Restaurants des Deux Garçons, Aix-en-Provence

Les Deux Garçons — known locally as Les 2G — is one of the most historically significant café-restaurants in Provence, founded in 1792 on the Cours Mirabeau, Aix-en-Provence's grand tree-lined boulevard. The dining rooms retain original carved wooden booths, gilded mirrors, art nouveau lamps, and red velvet banquettes that have changed little since the nineteenth century, when Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Émile Zola, and Albert Camus sat at these same tables. The restaurant operates as a brasserie from early morning through late evening, offering coffee and croissants at breakfast, a full lunch and dinner menu of French brasserie classics, and the kind of mid-afternoon table that the Cours Mirabeau demands when the plane trees are filtering the Provençal light. The menu draws on Provençal traditions — salade niçoise, grilled lamb chops with herbs, tapenade and charcuterie boards — alongside French brasserie staples: steak frites, onion soup, and crème brûlée. The food quality is secondary to atmosphere; the reason to come is the room, the boulevard setting, and the accumulated history of two centuries of Provençal cultural life that have passed through the door. The terrace stretches along the Cours Mirabeau and is one of the finest people-watching stations in southern France. Service is attentive and professional. Wine by the glass covers Provence and the Rhône. The café opens every day of the year.