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Cafe de Flore, Paris

The Café de Flore, at the corner of the Boulevard Saint-Germain and the Rue St. Benoit, in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, has long been celebrated for its intellectual clientele. The classic Art Deco interior of all red seating, mahogany and mirrors has changed little since World War II. Like its main rival, Les Deux Magots, it has hosted most of the French intellectuals during the post-war years.
In his essay "A Tale of Two Cafes," in his book "Paris to the Moon," American writer Adam Gopnik mused over the possible explanations of why the Flore had become, by the late 1990s, much more fashionable and popular than its rival, Les Deux Magots, despite the fact that the latter cafe was associated with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and other famous thinkers of the 1940s and 1950s.
The Prix de Flore, a literary prize inaugurated by Frédéric Beigbeder in 1994, is awarded annually at the Café de Flore.