Harvest Festival? Yes, there’s a vineyard here. It’s a nod to the centuries when the village of Montmartre overlooked fields and vineyards to the north of the capital. Yet the festival, held over five days leading up to and including the second weekend in October, celebrates far more than grapes and even more that Montmartre itself. It’s a colorful, get silly, raise a glass, fun for the whole family, express your individuality, honor community, share in the joie de vivre district-wide celebration of the 18th arrondissement.

Ava Kabouchy, an American photographer and travel writer living in Perpignan, “rose” to the capital to drink in the pleasures of this year’s festival and capture its colors for this photo reportage for France Revisited.

Photo above and at top of page. One week prior to the festival, children in schools of the 18th arrondissement, supervised by their art teachers, along with the French artist known as OJAN, painted stairs to the top of Montmartre to announce the year’s theme: egalité (equality).

Having climbed the stairs with an upward view to Sacré Coeur, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, which looms over Montmartre like the top of a wedding cake, visitors crowd along the steps to take in the view of the city below.

Entrance to Clos Montmartre, the vineyard at the origin of the celebration. The Clos Montmartre (a clos is a walled vineyard) was created in 1933 on the steep northern slope of Montmartre to stem the disappearance of green space in the area. The fields and vineyards that once dominated the landscape had all but disappeared since the city’s annexation of the village of Montmartre in 1860 and the urban developments that followed. To preserve the space from building, this parcel at the corners of Rue Saint-Vincent and Rue des Saules was planted with vines.

The annual harvest festivities began one year later, in 1934. This photo is from the festival of 1939 (Wikipedia Commons). France was at war at the time, a “drôle de guerre” (phony war) indeed, but for just a few more months.

Clos Montmartre now contains about 1700 vines, with 30 different grape varieties present. The wines are blended in the basement of the District Hall of the 18th arrondissement. The vineyard belongs to the City of Paris and is managed by the local non-profit Comité des Fêtes et d’Actions Sociales de Montmartre (or du 18ième arrondissement de Paris). All proceeds are donated to local charities providing assistance to children and the elderly.

Clos Montmartre produces red and rosé wines. During the festival they can be bought by the glass (7.50€). Bottles—the current vintage is sold in 50 cl bottles at €30 for the rosé and €35 for the red—are available at the Musée de Montmartre, which overlooks the vineyard at 12 rue Cortot, and online here for delivery in France. But when first released, the price is limited only by participants’ generosity at the invitation-only auction that’s organized by the Comité des Fêtes in October. Jean-Manuel Gabert, left, historian and lecturer, recounts the history of Montmartre and its vineyard.

Dozens of musical, artistic, theatrical, culinary, wine and costume events, large and small, take place over the course of the 5-day Harvest Festival. There are concerts, street theater, a tasting trail of food and drink, a ceremony where couples come together to say “non” to marriage, brass bands, a Freddie Mercury look-alike concert, and much more more. One of the major events is the Grande Défilé, the Grand Parade, when more than fifty groups show off their finest attire. Among them is the La Confrérie des Chapeaux Fous, The Brotherhood of Crazy Hats.

Sisterhood, too, of course. As well as childhood.

Samantha Quentin, left, the Ambassador of Paris 2022, and her glamorous companions. Samantha was also chosen as Miss Cinema for the Cannes Film Festival this year. Celya Vlieghe, fourth on line, is this year’s Miss Songeons (Songeons is a village in the department of Oise). On the right is Ava Wlady, Miss Montmartre 2022.

Members of the Jardins Familiaux de Stains, the Family Gardens of Stains display communally grown produce and flowers. Stains is a northern suburb of Paris.

During the 1920s, as the uncontrolled development of the industrial revolution was taking place along with the loss of farmland and rural life, two architects, Eugène Gonnot and Georges Albenque, set about designing affordable housing and space for “workers’” gardens in the Paris Region. In Stains, 600 such gardens continue to thrive. They serve as cultivated spaces in a dense suburb as well as a gathering place for the community.

