Yet ever since you’ve spiraled up the staircase, passing the main dining room of Le Clarence along the way, a question has been nagging you, so as a waitress stops before you with a sweet smile and a tray of crab canapés you ask, “Why is the restaurant empty this evening?”

She responds, “Because there’s a private party this evening.”

“Where?” you ask.

She offers you a strange look, glances quickly to her bottle-cradling colleague, who offers a similarly strange look, then she says, ever so politely, “You’re at it, sir.”

“Oh,” you say, now feeling special, as you reach for a crab canapé from her tray and accept another pour from her colleague.

© 2019, Gary Lee Kraut

The post You know you live in Paris when…: Le Clarence appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

When car-conscious journalists showed up at Renault’s Paris showroom for a press conference about the 3rd Generation Twingo last month, the F-word (femme) was on everybody’s lips.

”C’mon, it’s a very girlie car,” explained one (male) automotive blogger who avowed that he would never be seen at the wheel of the latest model painted in glossy Cappuccino or Powder Blue.

Indeed, ever since the first curvaceous Twingo shifted gears down the asphalt catwalk in 1993 (with a name engineered to blend tango, twist and swing), it’s been billed as a feminine ride. Twingo designers describe the car’s personality as affectif and sympathique. There was even a 21st-century feminist backlash about an ad campaign (hastily-pulled) that suggested Twingo-drivers have “cute” problems with parallel parking

Thus said, the new Twingo is a city car with appeal to anyone who needs to negotiate tight corners and urban traffic. ”We’ve put the motor in the rear for added maneuverability,” says Laurent Negroni, part of the Renault creative team. ”With this Twingo, u-turns are a piece of cake.”

Coincidentally, ”cake” was also on everyone’s mind.

The Bertrand Group, owners of Angelina and the Hotel Saint James, took over the restaurant concession last May, bringing Michelin-starred chef Virginie Basselot from the Saint-James to supervise the menu. The pastry cart is fueled by Angelina.

Basselot, who acknowledges her own tween-age dreams about owning a Twingo in the 90s, designed an ephemeral autumn menu that speaks to her attitudes about the automobile. The first course, a deconstructed salade niçoise featuring a velvety tuna foam with dippable raw veggies, incarnates the adaptability of the Twingo.

For the cod aïoli with whelks, Basselot chose products that are ”simple, efficient and colorful, like the car” and topped off the meal with deliciously exotic coconut panna cotta ”because it’s all about travel, isn’t it?”

The sticker price on the ephemeral menu is 43€, although you’ll likely be tempted by fuel options like a ”Cointropolitan”, 12€, or one of the very good wines available by the glass. The restaurant just installed a nitrogen machine that keeps those Clos Vougeots from corking.

The food, good enough to merit a trip, combined with an upstairs restaurant offering panoramic views of the Champs-Elysées, make this venue one of the avenue’s more notable dining experiences. There’s also a smaller wine bar in back, set up as a table d’hôte, that can be privatized.

L’Atelier Renault Café. 53 avenue des Champs-Elysées, 8th arrondissement. Metro Franklin D. Roosevelt or George V. Open daily. Sunday through Thursday 10:30 am to 11pm; Friday and Saturday 10:30 am to 1 am.

© 2014, Corinne LaBalme

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* * *

Chozo Yoshii’s original gallery in Tokyo (founded in 1965) and its latest branch in New York City (1990) are known for modern and contemporary Asian art. However, his Parisian gallery (1972) regularly showcases French masters like Roualt, Cézanne and Matisse, often paying special attention to multi-cultural artists like Kyoto-born Ryuzaburo Umehara who studied with Renoir.

In 1980, Chozo Yoshii’s eponymous foundation opened the Kiyoharo Art Colony near Mount Fuji, taking its architectural and spiritual inspiration from La Ruche, a Parisian artist’s haven established in 1902 by sculptor Alfred Boucher. La Ruche welcomed Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger and Guillaume Apollinaire, among others. Kiyoharo almuni include César, Olivier Debré, and Antoni Clavé.

Through May 17, the Galerie Yoshii hosts the work of by Paris-based artist Kojiro Akagi. Akagi doesn’t concentrate on the obvious architectural suspects like Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. He’s just as likely to set up his easel across from a peeling façade on the rue de Faubourg Saint Martin, a row of ancient warehouses at Bercy or the obscure 16th arrondissement apartment building where Maria Callas lived.

His delicate brushwork delivers gale force charm, all the more because the details that many artists would brush away are firmly anchored in Akagi’s vision of Paris, a vision that celebrates chipped sidewalk tessera and television antennas perched like storks upon slate rooftops. Red traffic lights resemble rubies, graffiti tags swirl into sinuous calligraphy, and green plastic trash-bags are transformed into diaphanous, wind-blown frocks that might have been styled by Dior.

Honorary Vice President of the French Salon national des Beaux Arts and winner of countless awards on two continents, including the Prix La Ruche of the Association Amicale Japonaise, Akaji presents his latest book of 100 water-colors with tri-lingual texts, Le Paris d’Akagi tome V (Editions Maria) in concert with this exhibition (100€ at the gallery, otherwise 160€ list price). His paintings also figure in the collections of the Musée Carnavalet.

© 2014, Corinne LaBalme

Galerie Yoshii. 8 rue Matignon, 75008. Tel: 01.43.59.73.46. Metro Miromesnil or Franklin Roosevelt.

The post Japanese Artist Kojiro Akagi Examines the Spirits of Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

The best adjective to describe the family-run Hôtel San Régis, nestled on a side-street betwixt the Grand Palais and the Avenue Montaigne haute couture shops, is discreet. However its latest renovation, completed in 2013, is all about glasnost. Owner Elie George literally blew the roof off his “insider’s only” restaurant, which originally catered only to hotel guests. The lighter-and-brighter glass-roofed result is now open to all hungry and thirsty travelers and residents seeking a quiet refuge from museum blockbusters, Dior ODs, and Champs-Elysées traffic.

The restaurant/tea room, now re-named Les Confidences du San Régis, has a glass roof that shows off the half-timbered walls of the hotel’s attractive, provincial-esque courtyard. The new concept also includes longer hours. Jet-lagged travelers can now drop in for a cozy little chorizo-laced cheeseburger (24€), club sandwich (22€), Caesar salad (28€) or organic omelets (16€) in sophisticated surroundings from 3 to 6pm.

Reflecting the hotel’s new contemporary spin on its classic decor, the new menu adds curcuma-laced quinoa to the tomato fritters (16€) and proposes a hummus garnish with the lamb filets (34€). Quite astutely, the wine selection tends towards to affordable, rather than aspirational, vintages. The Château de Lachaize Brouilly, one of the best bargains in Beaujolais, is a case in point at 24€.

The San Régis has also expanded its tea-time offerings, with over a dozen super-stylish Kusmi teas accompanied by finger sandwiches and/or lush pastries from Philippe Conticini’s ‘Patisserie des Rêves’, like the re-visited Paris-Brest.

The latest renovation includes guestrooms given 21st century pastel update (bayberry greens, powdered azur and gold) by designer Pierre-Yves Rochon while retaining classic touches like the Art Deco style light fixtures beloved by SR regulars.

Hôtel San Régis Paris. 12 rue Goujon, 75008. Tel: 01.44. 95.16.16. Metro Champs-Elysées-Clemenceau or Alma Marceau

© 2014

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* * *

Between 1870 and 1900, a period of great influx of Jews into France, you’d be unlikely to find a wealthy Jewish resident of Paris going into the Marais for kugel or gefilte fish, let alone a falafel. Leave that to the tourists and the working class schnooks, they’d say. Well, maybe not. Maybe they’d send a servant or two to Rue des Rosiers for some kishke and kreplach or stay for a meal when in the neighborhood for some philanthropic mitvah.

Otherwise, prosperous Jews in Paris in the latter decades of the 19th century likely felt more at home among the bankers, industrialists and aristocrats of the 8th or 9th arrondissements than in the Pletzl, the Little Place, as the heart of the then-significant Jewish Quarter around Rue des Rosiers was known. In any case, wealthy Sephardim, such as the de Camondo family, a Jewish banking family that had made its fortune in the Ottoman Empire and Italy, would have been more familiar with Turkish spanakopita and kaskarikas and yufka than with the Ashkenazi fare found in the Marais, where the vast majority of Jews were then Ahkenazim. Anyway, by the time the de Camondos established residence in Napoleon III’s France in 1869, they were probably well accustomed to the foodstuff of aristocracy.

The Camondo family’s rise in wealth originated through commerce at the end of the 18th century. By the early 19th century the fortune was sizable enough for Isaac Camondo, based in Istanbul, to open a bank in his own name. Isaac died without children and so his brother Abraham Salomon Camondo (1781-1873) inherited the bank and greatly developed. Having aided Italian unification through loans to the newly formed kingdom, Abraham and his grandsons (Abraham’s son died in 1866) were ennobled by Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel II. The parallel with the (de) Rothschilds led the (de) Camondos to be known as “the Rothschilds of the east.” (See this article about the Rothschilds in Paris.)

