The claim
A bar-restaurant by the old market halls, known for the dogs: four smoking them on the glass panels outside, more carved into the wooden counter within. The state protected both in 1984. The encyclopaedia gives the house a date of 1740, though the building went up in the 1880s when the street was cut through, and the kitchen runs from eight in the morning to one at night.
What the records show
The 1740 comes from French Wikipedia, which carries it in a summary box with nothing cited behind it, and the house's own site does not repeat it: that site says only that it has cooked in the French tradition for twenty-five years. The Ministry of Culture's notice for the building, which protects it, is plainer still — the rue du Pont-Neuf was cut through in the second half of the nineteenth century to serve Les Halles, number 33 was built for that, and a café took the ground floor. Its dated fields say the same thing without the narrative: the principal building campaign falls in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and the building is classed as a restaurant. So the year does not date drinking on these premises, and this is a C. What the notice does record is the front, with its four glass panels each carrying a smoking dog above lettering for onion soup, snails, salmon and the orchestra, and the wooden counter inside, carved with more of them: both were inscribed as a historic monument by order of 23 May 1984, on a site itself inscribed nine years earlier, on 6 August 1975. The counter is documented, but nobody we can read says in words that a visitor is served at it without eating, so that question is left open here.
What to look for inside
- Four panels of smoking dogs under glass on the front, and more of them carved into the counter
- One of the famous rooms of Les Halles while the markets were still there
Visiting
Au Chien qui Fume is in Paris, France, at 33 rue du Pont-Neuf, 75001 Paris. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_chien_qui_fume
- www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/merimee/PA00085783
- www.auchienquifume.com/
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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