Parody, silliness and humor guide the Commune Libre de Montmartre, a non-profit association founded in 1920 by artists of Montmartre to maintain a festive, village spirit in the district. Their slogan: Pour ce qui est contre… contre ce qui est pour, For what is against… against what is for.

The Republic of Montmartre was founded in 1921 by a group of artists with less silliness in mind since its goals were and remain both cultural and charitable. Cultural in its desire to maintain and promote Montmartre traditions while keeping a wary eye toward modernism. Charitable in its support of causes benefiting disadvantaged children and others in need. Together, through culture and charity, along with a good dose of festivity, the members/citizens of the Republic of Montmartre foster a sense of community centered around solidarity, friendship and mutual assistance. The Republic’s motto: Faire le bien dans la joie! Do good in joy! The members dress in the style of Aristide Bruant, a singer at the Chat Noir, a cabaret in Montmartre frequented by Toulouse-Lautrec, who created the famous poster featuring Bruant sporting a red scarf and a black cape.

Within the festival’s theme of equality and its salute to individuality, there’s certainly place in the parade for a zebra. Meanwhile, this accordionist entertains passerby with his music and his cat.

While the Montmartre Harvest Festival naturally celebrates the wine from Clos Montmartre, the abundant wines of Beaujolais are also often associated with festivities in Montmartre. Brouilly (gamay), the largest and best-known of the 10 Beaujolais crus, is one of the wines most at home in Paris bistros and brasseries, so it’s not out of place here, as these cask-carrying fellows can attest.

Just up the street from the vineyard, La Bonne Franquette is one of Montmartre’s most noteworthy hilltop restaurants. It maintains a tradition of cheerfulness, conviviality, good bistro fare and an easy-going tour de France of wines, staying faithful to its motto Aimer, Manger, Boire & Chanter (Love, Eat, Drink and Sing), as this group of celebrants was doing during the festival. The restaurant, a gathering place for the Montmartre elite and local non-profits as well as for tourists, has belonged to the Fracheboud family since 1971. A book about the La Bonne Franquette‘s place in the history of Montmartre by Gérard Letailleur, a specialist on the history of eating and drinking establishments in Paris, has just been published in French.  A la bonne franquette, by the way, is an expression used to apply to meals that are informal, unceremonious and without any fuss or pretension.

The weather may cool at night but the atmosphere heats up in one of Montmartre’s most famous cabarets, Au Lapin Agile, a hovel of a hotspot located across the street from Clos Montmartre. Presenting talent old and new, through song, literature and poetry, Au Lapin Agile keeps alive the Montmartre cabaret spirit of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Well after night falls, while inside Sacré Coeur the Benedictine nuns who live in the priory next door help maintain the basilica’s mission of continuous adoration of the Eucharist, the crowd outside enjoys earthly delights as they continue to gather on the steps overlooking the city of Paris.

Photos © 2022 (Ava Kabouchy with the exception of the photo from 1939). Captions by Ava Kabouchy and Gary Lee Kraut.

The post The Montmartre Harvest Festival, a Photo Reportage appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

For the first-time visitor of Montmartre there is generally only one way to the top: the steep way. It’s either the behold-the-basilica honey-beeline from the Anvers metro station or a bumblebee line from the Abbesses station (with a stop at the Love Wall), unless you’re a lazy bee who, after arising from either station, takes the joyless funicular toward the summit of the Mount of the Martyrs.

But there are many ways down, whether you’re a first time visitor or not. Rue Lepic, for example, a Napoleon-era path that takes the long and gently winding way past two windmills, a view toward the Invalides, and Theo Van Gogh’s apartment (#54), eventually reaching the hub of its lower neighborhood on the final stretch toward the Moulin Rouge and the Blanche metro station.

Recently, during a stroll down rue Lepic, I found myself confronted with an essential dining question: Chicken or beef? Le Coq Rico, Antoine Westermann’s “poultryhouse” near the top of the hill, or Les Fines Lames, a beef restaurant run by a three entrepreneurial friends towards the bottom?