The Camondo family’s French story begins in 1869 when the elderly Abraham Salomon Camondo followed his two grandsons Abraham (1829-1889) and Nissim (1830-1889) to Paris to further grew their successful family.

Abraham and Nissim elected to live in what was then becoming one of the most exclusive quarters in the capital, the area around Parc Monceau. Through the 1860s and into the 1870s, members of the imperial aristocracy and of the haute bourgeoisie built stately mansions surrounding the park’s genteel greenery and theatrical décor. Here one could stroll by a colonnade of Corinthian columns in partial ruin, watch duck in the oval pond of a naumachia (the basin Romans used for mock naval battles), walk over a Chinese bridge and visit an Italian grotto and an Egyptian pyramid. The sight of well-dressed (faux) explorers visiting (faux) ancient ruins on an afternoon in Parc Monceau might have been reminiscent of paintings by 18th-century French painters Watteau, Fragonard, Lancret or Bouchet found in the Louvre—or on the walls of neighborhood residence since living with great wealth now required a backdrop of great art and perhaps some antique furnishings.

Soon after they arrived in Paris, brothers Abraham and Nissim de Camondo built mansions side by side overlooking the park. Several streets away, Edouard André, heir to a Protestant banking family, built an even more ostentatious home on the new and expansive Boulevard Haussmann. When, in 1881, André married Nélie Jacquemart, they formed a couple of the most devoted art collectors in Paris. Their home and collection are open to the public as the Jacquemart-André Museum, which gets the lion’s share of museum attention in the quarter, leaving relatively few visitors to the exceptional home and collection of Moïse de Camondo.

The collectors in the de Camondo family weren’t brothers Abraham and Nissim, who arrived in Paris as business-minded adults, but their respective sons, Isaac (1851-1911) and Moïse (1860-1935). The cousins continued to live side by side after their fathers died, both in 1889.

The Republic of France was the center of the art world between 1870 and WWI, and while Isaac had a taste for modern art, Moïse (Moses) was devoted to the styles of the pre-Revolutionary Kingdom of France. Having arrived in France as a child, Moïse developed a taste in decorative arts that was more French than the French. He considered the beauty of decorative art of the 18th century, particularly the period from 1750 to 1789 (the second half of Louis XV’s reign and Louis XVI’s full reign) as “one of the glories of France.”

Moïse de Camondo, like his cousin next door, grew up in a Napoleon III-style mansion bought by his father in 1870. After the death of his mother in 1910 he had the home demolished in order to build his dream home. Modeled after the Petit Trianon, that little jewel of a palace at Versailles that Marie-Antoinette used as her getaway house, Moïse’s new home combined the luxury of a modern mansion of the 1910s with a space that could ideally present his 18th-century decorative treasures. (The former home of his uncle Abraham and cousin Isaac, which would have had much in common with the home Moïse had demolished, can still be seen next door.)

The brothers would eventually bequeath their extensive art and decorative collections to French cultural institutions. Isaac, who never married, left his collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings to the Louvre (many of them are now in the Orsay), while Moïse bequeathed his home and collection of 18th-century decorative arts to the Union Central des Arts Decoratifs. The UCAD, an institution created in 1882, is now called Les Arts Decoratifs, and oversees the Museum of Decorative Arts and affiliated museums, including the Nissim de Camondo Museum, where Moïse’s home and collection are still largely presented as he wished.

Whether or not you’re greatly interested in 18th-century decorative arts, the museum is remarkable in its combination of three different points of interest: an extraordinary decorative arts collection, the technology and services of an ultra-modern home of the early 20th century, and the life and times of the de Camondo family as bankers, philanthropists, collectors and Jews. Use of the audio-guides (free with the entrance ticket) or a human guide is highly recommended.

Rooms specially designed to receive Moïse de Camondo’s growing collection are fitted with antique wood paneling and present marquetry, inlaid tables and other furnishings by great names of French cabinetmaking in the latter decades of the 18th century, such as Oeben, Riesener and Jacob, along with paintings, bronze clocks, vases and chandeliers. Methodical in his purchases and with a sense of symmetry in his home, he often purchased items in pairs. The pieces often have a known history relative to high aristocracy or royalty, such as Marie-Antoinette’s chiffonier, a table for her needlepoint work. A room off the dining room was built to showcase Moïse’s porcelain collection, including two Sèvres dinner services (“Service Buffon”), each piece of which is illustrated by a different bird.

