Filming Locations for Emily in Paris on Netflix

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Emily in Paris is Netflix’s #1 show in the United States and many other countries following its debut Friday. Many people, including me, opted for escapism this weekend and Emily in Paris certainly delivered. The fictional series follows the story of Emily Cooper of Chicago (played by Lily Collins), who gets an opportunity to work in Paris when her company acquires a French luxury marketing firm. Emily is thrown headfirst into the cultural differences that abound between the Americans and the French, often to humorous results (and often at her own expense). The filming locations for Emily in Paris are an ode to Paris — predominantly hitting up the most iconic and familiar sites but also highlighting more obscure museums and lesser-trod parts of Paris.

As Emily struggles to adapt to even the most mundane of differences, like how the the first floor is really the second floor in France, Parisian romances seem to be literally around every corner. Her downstairs neighbor Gabriel turns out to be a handsome chef (played by Lucas Bravo), bemused and attracted by her Americanness, but there is soon a love triangle when Emily meets Camille (played by Camille Razat), Gabriel’s girlfriend who is that rare combination of too nice and pretty to hate. She meets a kindred spirit in Mindy (played by Ashley Park, from Mean Girls on Broadway), the heir to the “Zipper King of Asia” who has dreams to be a singer but is working as an au pair. Lily’s prickly boss is Sylvie (played by Phillipine Le Roy-Beaulieu, from Call My Agent! on Netflix). By the end of the first season of Emily in Paris, Emily finds a part of herself she would not have discovered had she stayed in Chicago. There are some clichés, which seems unavoidable in Hollywood’s treatment of Paris, but you’ll also find clichés about Americans displayed in the show too.

We’re seeing reports of people binging the Emily in Paris one setting, and promptly having dreams of Paris, chocolate croissants, and romance. The purpose of this article is to share the fabulous filming locations for Emily in Paris. But first for the dreamers, I’m here to tell you that even though the show is fiction, the kinship between the Americans and French is a real thing. I would know, as I got my own Parisian romance a decade ago scootering through Paris at night, eating lots of pain au chocolat and raclette, drinking countless bottles of wine from Saint-Emillion, and trying to speak French.

I used to work as a fashion merchandiser for companies like Calvin Klein, J. Crew and Abercrombie & Fitch, then took a break to tour as a cellist with an indie rock band, before going back to graduate school at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, where I founded Untapped New York. I met my future husband Augustin while backpacking in Bolivia of all places, after doing earthquake relief work in Peru. I was with my crew of American friends and he was with his crew of French guys — and we all had a hilarious evening together pretty much making fun of each other. I was already planning to do a semester in Paris with Columbia a few months later so I got in touch when I arrived.

On our first date, Augustin took me for drinks in the Latin Quarter where I lived, scootered across Paris to a friend’s dinner where I had raclette for the first time, and the rest is history. That year, Augustin even took me to the Paris Dîner en Blanc, the pop-up white party which originated there. Two years later, he moved to New York City to work for L’Oreal, we got married in 2014, I roped him into becoming the CEO for Untapped New York, and we had our daughter Charlotte in 2017. Now I also teach architecture in the very program I attended at Columbia University (New York/Paris: The Shape of Two Cities), sending off more wide-eyed Americans to discover Paris.

I know Paris and French culture well now but I still get into ridiculous mishaps, of the type Emily gets into. Not being able to find the light in the hallway of friend’s apartment resulted in me getting locked in the garage as I struggled to use the stairwells to leave the place. I’ll never, ever understand why you need keys sometimes to get out of an apartment. The washing machines are literally impossible to operate and I almost nearly broke one. And even though I can usually trick the French into thinking I speak their language, one word I’ll never get right is macaron. Not even my in-laws understand me when I try to say it!

Even though Untapped New York covers, as described by its name, New York City’s secrets and hidden places, we used to operate Untapped Paris and have a great archive of content. I was in France this summer thanks to being the spouse of a French citizen and it was glorious (you can read about that experience which I recounted for Gothamist). In tribute to Untapped Paris, here are the filming locations seen in Emily in Paris which you can use as a guide on your next visit (whenever France lets in us Americans again).

1. Emily’s Apartment

Emily is put up in a furnished apartment by her company at 1, Place de l’Estrapade, located just next to the Panthéon in the 5th arrondisement. The Panthéon is a monument modeled after the Pantheon in Rome, where some of the most famous figures of French history are buried including Victor Hugo, Voltaire and Rousseau. Emily lives on the top floor in apartment 501, in rooms known as the chambres de bonne because they were once the servants quarters. Many chambres de bonne have since been converted into apartments or home offices. My husband says an apartment number for Emily in 501 is “pas possible” because the chambres de bonne must be on the 6th or 7th French floors (wait for the whole joke about pas possible in the show). The building at 1, Place de l’Estrapade has 7 floors so Emily’s apartment would be on the 7th floor.