Chicken (and other poultry): Le Coq Rico

Since 2012, Antoine Westermann has been on a mission in Montmartre to see to it that diners at his “poultryhouse” Le Coq Rico appreciate and understand that birds can provide noble meat. His “bistro of beautiful birds,” is now seven years old, making it a very mature establishment if he is sincere in believing that “the lifetime of a restaurant should not expand beyond ten years.”

Heritage poultry with exacting sourcing and precise culinary care naturally carries a heartier price tag then the free-range chickens rotating on a spit outside of a butcher’s shop on the basse cour end of rue Lepic or served in a café on rue des Abbesses. Count 30-40€ per person for the poultry portion of the meal, before appetizer, dessert and/or beverages.

Is that too much for a main course of rotisserie poultry? Coming from the land of frozen Butterballs and baked Perdues, we may be more easily sold on the added value of well-sourced beef than well-raised guinea fowl and 120-day Bresse chicken. Westermann has said that “If animals are offered the life they deserve, it will show in the quality of their meat.” Leaving aside “the life they deserve,” dine here if in search of that quality, not to impress followers on your Instagram account—because it doesn’t necessarily look much different on the plate than the poulet-frites served in a café.

The 24€ quarter of a challan chicken that serves as the entry-level main-course bird on the menu arrived at the table resembles too much its café cousin to make me feel that I’ve arrived in the dining room of a poultry specialist. I imagine that, compared with its cousin, it led a more comfortable, well-fed life before being slaughtered and eventually slow-cooked in a broth then roasted. Still, I recommend looking further along the menu for a choicer, whole bird, despite the additional cost.

With all due respect to the friend with whom I had a tête-à-tête dinner and that quarter of a challan at a side table, I have founder memories of sharing a whole bird and several different side dishes with four others at the long table in the back. In fact, Le Coq Rico is at its best when you’re a party of three or more dining in a Thanksgiving-like spirit, starting with appetizers (15-24€) that further present a passion for poultry (eggs, poultry livers, cream of poultry soup, an offal platter, foie gras) before the whole bird is presented at the table then sliced by the staff. (There’s no poultry in the desserts, 14-16€, take it or leave it.)

In addition to the flock of heritage breeds of chicken, turkey, duck, goose, quail and guinea fowl that regularly appear on the menu, Westermann has been making a fine-feathered tour de France this year, giving a different bird place of honor of the menu each month: July honors the rustic “naked neck of Forez,” September brings in a buckwheat-fed, 200-day-old bird from Sarthe, October’s pick is a pigeon from the foothills of the Alps. As to November, that’s time to prepare for a traditional American Thanksgiving (with French turkey) since Le Coq Rico is a Turkey Day hot spot.

Westermann’s personal enjoyment of American Thanksgiving comes from his time in New York, where he and a partner opened an American wing of Le Coq Rico in 2016. The partnership split up in 2018 with the partner now holding the New York wing and Westermann retaining the Paris wing, nevertheless he has not fully flown the New York coop. He was headed there to celebrate Thanksgiving when I sat with him last year to talk turkey. Thanksgiving, he said, is “necessary for my body.”

Le Coq & Fils, 98 rue Lepic, 18th arr. Tel. 01 42 59 82 89. Open daily noon–2:30PM, 7–11PM.
For dinner count 60-70€ per person, before beverages, if selecting 3 courses. For lunch there’s a 27€ 3-course menu. The daily lunch specials are evidence of the restaurant’s (American) family-friendly leanings: Monday: mac and cheese with poultry morsels; Wednesday: poultry burger; Thursday: grilled poultry sausage.

Beef: Les Fines Lames

Calling Les Fines Lames (meaning The Sharp Blades) a steakhouse would be to attribute it an ambition that it doesn’t have. True, this restaurant primarily serves steak, decent steak at that, but no cause to talk about marbling, aging and pampered cows. Furthermore, the trio of thirty-something entrepreneurs and longtime friends—Guillaume Levevre, Thibault Tierelin and Vivien Chauveau— who opened the restaurant in 2018 are upfront about it being their service and managerial skills that led them to open Les Fines Lames rather than butcher pedigree. Beef, why not?, they like beef, many people still like beef, beef it is.

