We knew we would be breathing easier when France entered the nonsmoking age in January 2008 with a full ban on smoking in enclosed public places including cafés, bars, and restaurants. But the Parisian café was previously so identified with smoke and smokers that it’s been a surprise, and a mostly pleasant one at that, to discover the odors that have now been unmasked.
It’s as though, olfactorily speaking, someone had flicked a switch in the City of Light. And what’s been revealed is the very life of the café: the aroma of coffee grinding in the morning, the scent of potatoes au gratin wafting in from the kitchen as lunchtime approaches, the smell of late-afternoon plate of frites across the room, the fragrance of a perfume at the next table.
Over the past few days I’ve visited a dozen of cafés, bars, café-bars, café-brasseries, and café-bistros to get a whiff of the Parisian café circa 2008.
Along with many specific scents I’ve found that the two most notable characteristics of café culture in Paris have actually been accentuated.
The first is that Paris has further solidified its position as a northernmost outpost for year-round café culture. With or without overhead heaters (sometimes more appropriately called head overheaters), some Parisians have always been happy to sit on the terrace of a café even in the gray of winter. Outdoor seating is even more popular now that the indoor smoking ban has sent smokers onto the open-air terraces, where smoking is permitted.
The second is that while the economic life of Paris, as other major cities, tends to drive diversity of commerce and of neighborhoods (and hence of neighborhoods themselves) into extinction, there remain in any quarter a wide diversity of cafés, café-bars, café-brasseries, and café-bistros. Their smoke screen removed, cafés and bars now seem even more diverse. And many actually seem a bit more congenial now that the subtle, restrained, long-denied smoker-nonsmoker tension of the past few years is gone. (Disclaimer: I am a nonsmoker.)
According to an INSEE (French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) report based on 2005 data, about 25% of the adult population in France are regular smokers, defined as those who smoke at least one cigarette per day. (This is considered about average among European countries.) The percentages peak at 40% for men 25-34 year old and at 33% for women 18-24 years old before gradually decreasing thereafter.
I was therefore particularly interested in sniffing out the affect of the smoking ban on eating and drinking establishments in the happening quarters in eastern Paris—the 3rd, 10th, 11th, and 20th arrondissements.
Here are seven diverse cafés and bars of character, notable stops for travelers wandering the sights and neighborhoods of eastern Paris morning, afternoon, or evening.
1. 11 a.m. Café Justine
96 rue Oberkampf, 11th arrondissment. Metro Parmentier or St-Maur. A on map.
What better place to get a whiff of new Paris than among the icons of the previously smoky 20- and 30-something hang-outs on Rue Oberkampf in the 11th arrondissement. Café Justine is one of a number of spaces in this once-gritty neighborhood whose rickety wooden tables and gravy-colored walls became alternative hangs about a decade ago. Café Charbon, Café Mercerie, and Le Mécano Bar are others. No longer alternative or trendy, they are a now part and parcel of the upbeat mainstream of eastern Paris. Though their true calling is as evening restaurant-bars, the area is attractive for travelers of any age who are into daytime neighborhood wandering, perhaps with lunch in an Asian restaurant in the nearby Belleville Quarter (See Food & Drink: Southeast Asian Restaurants in the Belleville Quarter). Stopping by Café Justine for coffee this morning I find a mildly musty and homey old-grill smell. A sleepy waitress dresses the tables for lunch. Toward noon, a vague, warm, appetizing odor creeps into my consciousness. Little by little I discern a hint of grilling meat, broiling cheese, and a note of garlic. The smell comes fully into focus as the barman hangs the chalkboard announcing the day’s special: carré de porc fermier à la crème d’ail, garniture gratin de penne.
2. Noon. Le Saint Amour
2 avenue Gambetta, 20th arrondissement. Metro Père Lachaise. B on map.
Le Saint Amour covers the gamut of eating and drinking titles as it presents itself as café, brasserie, bistro, and wine bar. But I think of it especially as place to sit before or after visiting Père Lachaise Cemetery, whose side entrance is a few yards away. The row of tables by the window, behind the marble wall, used to be hidden from everything in the bar area but the smoke. Absent the smoke, the windows seem especially clear as I look out to the wide intersection where boulevard meets avenue is a reminder of urban planning circa 1850-1860, captured along with the swelling umbrella-carrying bourgeoisie in Caillebotte’s La Place de l’Europe, Temps de Pluie. Absent the smoke—and the coal and horse dung of Caillebotte’s time—the smell at this edge of Le Saint Amour is that of exhaust-dampening rain on the City of Lights, perhaps the most Parisian of all fragrances.
