You’re hip, of so you think.
You peruse the right magazines, or so they tell you.
You read the best travel sections, as though any of them knew what was going on in Paris.
You read the most up-to-date blogs, or so they want you to believe.
And still you don’t know that Le Comptoir Général, a bar and events space across the street from Canal Saint Martin, is among the hippest spaces in Paris this spring.
Not hip as in style or attitude, not age-related or attitude-bound or drug-induced. Commercial or non-commercial, doesn’t matter. This is the hip that money won’t buy and fashion won’t help you achieve. You’ve either got or you don’t.
By July it might still be a fine place to hang out for the evening but it’ll be old news, the kind you read about in those magazines and travel sections and blogs.
And please don’t expect me to actually describe the place to you or show pictures of what hip look like this spring or tell you what nights are best or take you by the hand to lead you down the dark alley that gets you there. Either you get or you don’t.
Either you’re in or you’re out.
Up to you.
Le Comptoir Général, 80 quai de Jemmapes, 10 arrondissement. Metro République or Jacques Bonsergent. http://www.lecomptoirgeneral.com/.
© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut