There are places I’ve walked by hundreds of times in my life without ever considering stepping inside. Until recently, Cafe Marly was among them.
Is that just me? I don’t know. Probably not. We all walk past ordinary shops and cafes that don’t particularly interest us regularly throughout our daily lives, taking them for granted as fixtures in the landscape of our existence rather than places we might visit. But there are other places for me, too; places that, for most of my life, I’ve walked past because to step inside would be too indulgent, too expensive or somehow just… too much. Cafe Marly was, until recently, among them.
Cafe Marly is a restaurant within the Louvre complex. If you enter the main courtyard from rue de Rivoli, through passage Richelieu, you’ll walk past it. I know, because I have, over and over through the years. I’ve ambled by the outdoor seating area, which overlooks the Louvre pyramids, gazing admiringly at the black table tops and white fabric-covered chairs. But eat there? Somehow, I never really imagined that I could. And I certainly didn’t think that I should.
It’s not a secret that I grew up in a regular, but privileged, family in a regular central Canadian city. My family isn’t fancy. Where my taste for the finer things in life, not to mention my willingness to pay for them, came from is a bit of a mystery. Whatever its origin, I have it. I love luxury. I recognise that I can’t afford it all the time. But when I can, I can’t resist indulging – and more importantly, I don’t want to. Now, anyway. This is relatively new for me, if I’m honest, likely borne of lessons learned during our years of pandemic restrictions. A 2019 version of me would have wrestled with the idea of visiting Cafe Marly, knowing full well that she could afford to but that the same version of breakfast was available for a fraction of the price at half a dozen cafes nearby.
Ultimately, she likely would have told herself she didn’t need that special view with her breakfast and gone elsewhere. Cafe Marly, she would have told herself, would always be there. She could go another time.
The fact is, my family isn’t fancy at least in part because where we live, luxury was not, and still remains, largely inaccessible. I think that’s at least partly where my willingness to keep walking, to find somewhere more affordable that would also be nice came from. You can’t miss what you’ve never had. And as long as I stayed outside the door of Cafe Marly, I never had to know what I was missing. But the possibility that I might someday visit was, theoretically, always there.
Of course she didn’t need it – but sometimes, wanting something special is more than enough reason to treat yourself to it. My 2023 self believes that firmly. And so I giddily made a reservation for breakfast at Cafe Marly a month ahead of our recent trip to Paris. And it was a brilliant decision. It’s true that Cafe Marly serves pastry and baguettes with butter for breakfast like every other cafe in the capital. But they do it with such style. And the views alone make the visit worth every cent. I loved every minute of our early morning visit. The cafe was uncrowded just after opening, the atmosphere calm and elegant. We were able to really savour how special the experience was, without completely having the place to ourselves.
I can’t imagine a life where a visit to Cafe Marly was an everyday occurrence. It will always be a luxury, in my little world. But now that I’ve finally stepped inside and know what’s beyond the door, I know it’s a luxury that’s worth the price, at least once in your life, if your budget allows it.
In the two years that we all spent indoors, it was the things I’d never allowed myself to do, out of fear or frugality or anything else, that I regretted most of all. Breakfast at Cafe Marly was just one item on a long list of things I wanted to do someday, but likely would have put off indefinitely under different circumstances. I was so lucky to finally have the chance to walk through that door that I’d passed so many times. And even luckier that what was on the other side turned out to be everything I’d hoped it could be. Indulgent, to be sure. But an absolutely worthwhile indulgence, from the cafe table where I was sitting.
Cafe Marly
93, rue de Rivoli
01 49 26 06 60
