* * *

The gilt bronze equestrian statue of Joan of Arc on Place des Pyramides, across the street from the Louvre and the Tuileries Garden, is one of the most well-known and copied statues of the martyred heroine of the Hundred Years War with the English. Though glimpsed daily by thousands of tourists, few stop to contemplate the work or even to photograph it—and with good reason: they are intent are on preserving their own lives as they cross the street. Greater notice is likely given to copies of the statue in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Portland and Melbourne. Nevertheless, holding her standard high, Joan rides on here in (temporary) victory over the “invader” as a symbol of, well, whatever one group or party wants or needs her to be.

In the wake of France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), France’s young Third Republic needed her to represent a proud and unified nation marching in progress. Emmanuel Frémiet was commissioned to create the statue. No sooner was it installed on Place des Pyramides in 1874 than another invasion gathered strength: the invasion, welcome this time, of wealthy British tourists for whom the 1st arrondissement was becoming their Paris headquarters. In the decades that followed the statue’s inauguration, major new hotels opened or expanded on and around Rue de Rivoli and Rue Saint-Honoré—the Normandy, the Continental (now the Westin), the Meurice, the Ritz and others—as did shops and tea rooms and restaurants (“We speak English”).

As the prosperity and innovation of the Belle Epoque raced toward the turn of the century, a new hotel, the Hotel Regina, prepared to open on Joan’s Place des Pyramides. The Regina was under construction at the same as the Alexandre III Bridge, the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, all to be ready in time for the World’s Fair of 1900.

The Regina was founded by Léonard Tauber, working with an associate named Constant Bavarez. Eventually Bavarez would take the reins, and the hotel is still majority owned by the Bavarez family, as are two other hotels developed by Tauber, the Raphael and the Majestic, both 5-stars near the Arc de Triomphe in the 16th arrondissement.)

Enter the Regina’s original art nouveau revolving door today you’ll find yourself in the lobby of old-fashion luxury with a choice of three directions: to the left to check in at the reception desk to one of 100 rooms and suites, straight ahead into the oak-paneled English bar for a cocktail or whiskey or to the right to the new wine bar.

The Hotel Regina was refurbished in 2015 without losing any of its character circa 1900, gaining a fifth star in the process. Its room style is clear and direct in its sense of well-being, with grey, beige and off-white walls and fabrics offset with the occasional touch of red. Excellent sound-proofing allows rooms facing the street to shut out the traffic on Rue de Rivoli.

Some furnishings, notably desks, from the opening years of the hotel are still present. Several rooms might even fulfill a guest’s fantasy of living luxuriously in Paris circa 1900, both for the décor and, in the case of exceptional corner rooms, the view to the Tuileries Garden and beyond it Eiffel’s Tower, a remnant of the World’s Fair of 1889.

Having refurbished its rooms and repolished its reputation, Regina opened a new wine bar this year. The bar is a sleek, boldly lit little white box with gold trim, high saucer stools and a corner view toward the garden and the tower.

It’s a sign of the times that the old English bar is called le Bar Anglais and the new French wine bar is named Wine & Friends.

Wine & Friends is the domain of sommelier and barman Antoine Henon, who counsels and pours with the cool and gracious demeanor of a man who is trying to please but not entertain or impress. Henon supplies the wine; you supply the friends.

With friends I turned right at the revolving door to have a drink—actually four, but I’m not one to try to impress with beverage consumption. They were small glasses, several tastes to get acquainted with the pleasantly balanced Dourthe wines while getting a feel for the place.

Dourthe is a company that owns ten Bordeaux vineyards (among them Saint-Estèphe, Haut Médoc, Saint-Emilion, Pessac-Léognan, Graves) including several grand crus. Producing grower and merchant wines, it is part of the Thiénot Group,  whose home soil is in the Champagne region. Other regions are also selectively represented at Wine & Friends.

I’m not a fan of the presence of branding stamped into the décor of luxury bars as found here, but many now have them—an indiscretion that is also a sign of the times. Nevertheless, Wine & Friends (& Dourthe) offers a nice variety of wine styles.

