Paris Family Black Book

We created this post in partnership with Bugaboo, inaugurating our new family travel newsletter, Yolo Junior

I’m Parisian through and through. My sister would argue I’m technically from the suburbs, since I was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, but it still counts! I grew up in the 16th arrondissement, then moved constantly, from the 2nd to the 10th as a teenager, then a short time in the 7th before settling in the Marais on Place des Vosges, where I stayed for a few years. After some time in New York, I returned to Montmartre, drawn to its faded and bucolic charm, before moving back toward the center, along the Canal Saint-Martin. I now live in the 11th, on the edge of the Marais, a neighborhood in constant motion, often described as the Williamsburg of Paris, and one that works remarkably well for family life.

Being a mother of two girls, Romy-Jane, three-and-a-half, and Louisa-May, 10 months old, has changed my relationship to the city. I travel less (well, I travel differently), and pay closer attention to what Paris offers on a daily basis. What strikes me now is its constant duality: a form of classicism, almost a village-like rhythm at times—not so far from the ‘90s atmosphere I grew up in—and at the same time an intense avant-garde energy, something that peaks during Fashion Week but never really disappears. A duality in its energy and its access to nature; in the way parks, trees and light shape everyday life. A duality in the seasons, each one transforming the city entirely, from autumn leaves in the squares to winter stillness; from spring movement along the Seine to the quiet, suspended feel of August. A duality between Left Bank and Right Bank, between restraint and momentum, and between the East and the West of Paris, which almost feel like two different cities.

Paris today is a city in transition: more open, more ecological, more attuned to new ways of living. It is slowly making space again for children, and you feel it everywhere—in the parks, in the streets, in the places opening, in a generation of parents reclaiming and reshaping the city. There is something deeply hopeful in that, a sense that the future of Paris is being built at their scale.

EAT & DRINK

Weekend/Family Tables

Le Cornichon (11th) – Our weekend ritual. Roast chicken, a proper Bloody Mary, and fries that ruin all others. Former bar-tabac turned effortless HQ for cool families in the 11th.

Les Deux Abeilles (7th) – A tea room for soft afternoons. Outstanding pastries, fresh plates, cottage-core air. A discreet refuge for Left Bank mothers and their well-behaved chaos.