The Oldest Flower Shop in Paris

Stepping into L’Arrosoir is what I imagine it was like for Mary Lennox to step into the Secret Garden. It’s a gorgeous, wonder-filled space with seasonal blooms and Parisian treasures.

It’s also the oldest flower shop in Paris, according to the owner, Adrienne Ryser Acoca. Established in 1930, it’s been at the same address, 80 rue Oberkampf, but has changed names - first it was La Riviera before the prior owners changed it to L'arrosoir.

“I kept it when I bought the shop, which means watering can in English. And I don't know, I just think it rolls off the tongue. L'arrosoir,” Adrienne said.

I try to imitate her pronunciation, my tongue stumbling to make the French r sound.

“It's true that it's not easy to say for Americans,” she laughed.

It’s a balmy summer day when I interviewed Adrienne at her shop last year. Her shop is overflowing with white flowers as her shop assistants prepare for an upcoming wedding. We find a space to sit on two cushioned chairs, the floral smells wafting around us.

Adrienne is unfortunately no longer a Parisian, as she has since moved to Oslo to open a second flower shop location.

But the original still remains and she is still the owner.

L’Arrosoir is one of the oldest known flower shops in Paris.

When Adrienne came to Paris in 2016 for love, she had a dream of opening a flower shop. Her parents are florists and she worked in a flower shop for several years in LA before moving to Paris.

“When I bought this shop, the old owners presented me with the idea, and then basically said, like, if you don't buy it, we don't really care what's gonna happen to it. I thought it was at risk of becoming like a Foot Locker, to be honest, or something just completely barbaric, and I thought it would be really sad to lose such an iconic space,” she said.

While she bought L'arrosoir to save it from becoming a Foot Locker, it was a secret dream she’d had since she first started working there.

But getting to that moment wasn’t easy. She’d never really wanted to go to France but had fallen in love with a French boy after one of her friends convinced her to go with her to the South of France to visit her grandparent’s friends. Now those friends are her in-laws.

“I threatened him to leave every single day, just because I felt pretty lost [when I arrived in Paris],” she said.

“And then I spent a year here visa-less, wandering the streets, going to every single flower shop [because it] was a reminder of home. And I loved this one in particular, so I kept coming back to this one.”

One day, she noticed a sign that they were looking for a florist. In her worst French, she told them she was a florist in LA, didn’t speak French, but knew flowers.

“I started working here the next day,” she said.

She learned to speak French in the shop and jokes that she can speak flower French but can’t hold a proper conversation.

Adrienne Ryser Acoca, the owner of L’Arrosoir.

Like many things in France, flowers have seasons. Buying a weekly bouquet at a shop or the local market is very common. For Americans coming to France, living seasonally can take some getting used to.

As a California native, Adrienne wasn’t used to seasons and discovered seasons and seasonal eating and living when she moved to Paris.

“I couldn't believe when the first Fall came and all of the leaves turned orange and red, and I was in shock. And then I remember when they fell off the trees, and I was like, now it's just sticks. And I was like, Oh my God, months of just sticks, and I kept being like, just sticks, just sticks. And then, boom, all of a sudden, the sticks become bright green again,” she said.

Stepping inside the magical secret garden that is L’Arrosoir.

Before I leave, Adrienne shows me how to make a bouquet the French way. She flits around the store, pulling out bunches of white flowers, telling me the names that I quickly forget. They are varieties I don’t know and have never seen before.

She carefully strips each branch, leaving just a dash of leaves here and there. Then she crosses two flower branches to make the best, slowly rotating and adding flowers in a criss cross pattern. At the end, she ties them, and they stand on their own.

That, she tells me, is how you know it’s been done properly. Her bouquet is beautiful, both curated but also wild, as though it’s been picked directly from a field in the countryside. And like all her flowers these days, it’s seasonal.

“Learning about seasons and slow growing and all of that, I am mind blown that it's not like this everywhere. I think it's really important. And also it makes you appreciate the flowers so much more, because it comes and it goes, it's not just always accessible,” she said.

The passion flower, Adrienne’s favorite bloom.