Considering the location between the Louvre and Rue Saint-Honoré, the sense of privilege of leaving hurried Rue de Rivoli and the elegant presence of Antoine Henon, a decent bottle of wine is rather moderately priced at 29-55€, a glass at 9-15€, with several more prestigious wines available by the glass or bottle.

A glass or a shared bottle can be accompanied by a fine plate of cheese and charcuterie, as one would expect in a Paris wine bar. Foie gras and sourdough toast (tartines) topped with smoked salmon or Bayonne ham or chicken are also available.

The atmosphere depends on the aforementioned friends as well as the light, which together lend themselves to cheery aperitif, showy chicness, rising romance in fading light or post-dinner dialogue. Wine & Friends is open daily from 5pm to midnight.

The cocktail-drinker among a group of wine friends needn’t go his or her separate way since one can also get a cocktail served here from the hotel’s Bar Anglais. That bar, with its oak paneling and red velvet armchairs and sofas, is the domain of Marc Desange, who has been shaking and stirring cocktails and pouring whiskey here since last year.

Previously he worked at the Regina’s sister hotel the Raphael, another worthy stop on the Paris hotel bar trail.

Hotel Regina
2 place des Pyramides
75001 Paris
Tel. 01 42 60 35 58
Metro: Tuileries
© 2016 Gary Lee Kraut

The post Hotel Regina: Wine & Friends & Classic Paris Luxury appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

It’s a smooth evening in the lounge-bar at the Hotel Lutetia. Daniel Roca, in-house pianist and musical programmer, wends his way through jazz standards at the center of a well-oiled trio. Head bartender Gilles Guyomarch supplies a harmony of cocktails, swaying lyrical conversation from the crowd.

I’ve given Mr. Guyomarch carte blanche to prepare me something not too sweet. He keeps the first one classic Lutetia with a cocktail called Le Lutèce: Grand Marnier, Havana rum, raspberry juice and lime juice.

I clink glasses with Christine and Paul Wegmann who are visiting from New Orleans. Christine is a writer who’s also a lawyer; Paul is a lawyer who’s also a writer. When not litigating, she writes about celebrities, he writes about sports.

At 7:30 pm, the lounge at the Lutetia can feel a bit too much like the first-class lounge at a sleek airport. Most large hotel bars give that impression at this time of day. The music helps sooth that. The cocktail helps us sink into the furniture and become a part of the atmosphere. It’s a long, classy, stylish room. Before long we aren’t in a waiting room but exactly where we should be. Dinner can wait. More olives, please.

Peggy Newland, another visiting American, joins us. She’s in town to do research for an article about jazz in the Saint Germain Quarter, a welcome break from her work as an adolescent psychologist. Her daughter is upstairs in the room.

The Wegmanns soon leave for dinner. Peggy and I, satisfied with an appetizer of olives and nuts, stay for a second cocktail. Again, I give Mr. Guyomarch carte blanche and this time his envoy returned with a Hemingway Special: dark Caribbean rum, tonic, lemon juice and sugar.

Peggy and I discuss journalism and writing, pretending that we’re here for work. When the jazz trio takes a break and leaves the room silent we realize that indeed we are. We finish our second drink and separate for our respective interviews: I go to interview the bartender, she goes to interview the pianist.

Gilles Guyomarch, originally from the distant island of Ouessenant off the coast of Brittany, is one of the most faithful bartenders in Paris to judge by his longevity at the Lutetia. With 25 years of experience here, Mr. Guyomarch has seen two generations of patrons and assorted fads and trends come and go.

In recent years, he says, the tendency has been to more champagne, to wine by the glass rather than the bottle, to lighter drinks and, more regrettably, to a clientele that doesn’t bother to dress up to swirl a drink in the lounge. Such changes are part of the natural evolution of drinking since the 1980s. It’s the bartender’s job to adapt.