So Les Fines Lames is not a steakhouse. It is not the steak equivalent of the Westermann’s poultryhouse. It’s a 34-seat house serving steak on tables with sharp knives planted in them and within a décor of framed butcher’s tools, a display of wine bottles and a ceiling of cut wine barrels. It’s as straightforward as that. Steak—decent, tender steak—costs 28-32€ for filets and entrecotes, with a side dish (4€ per extra side dish), 59-69€ for two for a large slab of rib steak or for a trilogy of cuts. There are also 180 gram (6.3 oz.) smaller or lesser cuts, as well as hamburgers and tartare, at 16€, making for a reasonable lunch choice.

Add to those a straightforward selection of appetizers at 7-9€ (gazpacho, bone marrow, charcuterie, burratina…), an equally straightforward selection of desserts (molten chocolate cake, French bread, sorbet…) at 8€, and a selection of wines from independent winegrowers covering the French essentials, as well as a few beers, and you’ve got the kind of place you’d go to if you were a beefeater and lived in the neighborhood and didn’t want to a steakhouse—or if you were a visitor descending from the top of Montmartre and chose beef.

Les Fines Lames, 35 rue Lepic, 18th arr. Tel. 01 42 55 95 95. Open daily noon-2PM and 7-10:30PM. While seating isn’t tight, the 34-seat restaurant can be loud when full.

Additional fare on Rue Lepic

If unable to agree with your dining companion(s) on the question of poultry or beef but nevertheless wishing to eat on rue Lepic, consider Jeanne B, at #61, where you’re sure to find a well-prepared bit of everything (much of it pre-prepared), and La Rughetta, at #41, a nonchalant Italian restaurant owned by the three guys of Les Fines Lames.

© 2019, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Meal in Montmartre: Chicken or Beef on Rue Lepic appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

You’ve looked up at the wedding cake basilica of Sacré Cœur. You’ve looked down at the grey rooftops of Paris. You’ve sidestepped a beggar. You’ve seen a guy standing motionless like a statue. You’ve seen the mosaic Jesus inside the church. You’ve dodged marauding portrait sketchers as you then walked to Place du Tertre. You’ve wondered how a piece of tourist art might look in your bathroom. Perhaps you’ve had coffee, ice cream, a beer or, god forbid, lunch on the square.

You’ve been there alright. But have you done that?

Certainly not. Butte (Hilltop) Montmartre, as it’s known to Parisians, concerns the entire surrounding hump of the hill, not just the crowd-pleasing hilltop chart-toppers.

In order to “do that” you might set off on a treasure hunt to find the following:
– the Love Wall,
– the Bateau-Lavoir, a maze of studios that was a hotbed of creativity in the early 1900s.
– the sculpture of the man who walked through walls, in honor of the writer Marcel Ayme,

– the vineyard,
– the cabaret Au Lapin Agile,
– the sculpture of the man who walked with his head in his hands, in honor of Saint Denis,
– the bust of the Dalida, an Egyptian-French singer who was a cross between Maria Callas, Judy Garland and Cher,

– two or three windmills,
– the monument to Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, an artist, anarchist and cat-lover,
– the statue of the Chevalier de la Barre, a knight who was tortured then beheaded for blasphemy and became a symbol of the intolerance of a religious majority,
– and the bust of Francisque Poulbot, an illustrator of posters and other images featuring Parisians and particularly street kids, as well as one of the founders of the Republic of Montmartre.

There, I’ve just outlined many of the sights and characters you’d meet on my 3-hour Montmartre tour, minus the café, the bar and a church or two. But rather than take you on that tour in this article I wish to lead you directly to the location of the bust of Poulbot, the last on that list. Your treasure hunt ends here.

While all of the others on my list can be seen from streets and squares, you have to enter the garden at the Musée de Montmartre (the Montmartre Museum) in order to meet Pouilbot.

