Marché Raspail: Paris’s Most Famous Open-Air Market (Ina Garten’s Favorite)
We first learned of Marché Raspail from Ina Garten. She’s been visiting the market since she was 19 years old, when she and her husband Jeffery first discovered it. In fact, she credits this market with changing the way she thinks about food. And for 50 years, she has kept coming back. Today, she has an apartment just around the corner.
If you watched the 2024 Paris Olympics, chances are you saw the segment on The Today Show where Ina Garten brought the entire team to Marché Raspail. Each was handed a market basket and sent off with one simple rule: buy finger food only. They were shopping for a picnic, and brought their finds to a nearby park.
On a recent trip to Paris, we decided to visit the market ourselves. The selection of flowers, vegetables, fruits, cheeses, and breads was amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen fruits and vegetables with such vibrant colors.
What is Marché Raspail?
Marché Raspail is more formally known as Marché Biologique Raspail. It’s an open-air food market that runs along Boulevard Raspail in Paris’s 6th arrondissement, right in the heart of the Left Bank. It’s one of the most well-known markets in the city, and on Sundays, it transforms into the largest organic market in France, with more than 150 stalls stretching from Rue du Cherche-Midi to Rue de Rennes.
The market runs three days a week. Tuesdays and Fridays are traditional markets with fresh fruits, vegetables, cheese, charcuterie, and pastries. But it’s the Sunday organic market that draws the most visitors from all over the city. Sunday’s market has more vendors and includes meat, seafood, produce, freshly baked bread, and handmade goods from small independent producers. If you’re in Paris on a Sunday morning with nowhere to be, this is a great spot to visit. Nobody is in a hurry, and people stop to chat with the vendors. I think this is how grocery shopping is supposed to be.
Tips for visiting Marché Raspail
The best day to visit the market is Sunday, so that you can get the full organic experience and see all 150 stalls. However, I really enjoy the two weekday markets because they are less crowded, less overwhelming, and you can take your time browsing at your own pace.
If you really want to avoid the crowds, it’s best to visit the market between 9:00 and 10:00. After that, it tends to get crowded, especially around lunchtime.
What else should I do in the area?
One of the best things about Marché Raspail is where it’s located. The 6th arrondissement is by far my favorite. It’s one of the most walkable, most beautiful neighborhoods in Paris, and the market is a natural starting point for a lovely few hours of wandering. After you’ve made your way through the stalls and picked up whatever caught your eye, the Luxembourg Gardens are just a short walk away. You could even pick up a few things from the market and have a picnic in the gardens. Just find a bench or a spot on the grass, spread out, and enjoy a real Parisian picnic. It’s exactly what Ina had in mind when she sent the Today Show crew off with their baskets.
Also nearby is Paris’s famous department store, Bon Marché, and its food hall La Grande Épicerie. It’s where we buy some of the food items we like to bring home with us for small gifts for friends and family.
If you’re in the mood for a longer walk, Boulevard Saint-Germain runs right through the heart of the neighborhood and is lined with cafés that are perfect for a slow coffee and some people watching before you head on to whatever comes next.
Lunch at the restaurant Le Raspail
After the market and hungry from looking at all the beautiful food, lunch felt like our next experience of the day. Le Raspail is just steps away, and we settled in for what turned out to be one of those simple, easy, bistro meals. It was good food, no rush, and lasted far longer than we had planned.
The most memorable part, though, wasn’t what we ate. A local couple was seated at the table next to us, and somewhere between the appetizer and our croque monsieur, a conversation started up the way conversations sometimes do with strangers in new cities. It was natural, not at all awkward, and filled with normal small-talk. By the time we’d finished eating, we’d been talking for the better part of an hour.
At some point, we mentioned the sculpture across the street that had caught our eye when we first sat down. What followed was one of those only-in-Paris moments: a local couple, over a long lunch, walking us through the story and history of the neighborhood and some of the legends of the early days.
We walked away from lunch having met a nice local couple and knowing more about the neighborhood and its history than we had an hour or so earlier. That’s the thing about Paris that keeps bringing us back time after time. Sometimes the best discoveries aren’t in the markets, restaurants, or famous landmarks. They are the things that naturally happen randomly along the way.
Marché Raspail
Location:
44 Rue de Rivoli, Paris, France, 75004
Hours:
Tuesdays and Fridays: 7:00 – 2:30
Sundays: 9:00 – 3:00
Closest Metro Station:
M1 line Hotel de Ville stop