Advised by curators at the Louvre and the Union Central des Arts Décoratifs and in contact with major antique dealers, Moïse continued to enrich his collection until the end of his life. He sold pieces to buy better pieces.

While wishing to present the art de vivre of the ancient regime, Moïse de Camondo had also instructed the architect René Sergent to provide all of the high-luxury comforts of his own time, complete with an ultra-modern kitchen, heating, bathrooms and car park.

In an alliance of two powerful banking families, Moïse married Irène Cahen d’Anvers in 1891. Irène had been painted by Renoir as a child, her curly long brown hair falling down her back and wrapped around her shoulder like a fur cape. They were married at the Grande Synagogue de Paris on Rue de la Victoire. Five years and two children later she fell in love with an Italian count who was a racehorse trainer, the era’s equivalent of running off with the pool boy. In the divorce, Moïse was granted custody of the children.

Their son Nissim (named for Moïse’s father) was the intended heir to the home and his collection, as well as of the bank, but he predeceased has father, dying in air combat during WWI in 1917. Moïse then closed the bank and eventually bequeathed the mansion and its furnishings to the Union Central des Arts Décoratifs in Nissim’s memory.

Their daughter Béatrice showed no interest in her father’s passion for 18th-century decorative arts. She nevertheless inherited a sizable fortune. Horses were her passion, and in any case she had a family and home of her own. During the German occupation of WWII, she felt protected from expanding anti-Jewish policies by her wealth, assimilation and position in French society. By then, her late father’s Paris home and collection had become a museum. If she had inherited them the collection would undoubtedly have been dispersed since her own possessions were eventually seized when she, her husband Léon Reinach, and their children Fanny (born in 1920) and Bertrand (born in 1923) were arrested in 1942 for being Jewish and deported (Léon, Fanny and Bertrand in Nov. 1943, Béatrice in 1944) to the death camp at Auschwitz. They did not return.

This is one of the most beautiful of lesser-known museums of Paris enlivened by a fascinating family history, ideally followed up by peaceable stroll through Parc Monceau.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

Musée Nisim de Camondo, 63 rue de Monceau, 8th arr. Metro Villiers or Monceau. Tel 01 53 89 06 40 or 01 53 89 06 50. Open Wed.-Sun. 10am-5:30pm. Entrance: 7€50, includes audio-guide. Joint tickets including entrance to the Museums of Decorative Arts, Fashion and Textile and Advertising, all on Rue de Rivoli, are available for 12€.

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* * *

Perhaps the Fiat Group (Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Abarth, Maserati and Jeep) picked up on some esoteric Italian karma when they chose Paris’s Rond-Point for their showroom.  Back in the 1770s, there was an amusement park called “Le Colisée” (The Coliseum) on the site. Years later, it was the home of Meyerbeer, the German composer who loved Italy so much that he changed his name from Jacob to Giacomo.

In 2006, Fiat hired star designer Jean-Michel Wilmotte to create a spiral-centric building that bears a distinct resemblance to the toy garages of childhood dreams.  Great autos from the past make cameo appearances among the latest models. At present, the Motor Village shines the headlights on dashing Alfa Romeos like the Romeo Guilia T2 pictured below.

With Chef Vittorio Beltramelli in the kitchen, NoLita’s food is worth a detour on its own. Beltramelli trained with Gualtiero Marchesi (Italy’s first three-star chef) and with Alain Ducasse in Monaco (too many stars to count). Whether it’s a simple plate of mixed grilled vegetables, 18€, or a platter of classic vitello tonnato with capers, 22€, the execution is masterfully Michelin.

While we loved the roasted cod (or merluzzo, proving once again that everything does sound better in Italian), the dish that really wowed us was the barbietola, 22€, a can’t-be-beat beet risotto with a shot of emerald herbs and parmesan.

Aside from a few Champagnes mixed in with the Spumantes, the wine list is totally Italian, with prices that range from simpatico Toscano Ruffino, 32€, to an utterly sensazionale 1995 Tenuto San Guido, 795€.  In other words, there’s fuel for the Fiat crowd as well as for Maserati MC12 drivers.

NoLita. 2 Rond-Point des Champs-Elysées, 8th arrondissement. Metro Franklin D. Roosevelt. Tel. 01 53 75 78 78.  Open Mon.-Sat. for lunch and dinner, Sun for brunch. http://www.nolita-ristorante.fr/

© 2013, Corinne LaBalme

Corinne LaBalme, a Paris-based writer, journalist and editor, is currently developing a series of lifestyle documentaries for Muses Productions.