As viewers, Gabriel also lives in 1, Place de l’Estrapade on the fourth floor. Emily repeatedly gets confused and tries to enter Gabriel’s apartment which would be the American fifth floor. Hence, the cultural difference that spurs a romance.

2. The Savoir Office

Moving on in this guide of filming locations for Emily in Paris is the location of the Savoir office. In Chicago, Emily works for the Gilbert Group. When her boss Madeline (played by Kate Walsh) becomes unexpectedly pregnant, Emily takes her place at Savoir, a respected and venerable marketing firm for luxury products. The Savoir office is located at 6, Place de Valois in the 1st arrondisement just a few blocks from the Louvre Museum.

Place de Valois connects between the Palais Royal and Rue Montesquieu through the Passage Verité, one of the many passages Paris is famous for. The first arrondisement around the Louvre is one of the historical centers of Paris and a prime real-estate location for the Savoir to have an office in.

3. Jardin du Palais Royal

Lily Collins and Ashley Park in Palais Royal

Emily takes her lunch at the nearby Jardin du Palais Royal, after being snubbed for lunch with her co-workers. There she meets Mindy who becomes her closest friend in Paris. Mindy is watching two French children and speaks to them in Chinese. The park becomes a regular lunch spot for the two and where Mindy sings for Emily for the first time.

One of my favorite spots at Palais Royal is the Colonnes de Buren, permanent art installation of black and white columns by artist Daniel Buren. In one of the montages in Emily in Paris, you see Emily and Mindy at this art installation.

4. Gabriel’s Restaurant

The restaurant Gabriel works at is called Les Deux Compère located at 18, Rue de Fossés Saint-Jacques. It’s located just down the street from Emily’s apartment at Place de l’Estrapade. In real life, it is an Italian restaurant called Terra Nerra, and looks pretty much the same with the red awning. Next door is the bakery Emily gets her first pain au chocolat in, called Boulangerie Moderne at 16, Rue de Fossés Saint-Jacques.

Many scenes in Emily in Paris take place at Gabriel’s restaurant, from a lunch between Emily and Mindy, to a team dinner with Savoir.

5. Maison Lavaux Party

Emily attends the Maison Lavaux perfume party in a black dress, looking very Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina. The party is filmed at the Musee de L’homme, an anthropology museum at Trocadero, one of the great spots to view the Eiffel Tower.

The Cafe de L’homme, a rooftop bar, is where most of the action takes place and where Emily and Antoine Lambert (played by William Abadie) discuss the scent of the new perfume sparking jealousy from Sylvie…

6. Pont Alexandre III

Maison Lavaux has a film shoot on the Pont Alexandre III, arguably one of Paris’ most famous bridges. Emily is there to get social media content for the United States but gets into a bit of a creative argument about the optics of having a naked model walking down the bridge subject to the male gaze.

The Pont Alexander III is located between the Grand Palais and the Quay d’Orsay across from Invalides, the former hospital that is the burial place of Napoleon. The Pont Alexander III was also the location of the 2014 Dîner en Blanc.

7. Mindy’s Apartment

Mindy invites Emily over to her place for dinner (the apartment she lives in as a nanny), but it turns out to be a big house party. Mindy lives near Bastille on the Boulevard de Bastille overlooking the Canal Saint Martin and the Bastille monument. It’s also next door to the Opera of Paris’ Bastille location.

Mindy meets Fabian, a new love interest, and they leave the party to go walk along the Seine. Will he be the one? We won’t spoil too much more.

8. Le Grand Vefour

At a party thrown by Camille, Emily meets hotelier Randy Zimmer and tried to see if she can forge a partnership between Maison Lavaux and Zimmer’s hotels to provide the perfume. As part of the efforts, she tries to book dinner at Le Grand Vefour, once a three Michelin star restaurant. Emily gets the date format confused (in France, the day of the month goes first, not the month) and discovers her reservation is for November 8th, not August 11th. They end up going to Gabriel’s restaurant instead, who pulls off a last minute dinner to help out Emily.

You may recognize the Le Grand Vefour as a filming location for an awkward lunch in Midnight in Paris, where its history going back to the the 1780s when it was cafe frequented by figures like Napoleon Bonaparte, Simone de Beauvoir, Henri Balzac. and Voltaire. Le Grand Vefour is located at 17 Rue de Beaujolais in the 1st arrondisement on the north side of the Palais Royal.