The Montmartre Museum is just 300 yards from Sacré Coeur and Place du Tertre yet it feels well off the beaten track. As it should since this is a connoisseur’s museum with a quiet garden café.

The museum’s permanent collection occupies a 17th-century building within a small park, just behind a zone of former studio-residences. Those studio-residences once hosted Auguste Renoir (he painted Dance at the Moulin de la Galette at this address), Suzanne Valadon, Émile Bernard and other artists from the heydays of the Montmartre art scene.

The museum pays homage to the artists associated with Montmartre from 1870 to 1914 (i.e. much of the period covered by the Orsay Museum) and to life in the cafés and cabarets during that time.

In the permanent collection you’ll meet the likes of:
– Alfred Renaudin through his painting on 1899 prior to the construction of the steps leading up to Sacré Coeur,

– Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), an artist who was drawn to the bohemian and often debauched life of Montmartre,

– Yvette Guilbert (1865-1944), an actress and singer associated here with Montmartre’s café-concert scene of the 1890s. Hear her sing here.

– And can-can dancers, of course.

You’ll see posters. (The famous illustration for the café Le Chat Noir is by Steinlen, mentioned above.)

Including the Moulin Rouge, of course.

The gardens surrounding the museum offer a view of the vineyard of Montmartre from one corner,

a secluded picnic table in another,

and mostly an airy portion around a central basin, where visitors can get a drink or a snack from Café Renoir.

The current temporary exhibition at the museum, until August 26, concerns Van Dongen and the artists of the Bateau-Lavoir.

So where’s the bust of Pouilbot? I leave that to you to find on your treasure hunt.

Musée de Montmartre, 12 rue Cortot, 18th arr. The museum is open daily 10am-6pm, until 7pm April-Sept. Café Renoir, which serves snacks and drinks in the museum’s garden, is open daily noon-6pm May-Sept., Wed-Sun. noon-5pm Oct.-April. Entrance to the museum and the temporary exhibition is 12€.

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Montmartre Treasure Hunt: Been There, Not Done That appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

by Ellen Lebelle

When it’s cold and gray in Paris, Montmartre is a bit colder and grayer than the rest of the city. When it’s cold and gray in December, you just grin and bear it and say to yourself that it’s winter, so stop complaining. But when it’s that way at the very end of March, you bear it without the grin. However, you can’t dictate the weather when you travel. It’s always either too cold or too hot or raining….

This, however, is not about the weather. This is about the shuffle. If you’ve been to a big exhibit—Monet, Matisse, Hopper, Dali—you’ve experienced it. You shuffle from one painting to the next. You try to get closer to the tiny card that identifies the piece, too low down for your aching back and in any case too badly lit. The crowd pushes you from behind and you shuffle along. You can’t get any distance from the painting either, otherwise you’ll lose your place and won’t see anything because the others are crowded so close to the wall.

This is the price of seeing art. It is also the price of major tourist attractions.

Montmartre is a major tourist attraction. When you get out of the metro at Abbesses and you see that everyone is exiting at the same station you figure you are not alone on this pilgrimage. You start the shuffle straight away.

You can’t cross the street because of the pedestrian traffic coming at you, crossing in front of you. Cars rarely venture onto these streets. There is a long line for the funicular and you’re squashed like sardines, but you make it to the top, where there is a bit of a jam trying to get out and over to the steps with a view of the white fog over Paris. You can’t see any major monuments, though, on such a gray day, and it’s hard to stay out of the way of people taking pictures of their loved ones on the steps.

The human statues are always amusing; you wonder if anyone leaves them money—you don’t. There is a harpist playing in the cold and then, further up, a violinist played classic French hits. With all this entertainment, you have to keep counting off your own group: six adults and two small children who kept changing places among the grown-ups.