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As for the in-with-the-new, the Crillon, like the nearby Ritz, which closed last August for a planned 27 months of renovation, is shutting down for at least two years in order to better rise up to snuff to compete in the exclusive “palace” category of French hotels. The top-tier upgrade pandemic that has been giddily transforming the Paris hotelscape for the past five years (crisis, what crises?) has pushed the bar higher—or at least sleeker and techier—with renovations/expansions at the Bristol, the Royal Monceau and soon the Plaza-Athénée and with the arrival of Asian newcomers Shangri-La and Mandarin-Oriental and the soon-to-be unveiled Peninsula.

While prices for a room at the new begin at about $1000 per night, you could spend less and walk away with a piece of the old to last a lifetime. Consider, if you will, a pair of Art Deco-style chairs, Christofle flatware or champagne buckets, assorted serving trays, flutes or decanters, Bernardaud dishware, some framed prints, well-pressed tablecloths, bathroom accessories, mini-bars, chimneypieces, maybe even a Louis XV- or Louis XVI-style chair, bed headboard, dresser or couch. Prepare to spend more for the Lalique chandeliers. The catalogue, with starting bid prices and instructions for joining in the fun, can be viewed here. Warning: Potential buyers should keep in mind before raising their hand at the auction that an additional 29.9% in premium and tax will be added to the hammer price.

History of the Crillon

The Crillon may be getting rid of its Louis knockoffs but it’s keeping the originals, since its late-18th-century architecture has earned it a place on the list of historical monuments.

The hotel occupies the far western end of one of the two identical colonnaded facades on Place de la Concorde, designed by architect Jacques-Ange Gabriel in the 1760s under orders of King Louis XV, and the adjacent portion on Rue Boissy d’Anglas. (The police at the corner aren’t there to protect the rich and famous at the hotel but rather the American Embassy across the street.)

Gabriel’s western colonnade, though designed as single building, soon became a front for four different lots that were sold off in 1775, Louis XVI then king. The king’s architect/building manager Louis Francois Trouard purchased the far western lot and designed the mansion that first served home to the Duke of Aumont, before being sold to the Count of Crillon in the 1788.

A private city mansion or freestanding public building is called a “hôtel” in France, so the property was known as the Hôtel de Crillon long before it became an actual hotel.

The revolution may have put an end to the Crillon family—as it did to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, beheaded a stone’s throw from the hotel’s front door (did Marie-Antoinette have one final flashback to music lessons she took in the hôtel many years earlier?)—but the Crillons, having had little time to use their mansion before the guillotine ruined the view, returned to their property in 1812.

In 1906, Crillon descendants sold the property to the Société du Louvre, a company that was one of the first big players in the luxury hotel and department store business in Paris, which transformed the private mansion Hôtel de Crillon into the “do you have a reservation?” Hôtel de Crillon. The hotel opened in 1909, a time when luxury hotels spreading further west and about to claim ownership of the area surrounding the Champs-Elysées. Opening to rave reviews as French luxury at its finest, the Crillon has had an illustrious history ever since.

But the finest in luxury is far more international these days, and French hotel ownership has trouble keeping up with the big money. So, apparently, does American hotel ownership since in 2005 the Société du Louvre was purchased by Starwood Capital, which in 2010 sold the Crillon to a member the Saudi royal family. (The George V is also Saudi-owned.)

We’ll have to wait until sometime in 2015 to know what Saudi money does for the place. Meanwhile, it’s auction time: out with the old… and perhaps into your home.

Hotel de Crillon, 10 place de la Concorde, 8th arr. Metro Concorde. Public pre-sale exhibition of auction items April 12 to 16, 10am to 8pm (until 10pm on the 15th). Auction by lot April 18 to 22, conducted by Artcurial. See the online catalogue to view lots and for information on registering for the auction.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

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The ever-chic Théâtre des Champs-Elysées,  designed by the Art Deco dream-team of Auguste Perret, Antoine Bourdelle and Maurice Dénis, opened on March 31, 1913, followed three weeks later by the ever-fashionable Hôtel Plaza Athénée.

Thanks to the twin anchors of the TCE and the PA, Avenue Montaigne became an international roadway of haute couture, especially after WWII when Christian Dior et al. set up shop along the avenue.

While the venue that showcased Nijinski, Stravinsky and Josephine Baker “back in the day” focuses its centennial season on its greatest hits with a dash of 21st-century stardust, the hotel that Dior was so fond of celebrates its birthday with a year of special menus and surprises.