9. Place Vendôme

Emily goes to a social media influencer event for the makeup brand Durée after she is invited through Instagram. Her real goal is to convince Durée to become clients again of Savoir, although she is not really told exactly why a falling out had occurred.

The influencer event takes place in a spot at the Place Vendôme and you can see the famous Venôme column in the center of the plaza. The column was placed there by Napoleon I to commemorate the Battle of Austerlitz, a successful battle against the Austrians and Russians in 1805. The Place Vendôme today is full of luxury brands, particularly for jewelry, where you can find Van Cleef & Arpels, Chaumet, Cartier, Rolex and more.

10. Atelier des Lumières

Lily Collins and Lucas Bravo at Ateliers de Lumieres

Emily, Camille and Gabriel hang out, often at the initiation of Camille who is somehow unaware of the romantic tension going down between Emily and Gabriel. One spot they go to is the Atelier des Lumières to see the Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting turned into an immersive experience. The spot is located at

It’s current exhibition is showing the artworks of Monet, Renoir, Chagall and Yves Klein. Atelier des Lumières is located at 38 Rue Saint-Maur in the 11th arrondisement.

11. The Prettiest Street in Paris

Emily and Mindy go out on the town and end up at Rue De L’abreuvoir, which Mindy says was voted the “prettiest street in Paris.” It’s located in Montmartre in the 18th arrondisement. You’ll find there the well-known restaurant La Maison Rose, where the two have dinner. Nearby the Maison Rose you’ll find the only vineyard in Paris, Clos Montmartre. At the end of the curved street, with the church of Sacré–Cœur in the background is where Emily realizes she can place the bed from the Scandinavian brand she is representing for her social media activation idea.

12. Cafe de Flore

Emily meets a new guy, Thomas, who is a semiotics professor at the Cafe de Flore. It’s one of the famous cafes in the 6th arrondisement at 172 Boulevard Saint-Germain, down the street from the other famous cafe Le Deux Magots. Cafe de Flore was a popular hotspot for Yves Saint Laurent and the fashion crowd of the 1970s, and as Thomas explains in Emily in Paris, a hangout for Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre.

Le Deux Magot was the original hotspot for the literary and artistic types like Hemingway and Picasso. Thomas says in the show that Sartre and de Beauvoir decided the cafe was “too bourgeois and they fled to the Cafe de Flore because it was empty” and it became the new cool place to be.

13. Paris Opera

Emily invites Thomas to see the ballet Swan Lake at the Paris opera house (also known as the Palais Garnier or Opera Garnier) and things don’t go so well. But she does get her chance to speak to, and apologize to the fashion designer Pierre Cadault (played by Jean-Christophe Bouvet).

The Paris opera house is probably made most famous from its setting for The Phantom of the Opera. It was built by Napoleon III during the Second Empire and took 14 years to build, opening in 1875. These days, it is home mostly to ballet performances, chamber music concerts, and recitals, whereas the Paris Opera performs at the opera house in Bastille, commissioned to accommodate more seats.

14. Musée des Arts Forains

Emily is put in charge of an American actress, Brooklyn Clark (played by Carlson Young), who will be wearing a watch by Fourtier at its flagship party. The party takes place at the Musée des Arts Forains, a museum dedicated to carnival design at Parc Bercy in the 12th arrondisement.

The over the top museum, created out of a personal collection, is worth a visit and deserves the Hollywood treatment it gets in Emily in Paris.

15. Camille’s Champagne Chateau

Camille invites Emily (and Gabriel) to her family’s champagne chateau because she’s hoping to have Emily’s firm represent the champagne brand. The episode, though not actually filmed in champagne, is filmed at the Château de Sonnay in Cravant-les-Côteaux in the Loire Valley.

According to the chateau’s website, “The “Clos de la Seigneurie de Sonnay ” vineyard received its first distinction at the Concours Agricole Régional de Tours in 1873, when Frédéric Becquet de Sonnay, ancestor of the current owners, was awarded a Gold Medal for his wine.”

16. The American Friends of the Louvre Auction

Pierre Cadault agreed to auction off a dress that Emily ends up wearing on stage for the American Friends of the Louvre. The exterior filming location is the Monnaie de Paris in the 11th arrondisement where France’s coins are minted and is also a museum. The bad-boy fashion duo Gray Space show up and things go awry….

The fashion show scene where Pierre Cadault crashes the Gray Space show is filmed in the interior courtyard of the Monnaie de Paris.

There are many more filming locations in Emily in Paris, which showcase the beautiful city of Paris. Watch all the episodes of Emily in Paris, the first season on Netflix. Check out all our popular column of television and movie filming locations!

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