What’s disheartening, he continues, is that clients sitting alone at his bar are no longer interested in conversing with the bartender or even with each other. He indicates with his chin a man having a heart-to-heart with his handheld. “People want to live to the rhythm of Google… they have no patience for conversation.”

Mr. Guyomarch does have such patience. Between cocktail preparations he speaks with the calm, discreet confidence of the best hotel bartenders.

Peggy joins me back at the bar. The pianist, the double bassist and the drummer have settled back into position for another set.

Peggy and I give Mr. Guyomarch our own confidence: we’ll stay for a third cocktail.

I watch as Mr. Guyomarch improvises: vodka, Blue Cuacao, orange juice and apple liqueur for Peggy; gin, strawberry liqueur and peach liqueur for me.

I ask what these drinks are called. “It’s more difficult to find names than recipes,” he says. “We’re like musicians. I found the recipe, you’ll find the name.”

So Peggy and I take up the challenge. We allow our drinks be transported on a silver tray into the lounge.

The bar, crowded when I arrived at 7:30, had emptied out by 8:45 as dinner reservations beckoned, and now, already 10 o’clock, people are trickling back in.

Peggy’s daughter comes to sit with us for a while. We tell her that we’re trying to find a name for our drinks. While unknotting her shoelaces the color of Curacao blue, she nonchalantly suggests Buster Blue as the name of Peggy’s drink. We unanimously agree.

But we’re stuck on the name of my drink.

Peggy’s daughter has again been invited to disappear. Peggy and I head back to the bar. Daniel Roca, the pianist, having finished another set is now hanging out near the end of the counter. We ask for his help and he gives a stab at naming my drink “Apollonia.” Mr. Guyomarch rejects that off-hand as though for personal reasons. We don’t ask why.

Finally Mr. Guyomarch resolves the issue by declaring that mine would henceforth and forever be called “Gary’s Cocktail.”

I’m flattered. I now have a drink named after me at the bar of the historic Lutetia.

I’ve no illusions, of course; at other times, no doubt, the same drink has been or will be called Fred’s Cocktail or Janet’s Cocktail or Helmut’s or Achmed’s. But for an evening it’s mine. Here I am with a bright and beautiful woman whose daughter with Curacao blue shoelaces doesn’t mind being sent to her room; live jazz standards have been gliding in and out of the conversation; the bartender has named a drink after me; the pianist gives me a nod to let me know that I’ve come to the right place. The bar is mine. The music is mine. Paris is mine.

Three cocktails at Le Bar of the Lutetia will do that to you.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Hotel Lutetia. 45 boulevard Raspail, 6th arrondissement. Tel. 01 49 54 46 46. Metro Sèvres-Babylone. Cigarette and cigar room by the bar.

A review of the Hotel Lutetia on France Revisited can be found here.

The post “Gary’s Cocktail” at the Bar of the Hotel Lutetia, Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

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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* * *

Shangri-La, a welcome addition to the top tier of 5-star hotels of Paris, is a discreet establishment. Its discretion begins with its location, which is respectably askew from the glitter of the city’s golden triangle.

Detractors cite its distance from the hubbub of high fashion and gastronomy in Paris. So do admirers. Count me among the latter.

The building at the heart of Shangri-La, the former Palais Iéna, was built 1892-1896 as the home of Roland Bonaparte (1858-1924), Napoleon Bonaparte’s grandnephew. Shangri-La is an Asian chain (this is their first European venture) yet it has largely maintained the original patrician Parisian spirit of the ground-floor public rooms. They were and remain an ode to the marriage of aristocracy and industrial achievement. Shangri-La’s public spaces successfully play the Parisian parlor game of showing class through restraint, with the occasional silk vest standing by to let you know that the Shangri-La chain is indeed based in Hong Kong.

I will write soon on France Revisited of the appeal of the rooms (which start at $1000 per night), of the 19th century themes of straight lines, dark wood, marble, bronze, gilt, of the beautiful wall paper, and of the Eiffel Tower views.