The TCE’s first 2013 production opened on a high note in February with Donizetti’s La Favorite, a slice of gorgeous 1840 bel canto rarely performed in its original French. Against a minimalist set by New York artist Andrea Blum, director Valérie Nègre skillfully underlined the contemporary political implications of the twisty baroque plot.

After a Don Giovanni  (seen through the eyes of Stéphane  Braunschweig) that debuts on April 25, the TCE goes into nostalgia overdrive with Le Sacre du Printemps… the earthshaking ballet that premiered on this gilded stage in May 1913. Starting in May 2013, dance fans will get numerous spins on this classic: Stravinsky’s wonderpiece plays to Nijinski’s original choreography, followed by new interpretations by Sascha Waltz and Pina Bausch.

Not to forget productions by Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan, Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, Benvenuto Cellini (Berlioz), Agrippina (Handel), The Barber of Seville (Rossini) and a dance-in-the-aisles Big Band homage to Josephine Baker and Sidney Bechet on July 5. Ticket and schedule information at www.theatrechampselysees.fr.

Meanwhile, several graceful steps away, one would expect a fashion-conscious belle like the Plaza Athénée to lie about her époque, but instead she’s releasing 100 birthday balloons over the 8th arrondissement on April 20th, drinking “Baccarat Harcourt” cocktails from cut-crystal glasses in the bar, and definitely not watching her waistline with special centennial dishes like pâté chaud de pintade truffé in her three-star restaurant which operates under the supervision of ubiquitous stellar chef Alain Ducasse.

The Plaza-Athenée is also planting 100 trees at Versailles this spring, minting a special (gold) card for her favorite customers, and offering packages that include tickets to Le Sacre du Printemps next door.

The Plaza-Athénée is classified as a “palace” (i.e. a rare and exceptional 5-star) by official French hotel standards. All the info at www.plaza-athenee-paris.com.

Théatre des Champs-Elysées, 15 avenue Montaigne, 8th arr. Tel. 01 49 52 50 50. Metro Pont de l’Alma.

Hôtel Plaza-Athénée, 25 avenue Montaigne, 8th arr. Tel. 01 53 67 66 65. Metro Pont de l’Alma.

© 2013, Corinne LaBalme

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* * *

The discreet entrance to the Hotel Fouquet’s Barriere on avenue George V, just off the Champs-Elysées, is a cross between that of an Italian pensione where you don’t know how to find the reception and an illustration by Dr. Seuss with its long couches and playful curves and colors.

The bar, Le Lucien, which is what I’d especially come to visit, was one twisting flight up.

The lounging area of Le Lucien is given rhythm by gold columns that play against violet and green velvet chairs and couches. One wall is occupied by brightly backlit empty shelves as though the background for a Kindle commercial. Warm weather opens the inner courtyard, where the busyness of the Champs-Elysées is but a silent memory.

That’s where I met head bartender Stéphane Ginouves, who in 2011 won the first Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF, Best Craftsman in France) competition for bartenders.

One reason I wanted to meet Mr. Ginouves was that I’d read in the press release that he was once in charge of the bar at the non-commissioned officers’ mess and that among his achievements prior to the MOF title was winning the “Shaker Challenge” at Disneyland Paris, where he worked at the Steak House. The resumes of most bartenders in luxury bars tend to emphasize that they’ve been mixing for the rich and powerful or the young and chic rather than for non-coms and people willing to get their picture taken with Goofy.

Having myself attended the New Jersey School of Bartending before a brief career behind a bar for wannabe mafiosi in Milwaukee, I appreciated the lack of glitter of his early career. Mr. Ginouves, born in 1974, nevertheless went on to earn himself in 2003 the title of Champion of France for Cocktail Creation and Technical Champion at the World Cocktail Competition . I went onto a career in mixing words with a few if less prestigious titles of my own. He has worked at Fouquet’s Barriere since 2008.

The other reason that I wanted to meet Mr. Ginouves was that with any luck I would get a free drink out of the interview. But what to choose?

As far as cocktails go, Mr. Ginouves professes a preference for classic rum-based cocktails while also having several non-rum creations to his name, including one consisting of vodka, guava juice, candy strawberry syrup and poppy flavoring. That’s certainly not something I would order, so after a bit of discussion I settled on another his creations called Single S, a kind of champagne julep meets whiskey sour.

I chose it because several months earlier I had been introduced to Single de Samalens, an armagnac-cum-whiskey of sorts (tasting notes further down this page) and because they primarily taught us Madmen drinks at the New Jersey School of Bartending while the wannabe wise guys in Milwaukee only ordered drinks that evoked people they dreamt of doing business with (white and black Russians, Irish coffee, Scotch and soda, Manhattans).