3. 4:00 p.m. La Pierre du Marais
51 rue de Bretagne, 3rd arrondissement. Metro Temple. C on map.
As the major market street in the northern part of the Marais, rue de Bretagne is as much a place to sit as it is to food shop. La Pierre’s indistinguishable décor is livened by a kindly if discreet staff, particularly in the off-hours of mid-afternoon. When a friend and I enter, La Pierre smells mildly of the remnant of grilling meats from lunchtime and of cleaning products. The waitress, taking our inquisitive sniffing as a compliment, informs us that she’s known as the best table cleaner in the joint. I’m trying to distinguish some other fresh, polite smell when my friend confesses that he may have put on too much cologne, Issey Miyake’s L’Eau Bleu d’Issey. A family of English travelers enters, occupying tables nearby, and before long the cologne is lost in the smell of frites being delivered to their table.
4. 6 p.m. Le Léonard
57 rue de Turbigo, 3rd arrondissement. Metro Arts et Metiers. D on map.
Sitting at a window table close to the bar used to be a rather smoke-intensive affair at Le Léonard, a laidback corner café decorated with declinations of Leonardo’s Mona and located a block from the brilliant Musée des Arts et Métiers, the National Museum of Technical Innovation. The barman and waiter appear so blasé as they wipe glasses or clear tables this late afternoon that I apologize for disturbing them to order a hot chocolate. I smell the smoke of a cigarillo wafting in through an open window panel to the terrace. At about 6:30pm the bar area fills with the scent of melted cheese on the croque monsieur that’s been set in front of a man two tables over. The couple of 20-year-olds making out on the other side of the bar don’t seem to notice.
5. 7 p.m. La Patache
60 rue de Lancry, 10th arrondissement. Metro Jacques Bonsergent. Open daily 4:30 p.m.-2 a.m. E on map.
What a wonderful surprise to discover that La Patache, a little bar by the hipster heart of Canal Saint-Martin that I’d always associated with a haze of smoke, smells of the wood that’s burning in the stove in the middle of the room. Who’d have known? With its woody smell, wood paneling, well-disposed barman, provincial preserves on shelves by the hearth, and servings of cold plates of regional victuals, this is the kind of place that you can imagine stepping into out of the tundra in winter.
6. 8 p.m. Le Petit Chateau d’Eau
34 rue Chateau d’Eau, 10th arrondissement. Metro Jacques Bonsergent or République. Closed Sunday. F on map.
Le Petit Chateau d’Eau always seemed like such a friendly, confidential bistro-bar whenever I’d walk by in the evening, so when I finally enter with a friend and take a seat at the central booth I am amazed to find that the place smells of lilies. Huge bouquets rise to either side of our booth. The waitress tells us, “I’ve always liked the looks of them, I just could never smell them.” But without any competition from smoke the smell is so strong that they may have to start buying less fragrance flowers. The atmosphere in this old bistro with its bygone tile walls and gravy-colored ceiling and zinc countertop is otherwise as chatty, amiable, and easy-going as I’d imagined. We’d intended to stay only for a drink, but the sautéed potatoes and slabs of beef and veal that were served to a table looked so appetizing that we ordered the same (a good call on our part). After we’d ordered, my friend went out for a smoke—which was a first for me and which I find far less offensive than someone walking away to speak on their cell phone.
7. 11:30 p.m. Le Pop In
105 rue Amelot, 11th arrondissement. Metro Saint Sébastien Froissart. Open 6:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m. Closed Monday. G on map.
Rue Amelot is a quiet street that whispers “Discover me” to those who venture off nearby Boulevard Beaumarchais. Among an eclectic choice of cafés, bars, and restaurants, young smokers now crowd like paparazzi outside Le Pop In on a Friday evening. I feel magically mature and alien as they part so that I can enter this tiny, spirited watering hole. I order a pint and notice the smell of smoke on the coats of two young women standing near me by the bar and then the smell of beer on the breath of the guy standing next to me as he shouts to his friend heading to the room upstairs: “You could at least say hello.”
© 2008, Gary Lee Kraut