A cat café has recently opened in Paris, in the very chic Marais district. This is not, as my long-suffering dining companion imagined, a café where either cats’ meat or catfood is served, but one where customers can play with the resident cats. The first cat café, the Cat Flower Garden, opened in Taiwan in 1998, but the concept really took off in Japan, catering to urban Japanese who don’t have the space or time for a pet. And now cat cafés are a worldwide phenomenon.
“There are only three little rules,” the hostess said at the entryway to Le Café des Chats, sounding like Brad Pitt in Fight Club. “Please don’t feed the cats. Never wake a sleeping cat. And no flash photography please.”
The two-level Café des Chats is decorated like an old-school teashop, with books (feline-themed and otherwise), cat toys, cat trees and cats — cats everywhere, lounging in the elastic, boneless manner that they have, on tables, chairs and people. A laminated ‘menu’ (a catalogue, if you will) with photos and bios helps you identify who you’re playing with; all the animals are abandoned or street cats. As at similar establishments, a percentage of earnings goes towards animal rescue operations, and another portion goes towards each cat’s ‘retirement’ (French welfare works even for animals).
When we arrived at 4pm, many of the cats had decided it was nap time, snoring in piles atop one another, like wrestlers who happened to fall asleep mid-bout. We took a table, and looked around surreptitiously. What sort of person went to a cat café anyway? Obsessive cat aficionados? Lonely people desperate for a furry cuddle, even one they’d paid for?
The clientele was varied: children, groups of friends, young couples and tourists. The kids tumbled around after the cats, while the adults stayed determinedly nonchalant, clucking or cooing at passing felines, but with increasing frustration. “Mummy, he won’t move,” said a peevish nine-year-old in a violet tutu, waving a feather duster on a string in front of a dignified tabby.
A table of 30-something men with immaculate eyebrows, looking like they’d yachted in straight from the Riviera, tried to get Khaleesi, a regal Siamese cross, to sit in their laps. She stretched elaborately across their table, sniffed, and stalked off just out of reach. Downstairs, Ringo, a rotund grey furball, let a girl Instagram herself stroking his ears, then went to sleep on a table.
“We’re paying to be ignored,” I sulked, as the cats sauntered around, looking utterly supercilious.
“Well, we should have stuffed our pockets with tuna,” said my pragmatic date, who was reading a manual on deciphering whisker signals.
Many cat cafés sell snacks, which you can feed to the cats, but at Le Café des Chats, the food is for humans only. The options are limited, expensive, and un-feline-friendly: quiches, tarts, salads, charcuterie and cheese platters, organic teas from Le Chapelier Fou, fresh fruit juices, wines, beers and champagnes. We asked for tea, a cappuccino, a ricotta-courgette-basil tart, and a muffin, and ate away our hurt feelings.
The neglect was creating a feeling of solidarity among the customers, though. “Why doesn’t she like me?” I wailed, as Saha, the cat I’d been lavishing my attentions on, disentangled herself to snuggle up next to another feline instead.
“Sit on the sofa,” advised the tutu-wearing child. “The striped one likes the sofa.”
This sounded like cheating, but I sat down on the couch, and tried to impersonate the upholstery as best as I could. At once, Habby, a sleek, striped grey, picked her way through the teacups towards me, sliding nonchalantly into my lap as if we were old friends. An imperious paw came to rest on my hand. It felt like a victory, if a slightly fraudulent one, so I settled in and ordered another overpriced tea.
Cat cafés are a hit because they provide a therapeutic haven from the frenzy of urban life. But looking around, I wondered if the plot the internet has feared for years — worldwide cat domination — had come true. Here we were, like junkies or members of a cult, paying for the privilege of an audience and a short snuggle with these clearly superior beings. Were humans running the cat café at all, or was it a clever Matrix-like illusion? Was there a team of cats controlling the whole operation from a seedy back room?
I didn’t much care. I was feeling triumphant, like I’d swallowed the proverbial canary. Through the window, passersby looked enviously at me as I sat curled up on the couch, tea and cake at my elbow, a tubby, velvety cat in my arms, purring like a small turbine. Even if I was a mere cat’s paw in a sinister feline conspiracy, I didn’t mind at all.
(Naintara Maya Oberoi is a food writer based in Paris)
Follow her on twitter >@naintaramaya