Stéphane Ginouves’ Single S
3 cl of strawberry puree in which fresh mint has been crushed (strained)
3 cl of Single de Samalens (8 years)
2 cl of amaretto
7 cl of champagne
Decoration: mint and a strawberry

Rooms at Fouquet’s Barriere

Unlike most other five-star hotels in Paris, Fouquet’s Barriere is part of a French group, which partially explains why it rings few bells for American travelers. Furthermore, despite the prestige of their Paris address, Groupe Barriere is better known for its hotels (and spas and casinos) in Deauville and La Baule, where its brand of luxury dominates, or for its properties in Cannes. (France Revisited review of Deauville properties are found here.)

Though its entrance doesn’t signal this hotel to be as high fashion and crème de la crème as some of the other hotels in its category, it is indeed in the same league as the others. In the 81 rooms and 31 suites, decorator Jacques Garcia has reigned in his Seussian tendencies in favor of a hearty luxury in tones of chocolate, gold and leather in the suites, creating plush 1950s revisited. The wifi is free, as it always should be these days, and, pleasant surprise, so is the mini-bar.

Hotel Fouquet’s Barrière and Bar Le Lucien. 46 avenue George V, 8th arrondissement. Tel. 01 40 69 60 00. Metro George V. Room rack rates begin at about 640€ for a standard room. Member of the association The Leading Hotels of the World.

Single de Samalens, my cocktail back-story

I first encountered Single de Samalens in 2011 at a well-oiled wine and spirits trade fair in Paris. It’s produced in the Bas-Armagnac zone of the Gascony region of southwest France. It’s not Armagnac brandy but rather an attempt by a large Armagnac producer to find additional use for its grapes and its stills.

Single was launched in 2010 and is marketed as a would-be whiskey-like spirit though made from grapes. The brand name points to the use of a single grape varietal, the ugni blanc (white), which is one of four main varietals that can go into Armagnac, and underscores the attempt to position this as an alternative to single malt whiskeys.

I brought home some of their test-tube tasters and invited a whiskey-drinking buddy over to try them. We tried the three available Singles, aged 8, 12 and 15 years:

Aged 8 years: 80% double distillation*, 20% continuous distillation. While I wouldn’t otherwise associate this with whiskey because it’s clearly grape-based, lightly floral and fruity, it can evoke certain adolescent whiskeys. It’s no competition for an average single malt, especially by itself, but it’s affable enough with ice or better yet in a cocktail, such as Stéphane Ginouves’s above. Of the three tried here, this was my co-testers preferred because he enjoyed its comparison with whiskey.

Aged 12 years: 50% double distillation, 50% continuous distillation. Clearly more of a brandy (i.e. Armagnac) than the 8-year Single and even edging toward a port with tastes of fig and plum, I found it pleasantly complex and with adequately long finish and so preferred this over the others.

Aged 15 years: 50% double distillation, 50% continuous distillation. The additional three years hasn’t added anything other than wood, while taking away some of the dried fruit. We both found it a bit leathery.

I suspect that these were early batches, which would explain the lack of appeal of the oldest product, so it might be worthwhile to revisit the subject in a few years.  For the time being it’s an entertaining concept spirit that I wouldn’t run out to buy but that I enjoyed discovering.

* Note: By contrast with the process used for this product, Armagnac is produced though a single continuous distillation process of any of four main grape varietals including the ugni blanc grape used here. Cognac is produced through a double distillation process of any of three main grape varietals, also including ugni blanc. Armagnac and cognac are both brandies but result from other differences including soil, weather, grapes, and types of oak in which they are aged.

** Samalens is a producer of Armagnac (specifically, Bas-Armagnac) that has belonged to the Samalens family since 1882. It is based in Laujuzan, 100 miles south of Bordeaux in the department of Gers.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

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The public spaces

Before seeing whether or not he deserved applause in the bedrooms and suites, the press was able to get acquainted with his work in the hotel’s main dining room, La Cuisine, where we were also invited to partake of a sumptuous array of brunch offerings and graciously served coffee, tea and the occasional hot chocolate. Altogether, the room and the breakfast were a clear sign that the Royal Monceau intends to assume its role as a palace, as high luxury hotels are called in France.

La Cuisine, which proposes classic non-gastronomic French fare for lunch and dinner, is also the most successful of the Royal Monceau’s public spaces for the way in which it allows for either intimacy and publicity, for its insouciant play of materials (cotton, leather, metals, glass), and for the backlit array of wine bottles along the walk. The room isn’t particularly unique, but even at a breakfast reception the opening felt grand indeed.

