · Street-art laneA short Belleville lane repainted continuously for years — walls, shutters and shopfronts layered in spray paint, with someone usually at work on the next piece. The live, changeable half rather than a preserved set.