Pursuing Cultplace’s dynamic of creating cultural spaces within historic sites, Renaud Barillet – founder of La Bellevilloise in Paris – and his team began an ascent of the Ourcq Canal 2 years ago. After reopening La Rotonde in place Stalingrad and La Petite Halle at La Villette, he decided to dock at Pantin to imagine Les Docks de La Bellevilloise.

Located at the foot of the Magasins Généraux warehouse facing the Canal and overlooking the Place de la Pointe, the docks will be reconditioned into a laid-back and creative haven, where visitors can come have a drink, organize work sessions, exhibitions, participate, cross paths, mingle, and eat, naturally.

In an atmosphere halfway between a friendly cafeteria, a welcoming restaurant, and a creative laboratory conducive to brainstorming, visitors will be able to enjoy tasty international products straight from the docks (or Rungis market!). The Docks de la Bellevilloise aren’t just a restaurant, they are a meeting point, a fantastic must-see that blends dynamic ideals with a culinary-artistic-social program.

For 10 years now, La Bellevilloise, a former workers’ cooperative founded in 1877, has become the main independent cultural venue in East Paris, with a far-stretching outreach that nourishes the movement of transforming industrial sites into public spaces through a selection of activities and purposes open to the general public, professionals, and institutions. Its founding act: give everyone access to education and culture, combined with limitless ideas, two guidelines that will continue in this exceptional location, with the challenge of animating this very recent neighborhood, that is growing and taking shape in the heart of the Greater Paris.