An Independent Guide to the Night Quarter
Rive Gauche is a culture and visitor's guide to Montparnasse and the southern Left Bank — the quarter after dark, and the century of writers, painters and musicians who made it worth staying up for.
We write about the ground between the Tour Montparnasse and Saint-Germain-des-Prés: the jazz cellars and the grand Art Deco brasseries, the studio-museums of Bourdelle and Zadkine, the Cimetière du Montparnasse, the Jardin du Luxembourg, and the streets that link the whole quarter together. The aim is simple — to be the guide we would want in our own pocket walking the boulevard at midnight.
What we are, and are not
We are an independent editorial guide to a place. We are not a venue, a club, a bar or a business; we take no bookings, sell no tickets, and hold no affiliation with any establishment named in these pages. Where we describe real institutions of the quarter — the brasseries of the carrefour Vavin, the museums, the tower — we do so as a guide describes a city, not as anyone's representative.
How we write
Every guide is reported and written by the editors. We name real places and real figures — Hemingway and Beckett, Modigliani and Brâncuși, Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir — factually, and we keep the practical detail honest: no invented prices, no invented hours, no dates that will quietly go stale. When something changes on the ground and we get it wrong, we would rather hear about it and fix it.
The guide is kept free to read. A small, hand-picked group of supporters — houses and makers of the quarter — help keep the lights on, and we keep their presence quiet and clearly marked.
Start here
New to the quarter? Begin with Ten Things to Do After Dark, or read the flagship, Where to Hear Live Jazz on the Left Bank. Then wander — the walking route ties it all together.