Le Contresort is a restaurant/tea parlor above all, Éloïse and Mathilde welcome their adorable clients in a mystical atmosphere, halfway between a cabinet of curiosity, a nurturing granny's living room, and a desk of a modern witch.

They prepare and serve with care and love, homemade pastries and drinks, and also home cooked meals that are a 100% plant based, they also carry in their witches'hats more than one gluten free option!

Le Contresort happily hosts special events as well, like Harry Potter night quizzes, Alice in Wonderland themed high tea parties, macabre tales lectures and so on.

Le Contresort also hosts its infamous "Focus Pocus" nights , where taromancers, palm readers, astrologers… offer their services during flash sessions, settled at different prices according to the practitioner.

Held by two pastry chefs, being also chirologist and astrologer in their spare time, the owners have always loved magic universes and lore, highly inspired by pop culture and mythology their drinks bear the names of witches such as Ursula, Yubaba or Marie Laveau.

At the menu, don't be surprised to discover real magic brews, they indeed work with the adaptogenic plants from Anima Mundi Botanicals.

Every month come and taste their very special seasonal cupcake inspired by the zodiacal wheel, try to taste them all!

All of our events are announced in advance on our Instagram page @cafecontresort or in the section "events" of this very website.

We are openly intersectional feminists and LGBTQIA+ friendly, fear not my friends, you are welcome among us.

Le Contresort is not a café designed for kids, nevertheless we try to make it as family friendly as possible: our restrooms have a "baby changing station", and we offer free menstrual protections.

Le Café Contresort: a journey full of magic

At the beginning of 2020, Mathilde is the owner of Le Politicafé, located 11 rue des Portes Blanches. Unfortunately the café's political twist isn't a success and Mathilde seriously thinks of changing the concept…when the first lock down is announced. During this forced break, she catches herself dreaming of a little girl's wish: having a witch café. Her sister Noémie then suggests her a name : Contresort, counterspell, so maybe it could beat the bad fortune that kept coming upon her during those past 3 years.

Mathilde then asks Éloïse to join the project, they both share similar experiences in the food and esoteric industry. Éloïse accepts and an Ulule campaign is started. Thanks to the solidarity of hundreds and hundreds of people, Le Café Contresort can finally open its doors on the 6th of October 2020. For 3 weeks in a row, they get a glimpse of success, but the announcement of the second lock down arrives right before the day of Halloween. The doors must close.

On the 6th June of 2021, le Café Contresort is back, long may it live!

Le Café Contresort is also a book co-wtitten by its two creators and called : Kitchen Witch, published by Webedia editions.

Who are the witches behind le Café Contresort ?

Eloïse Méhard

Fun fact, when she was little, Eloïse was extremely picky and barely ate anything at all! Yet, she followed her grandma like a shadow…Mamie Jacqueline, proud matriarch, spent most of her time in the kitchen, Eloïs was her happy little helper. That is she, who taught the young witch to be that magic lies in what we consume. Every new season, together, they made a wish eating the first strawberry or the first hazelnut of the year. Mamie Jacqueline let her grandchild know, that sometimes small happiness are hidden in a slice of apple cake!

Fortunately, over time, her sense of taste expanded, and Éloïse discovered herself a true passion for spices! In her quality of sweet tooth, this passion grew bigger when her daughters started kindergarten. At the time, the trends were all about "sweet tables"and cake design. In 2010, Éloïse then created a blog around playful pastry and baking experiments called "La dînette". Highly supported by her ex husband (hi Alister!) she passed a pastry cook exam (called cap pâtisserie) as an external candidate. Bingo, she graduated. With this impulse, she flew to London to master cake design under the teachings of the infamous Australian cake designer and baker, Naomi Henderson.

After studying sociology, and then cosmetics and beauty, she opened in 2012 le Café Noisette in Montpellier, with her business partner Aurore Lhenry. In 2016, after she had to definitely close her café, she found a new professional path, training herself at organic and plant based cuisine.

After working in several vegetarian and vegan restaurants, she left Montpellier to reach the Bordeaux surroundings and get back in touch with her old loves: the esoteric practices!

She then gets fond of chirology (the art of reading palms in a non predictive way) and gets back to the Capital, her native location. Soon before Halloween 2018 she creates her Instagram page @highfive_paris. She becomes a slasher, embodying both the profession of cheffe and palm reader, until a certain pandemic…

Eloïse is also passionate about herbalism and sound therapy. She practices the harp and rollerskate in her spare time. In spring 2022 she stars in the documentary "Make a witch" directed by Flair Production and realised on MCM, as the kitchen witch of the team. In fall 2022, her first book "Carte en mains" is published by Solar Editions.

Mathilde Fachan

As a teenager Mathilde already wanted to be a pastry cook! But the naysayer universe had, at the time, another plan in mind. After she graduated from Sciences- Po in European affairs, and a quick experience as a press agent in medias, she decided to get back to her first intuition and passes her pastry cook diploma (cap pâtisserie). After few years working in several pastry shops, she then opened the Politicafé, a bar-restaurant meaning to host political and associative events.

That place nourished a personal conviction: the one that there are strong links between cooking , the social exchanges happening during meals, the political decisions impacting the content of our plates and our health, and the cultural and emotional dimension living within our alimentary choices. There is no better holistic subject than FOOD, its approach must be global! After the first lockdown, she decides to transform the Politicafé into Café Contresort in order to stop feeling split between her business and her other activity…being an astrologer!

Fond of astrology from a very young age, she started her podcast named Z comme Zodiaque en 2018. This program is meant to explain the functioning of astrology as a reading grid of the world, and as a wonderful tool to tell stories.

Since then, she works as an astrologer offering astral charts readings, and also as a writer. She writes astrology related articles for Vanity Fair.fr et AuFéminin.com, and interview personalities unveiling their astrological themes in the podcast "C'est quoi ton signe ?" with her acolyte Marion Lagan, former creator of the Instagram account @astrolettres.

After publishing AstroMap and AstroPlanner, both illustrated by Clémence Gouy, by Solar Editions, she publishes "Le Zodiaque a t-il un sexe ?" with Larousse Editions.

Mathilde and Éloïse met via Instagram and a common social network. Quickly, they had the feeling they had lived the same things almost simultaneously! They both come from the Parisian suburbia, started universitary studies, then changed their pathways to embrace the cooking world, became entrepreneurs, had a common interest for a political vision of esotericism, both down to earth, with a good sense of humor, so many things in common! Le Contresort was born to embody their children's dream!

Eloïse and Mathilde share a common love for Britney Spears, Jane Eyre, cottage core, queer culture and bergamot. They do respect smudging magic but also the "apéro" magic. They encourage anyone to practice a spiritually able to question itself, a spirituality refusing cultural appropriation, and working in the benefit of social and political justice.

In September 2022, they publish together Kitchen Witch with Webedia Editions.