L and I, however, didn’t come for the night. We came for the evening.

Le Bar

Discreetly entered beyond the hotel’s reception area, the contemporary Empire décor of Le Bar offers an easy-going invitation to dream of foreign and local adventures. There’s a faux minimalism to the center of the bar that on first glance on a relatively empty evening can make it feel that something is missing from the décor, but then we realized that it was us—and here we were!

It all came together when we took a seat and got in deep conversation about a choice of a cocktail with head bartender Christophe Léger, who previously tended at the Bar Vendome at the Ritz for 13 years.

I’d felt duty-bound to ask for a Pink Lady since that’s the house specialty, but Mr. Léger saved me from the embarrassment of sitting in front of a pink drink by explaining that the egg white and cream in it made it too heavy before dinner. After a brief bit of cocktail history—something at which the head bartenders at top hotels are known experts—Mr. Léger steered us to what can only be considered a women’s drink (something slightly sweet) for L and a man’s drink (some kind of sour) for me.

Forty minutes later there was a question of trying other concoctions and of considering a fine selection of olives and nuts as our appetizer, but then we remembered that an enticing dinner adventure awaited just down the hall.

La Bauhinia is an airy east-meets-west rotunda sporting a Maurano 3-tiered chandelier and crowned by a glass canopy.

There’s a wavering moment as you enter since you’re aware that people sit at these same tables in the morning ordering veggie omelets or paying $50 for coffee and a croissant, and your enthusiasm deflates slightly at the thought that you’ve come to a hotel restaurant and not a real restaurant. But that impression goes away as soon as the waiter pulls out the table for your date to sit on the banquette and your date, rearranging her pearls, says, “Thanks for bringing me here, I thought this was just going to be a hotel restaurant but it’s really quite nice,” and you see how lovely and comfortable she looks against a background of celadon vases.

So we toasted our good fortune at dining together.

La Bauhinia, named for the flower on the flag of Hong Kong, serves polished cuisine that’s largely French along with select Asian dishes. The hotel has a separate restaurant of more rarified gastronomy, the intimate and formal L’Abeille (The Bee), named for a symbol of the Bonaparte family. A third restaurant, Shang Palace, slated to open at Shangri-La this summer, will serve gourmet Cantonese cuisine.

We were testing La Bauhinia in springtime, so L started with a fresh salad of grapefruit, shrimp, peanuts and a spicy vinaigrette (photo below) while I took the white and green asparagus with a light leek sauce.

We then tried a second appetizer, a gift from executive chef Philippe Labbé, of braised endives with black truffles and a while truffle cream sauce—and a most pleasing gift it was, our shared favorite.

Makes you want to dive right in.

Next came L’s lotte (monkfish) and my lamb. La Bauhinia serves well prepared, non extravagant gastronomy. It’s the kind of meal one has when one wants to eat chic and well without having to deal with attitude or a picture-perfect plate. Here is L’s dish of chunky pieces of sauced-up lotte.

L’s dessert was so pretty that we simply admired it. There was a question of rather to begin by forking or spooning it. L preferred to spoon.

We followed the meal with tea, as much for the desire to prolong our communion at the table as for the pleasure of having the celadon color tea set on the table, with the vases over L’s shoulder.

L then bore her soul to me and proffered a piece of chocolate.

Neither overly refined nor overly brash, pricey but Parisian, an evening at Le Bar and La Bauhinia at Shangri-La is just right when you want to head confidently, though not excessively, upscale—and grab what life offers you with both hands.

Bauhinia at Shangri-La Hotel, 10 avenue d’Iéna, 16th arrondissement. Tel. 01 53 67 19 91. Open for breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner. Dress code: smart casual. For dinner count on 75-100 euros per person for 3 courses, without drinks, or 150-175 euros per person for an evening that begins at the bar and ends well.

Read the review of the Shangri-La Hotel, particularly its rooms, decor and location, here.

For the prequel to this article see In Transit: The Route to Shangri-La Is Paved with Good Intentions.

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