Passage Brady: Paris's Covered Arcade with a Little India Vibe

Indian restaurants, grocery shops, wafting spices and colourful storefronts... Passage Brady stands out among the covered passages of Paris. Opened in 1828 in the 10th arrondissement, it lost its rotunda and part of its route in the 19th century before becoming one of the faces of the capital's Indian quarter.

Passage Brady is worth a detour for a different reason than the mosaics of the Galerie Vivienne and the gilding of Véro-Dodat. This historic gallery, which today links rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis to boulevard de Strasbourg, has become one of the emblematic addresses of multicultural Paris.

To understand its present-day look, you have to go back two centuries. The merchant Monsieur Brady, in partnership with Monsieur Briavoine, began its construction in 1825. The passage opened on 15 April 1828, with an ambitious plan comprising 113 shops and workshops, topped by housing.

The place then gathered clothing shops, resellers, reading rooms and even a bathhouse. But the hoped-for success was slow to come. From the 1830s, second-hand clothes shops took a prominent place in the gallery. At that time Passage Brady still had an architectural element that has since disappeared: a rotunda in the middle of its route.

The passage's history turned in 1854. The cutting of boulevard de Strasbourg crossed its route and made its central section and rotunda disappear. Since then, Brady has presented a configuration that is quite rare in Paris: the passage is split in two by the boulevard. To the west, between 46 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis and 33 boulevard de Strasbourg, you still walk beneath a glass canopy. On the other side, towards 43 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Martin, the second section is now open to the sky!

At the end of the 19th century, the area also attracted several Nabis artists. Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier, René Piot and Henri-Gabriel Ibels were among the regulars of the passage's restaurants in the 1890s. An artistic past that is quite unexpected given the identity Brady would develop a century later.

For it was from the 1970s and 1980s that the scene truly changed. Traders and restaurateurs from India, Pakistan and the Indian Ocean progressively settled in the passage and its surroundings. Restaurants, grocers and specialist shops gradually shaped the identity that earns it its "Little India" nickname today. The phenomenon goes well beyond Passage Brady — the neighbouring streets now form one of Paris's main Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan quarters.

Today, the covered section remains the most recognisable. Beneath the glass canopy the restaurants and shops follow one after another, while the name Brady still appears in blue mosaic on a yellow background on the floor. On the other side of the boulevard, the mood changes with the open-air section, more associated with fancy-dress and costume shops.

Address: Passage Brady, 75010 Paris 10e.