You get into line to enter Sacré Coeur; only one gate is open for both ingoing and outgoing traffic, which causes another traffic jam. The basilica is cold and dark—19th century neo-Romanesque architecture, none of that light, airy Gothic of Notre-Dame. From afar it looks like a meringue topping on the hill, but up close it’s too big to take in. There are so many people you shuffle along, down the left side and back up the right, without much time to notice anything of particular interest or beauty, leaving you with the impression there isn’t any. There are very clear signs asking tourists to respect the place (no photos) and the people who might be praying (silence), but it’s clear that most visitors ignore the signs; even when a staff person puts his hand in front of someone’s camera to stop him from taking a picture, it only works until the staffer goes onto the next person. Once your little group had collected itself together to leave, it takes another few minutes to negotiate the exit traffic jam and cross through the line waiting to go in.

Between the basilica and the Place du Tertre, you may need to stop to eat. First, there is a big traffic jam of people watching the organ lady grind her mechanical organ and sing à la Piaf. You can hear her but not see her—too many people. You have lunch where everyone has lunch, which has satisfied your appetite but not your aching back, and by the time you leave it has started to snow. So now under snowfall you continue the shuffle through the pedestrian traffic to the Place du Tertre to admire the artists hard at work. You are impressed by some, but not to the point of sitting for a portrait; it’s too cold and there were too many people milling about. So you duck into a gallery to get warm and to figure out the rest of the day. You make a plan: two of the adults will take the kids home while the others go to the Flea Market at St. Ouen, a place you wouldn’t venture to in winter, even when it’s officially spring.

Then you work your way down the hill of Montmartre, again with the shuffle. It’s the same shuffle in museums, at Mont St. Michel, at Notre-Dame, in Rome, in Florence, in New Hope and along the Great Wall of China. The same shuffle, but as you get older, it only gets worse.

© 2013, Ellen Lebelle

Ellen Lebelle is an American who has lived in France for a long, long time. She is a wife and mother of four enjoyable adults. A former technical writer and English teacher, she is now retired.

Also see The Cranky Parent, The Cranky Urbanist, The Cranky Foreign Resident and The Cranky Pedestrian.

The post The Cranky Host: A Shuffle Through Montmartre appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

We are high above the cobbled streets of Montmartre in Jaspert’s garret. The cobblestone he’s holding is the medium for his latest work of art. On it he is painting in high precision a reproduction of the screen of an iPad. He calls it his “iPav,” pavé being French for cobblestone or paving stone.

An artist working in a garret in Montmartre sounds like a cliché—one sold by hilltop street artists drawing portraits and selling colorful Paris scenes. But here and there men and women still toil away seriously at their art in garrets and larger studios. Looking toward the upper floors as you walk around you’ll see their tall northern windows letting in a light that has attracted artists to Montmartre for now 200 years.

Painting with gouache (tempera) that is finally fixed with an oil varnish spray, Jaspert reproduces more or less well-known images of enormous variety: paintings, sculptures, monuments, logos, icons, personalities, objects, packaging and products.

An affection for any one of these pieces—each is unique—invariably depends in part on the viewer’s personal connection with the image reproduced. Nevertheless, at its best, Mr. Jaspert’s work creates its own, new reality as it recontextualizes those well-known images onto a medium with its own resonance: an authentic cobblestone from a Paris street.

His more successful pieces, from this viewer’s point of view, play with the contrast between the original or natural medium/texture of the thing or image represented and the medium on which Jaspert has represented it. In those cases the cobblestone becomes imbued with the image while the image espouses the cobblestone.

Among his more straightforward pieces, this die

and this encyclopedia

show the precision of his work. Jaspert works from photographs carefully selected to best reveal the colors of the images he’s reproducing. He studied industrial design and his first jobs in the early 1980s were in advertising and computer graphics, both of which have an echo in his cobblestone art.

There’s a good bit of irony in the use of some of the logos and trade dress that he reproduces. Some of them are amusing enough but failed to draw me into the conversation between the corporate intent for the image and the artist’s reuse of those images and trade dress. But in many cases the rendering makes such effective use of the medium’s surface and weight that I willingly lingered, as with this exquisite, 2-kilogram (4.4-pound) Hermes gift box.

