La Closerie des Lilas began as something quite different from the polished restaurant it is today.

In the 19th century, François Bullier built a vast dance hall on this spot, surrounded it with a blooming lilac garden, and called it the "lilac enclosure." Across the street, a modest tavern attached to a postal relay station quietly evolved into one of Paris's most storied cafés.

By the early 20th century, it had attracted Zola, Cézanne and the embryonic Surrealists, who met here in 1922 to draft their artistic manifesto. Three years later, a banquet at the café ended with most participants departing by ambulance. Hemingway, who lived around the corner, wrote here most mornings, calling it "one of the nicest cafés in Paris."

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the café's transformation from lilac-ringed dance hall to literary institution, placing Hemingway's Paris within the broader story of Montparnasse's golden age.