Institut du monde arabe restaurant

What the Institut offers to eat

The Institut du monde arabe runs three places to eat under one roof, on a single page of its website modified on 4 October 2026. The restaurant, Dar Mima – Ziryab, occupies the ninth and top floor. The self-service counter, Le Moucharabieh, serves lunch on weekdays, and the Café littéraire opens from 10 a.m. We found no recognised editorial review of any of them, so this page gives the Institut’s own information, with no judgment on the food.

The panoramic restaurant

The restaurant is open Tuesday to Sunday. Lunch runs from noon to 2.30 p.m., the tea room from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and dinner from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m., with the last order at 11 p.m. The Institut advises booking for lunch and requires it for dinner, by telephone on +33 1 85 14 79 25. The Institut calls this restaurant panoramic and places it on the ninth and last floor.

Photo: Romainbehar, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The self-service counter and the café

For another option, the Institut lists Le Moucharabieh, a self-service counter that serves from noon to 2 p.m., Tuesday to Friday. The Café littéraire opens from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at weekends, Tuesday to Sunday. It is also listed with the other cafés of the district on our Latin Quarter cafés page. Free of charge, the panoramic terrace of the Institut offers the east end of Notre-Dame without a table; the building itself, its collections and its opening days are in our guide to the Institut du monde arabe.

How to get there

The address is 1 rue des Fossés-Saint-Bernard, on the place Mohammed-V, beside the Seine. The closest stations are Jussieu on lines 7 and 10, Sully – Morland on line 7 and Cardinal Lemoine on line 10, between 343 m and 468 m away as the crow flies. In a straight line, the point we hold for the Jardin des Plantes is about 580 metres away and the Grand Mosque of Paris about 790 metres (we have no coordinates for its tea room, at 39 rue Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire).

Photo: Yair Haklai, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The setting

The institute’s official page places all three places to eat on the ninth floor, with a view, it says, “of the east end of Notre-Dame and of the capital”. The terrace of the restaurant is laid out as a hanging garden. The cuisine is that of “the flavours of the Arab world”, in the institute’s words. These are statements by the institution, read on 5 October 2026, and we have not checked them against an independent source.

Choosing your moment

The three places have different hours, so the choice of a place settles the choice of a time. Lunch at the panoramic restaurant runs from noon to 2.30 p.m., the tea room from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., and dinner from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. with the last order at 11 p.m., Tuesday to Sunday. The self-service counter is the shortest option, from noon to 2 p.m. on Tuesday to Friday only. The Café littéraire is the one open in the morning, from 10 a.m., and closes at 6 p.m. on weekdays and 7 p.m. at weekends. The institute advises booking for lunch and requires it for dinner, on +33 1 85 14 79 25. The café has recently renewed its menu, according to the institute, which gives no prices on the page.

Fitting a meal into a visit

The tea room, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., runs while the museum is still selling tickets, since the tills close at 5.15 p.m. on weekdays and 6.15 p.m. at weekends, so a tea can be slotted between two parts of a visit. The terrace, which is free and open Tuesday to Sunday, can be visited either side of a meal, and it closes in bad weather. The institute is shut on Monday and on 1 May, so no part of it serves meals those days.

Getting there, and the surroundings

The institute’s page lists metro stations Jussieu, Cardinal Lemoine and Sully – Morland; our distances, as the crow flies, are 343, 468 and 446 metres. It also lists bus lines 63, 67, 86, 87 and 89 and a car park open 24 hours a day at 1 rue des Fossés-Saint-Bernard.

• Jardin des Plantes: 591 metres, about 10 minutes on foot.
• The Arènes de Lutèce lie 542 metres away, about 9 minutes’ walk.
• Notre-Dame cathedral: 749 metres, about 12 minutes.
• Grand Mosque of Paris: 788 metres, about 13 minutes, where the tea room and restaurant are a separate address.

Our guide to the institute itself gives the museum hours, prices and exhibitions.

Fitting the meal around the exhibitions

On 4 October 2026 the institute listed “Vive la mariée ! Algérie, Maroc, Tunisie” from 29 September 2026 to 28 February 2027, on levels −1 and −2 and “Tenter l’art pour soigner” until 3 January 2027 on level 5. The first has its own ticket; the second is on the museum ticket. A free photography exhibition in the library runs until 1 November 2026 from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. except Monday. A lunch from noon to 2.30 p.m. leaves the afternoon for one of them, and the tea room, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., sits between the two.

Where to stay close by

The closest hotel of our database is the Hôtel Pilgrim, about 320 metres in a straight line; see also the hotels near the Jardin des Plantes; for the Latin Quarter as a whole, the Latin Quarter guide maps the districts.