The hotel also has an Italian restaurant, Il Carpaccio, a more intimate setting, with an attractive coastal atmosphere thanks to seashell motifs leading in and out, the airiness of the space beside the hotel courtyard, and its encrusted, octopus-like chandelier.

By law, smoking isn’t allowed in the public spaces, so the hotel has created the Fumoir Rouge, a red speakeasy of a cigar-smoking room. Fans of fine cigars might wish to take note whether lodging at the Royal Monceau or not.

The reception area, bar, lobby, concierge desk mostly feel busy and crowded, and that’s even before the guests arrive. There are some surprising touches—whether amusing (e.g. the troop of wooden elk at the bottom of the brick-walled staircase), photogenic (e.g. the gathering old chandeliers by the stairs off the lounge), or annoying (e.g. the fun-house restrooms beyond those chandeliers)—but on first glance the lobby area and bar are not places that call for one to linger.

The bedrooms and suites

More importantly, does one want to linger in the bedrooms and suite?

Philippe Starck gave an impassioned explanation at the press opening as to how he tried to emulate in decorative and in design terms the way in which a writer (André Malraux was his example) might use a chair for a nightstand, or tape a drawing to a lampshade, or draw an itinerary on a city map on the desk. Those are nice images of the creative spirit or at least of a certain kind of decorative nonchalance. But once inside the rooms and suites it was clear Mr. Starck had translated those images of the creative spirit a bit too literally. Or could it be that Mr. Starck had only been speaking of himself all along?

In dominantly white rooms of decent size, lampshades are tagged with black brushstrokes or words and desktops take the form of maps “personalized” with “handwritten” remarks. The intent, of course, is to declare that a creative person once occupied this room, and for added emphasis every room has a guitar in it. It was the guitars that got me thinking of the décor of the Royal Monceau as a cross between 1930s Art Deco and The Beatles’ White Album. It would be a stretch to call Philippe Starck’s work here inspiring. Drole would better describe it.

It was therefore surprising to hear Mr. Starck say that he intended for his work here to intellectually and artistically inspire visitors, because guitar or no guitar, however comfortably one may feel at the Royal Monceau—and there is indeed comfort here—I don’t imagine that a stay in the Royal Monceau would be any more stimulating than a stay at, say, the Meurice or the George V or the Bristol or the Ritz, and there are large suites in lesser hotels with plenty of character to stimulate one’s creativity.

The idea, naturally, isn’t simply to appeal to visits from the creative set but to invite the well-to-do visitor to think of him- or herself as an artiste or as hob-nobbing with well-accomplished artistes. In a further effort to demonstrate its artfulness, the Royal Monceau also has an art bookshop, an art concierge, and a very comfortable cinema.

Qatari Diar and Raffles

After being invited to consider the artfulness of the hotel, the press heard from a representative of Qatari Diar, the real estate arm of the Qatar Investment Authority, and hence of the State of Qatar, which owns the Royal Monceau. He didn’t give a clue as to whether the Emir of Qatar ever felt the need to be creative or play the guitar, but he did say that he thought the Royal Monceau was a good investment.

The Royal is managed by the Raffles Hotels & Resorts, making this Raffles’ point of entry in Europe following its development of properties in Asia starting in the 1990s and in the Middle East beginning in 2007.

The location

The Royal Monceau is situated between the Arc de Triomphe and Parc Monceau, within a 10-minute walking radius of the Champs-Elysées, the Jacquemart-André Museum, Salle Pleyel, a number of stellar restaurants, and a variety of high-end galleries and fine boutiques. The so-called Golden Triangle of Paris lies on the opposite side of the Champs-Elysées and has a higher density of restaurants and luxury than the Monceau zone, so the Royal Monceau can feel askew with respect to that, which may be part of the appeal for the return traveler seeking out a neighborhood of residential/international business loveliness. Ternes and Charles de Gaulle Etoile are the nearest metro stations.

Le Royal Monceau, 37 avenue Hoche, 8th arrondissement, Paris. Tel 01 42 99 88 00. www.leroyalmonceau.com.

The palaces of Paris

France awards a special “palace” designation to high luxury hotels of the 5-star category. Subsequent to the initial publication of this article the Royal Monceau joined that elite group alongside the Meurice, the Four Seasons George V, the Bristol, the Ritz, the Crillon, the Plaza Athénée and others.

© 2010, Gary Lee Kraut

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