Unlike the examples shown above, most of his work focuses on a single face of the stone, the face that’s been smoothed by years or decades, even more, of life on the street. Even when working with a single face, he uses the contours and texture and dimensions of the stone to full advantage. The mediums give heft in terms of both weight and substance, turning largely two-dimensional work into sculpture, as with the iPav, a fine piece of Flintstonian humor, that he was working on when I arrived, and this slab of ham,

and this chunk of Swiss cheese.

Meanwhile, other pieces carry far more historical or cultural baggage, as in this reproduction of Picasso’s “Guernica.”

and the wonderful perspective and echo of cobblestones of Caillebotte’s “Paris Street, Rainy Day.”

Jaspert uses the two main types of Paris cobblestones (pavés), which he obtains through contacts in the public works department: a 10x10x10 cm (about 4x4x4 in.) stone called a mosaïque and a 20x15x15 cm (about 8x6x6 in.) stone called an échantillon. A third dimension of cobblestone, a cube measuring 20x20x20 cm (about 8x8x8 in.), called a Napleon, is found in the city far less frequently but nevertheless appears in countless tourist photos since they pave the square in front of Notre-Dame. Most of the stones used in the streets of Paris are granite, along with some sandstone and porphyry. Older paving stones come from Brittany and Normandy but most now come from Portugal.

Because of their relationship with the streets below, Jaspert says, “These stones come loaded with history.”

As does Stephane Jaspert himself. Born in 1961 in Stuttgart to a German father and a French mother, Stephane Jaspert is truly a European post-war product. His French (maternal) grandfather was sent as a prison laborer to work on German farms, where he worked for the German (paternal) grandfather, among others. During the long march of prisoners as the Allies approached, the French grandfather was hidden by the German grandfather. The two men stayed in touch after the war and eventually got together again along with their respective families. The German had a son; the Frenchman had a daughter. Mr. Jaspert is the product of the relationship between that son and that daughter. He grew up in a bilingual household and is also fluent in English.

His reproduction of 17,000 year-old cave paintings from the Hall of Bulls at Lascaux reaches much further back in the mist of continental history. It’s a wonderful work that connects Mr. Jaspert’s interpretation of the icons and images that mark his world with the work of those Paleolithic artists.

He reaches far and wide in considering iconic images to translate into his work, as in these two échantillons.

As an artist Jaspert worked on various media in the 1990s—canvas, paper, wood, metal and glass—before hitting upon cobblestones in 1999. He now feels that his work is fully rooted in these stones. “I’m going to do this until my death,” he says, “I’m not going to change anymore.”

Having seen the variety of his work, I don’t believe him.

***

Photos of about 200 of Stephane Jaspert’s cobblestone art painted since 1999 can be found see on the artist’s website. Those interested in purchasing his work may contact Mr. Jaspert through the site to learn about any current exhibitions and gallery representation or for a private showing.

© 2012 Gary Lee Kraut

The post Stephane Jaspert’s Cobblestone Art: From the Streets of Paris to a Garret in Montmartre appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

As all businesses in this part of Montmartre, these three attract both residents and tourists. That’s a good sign seeing that from the plateau at top of the hill, where everything is devoted to tourism, you wouldn’t think that anyone actually lives in Montmartre. Montmartre is, in fact, a large, dense residential zone bordered by Boulevard de Clichy, Boulevard de Rochechouart, Boulevard Barbès, Rue Custine and Rue Caulaincourt.

This short list of notable brunch places concerns only the western part of that zone. Outside of brunch-time, you need only witness the buzz in the cafes on Rue des Abbesses or on Rue Caulaincourt in winter to understand how residential Montmartre truly is and what sociable characters inhabit this part of the 18th arrondissement.

Le Café Qui Parle, 24 rue Caulaincourt, 18th arr. Metro Abbesses or Blanche. Tel. 01 46 06 06 88. Serving brunch on 10am-4pm Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Reservations not taken. Otherwise a café and a restaurant. Closed Sun. evening.

A bountiful buffet and tableside service for beverage, all at a few euros less than most brunches in Paris, makes this one of the top choices anywhere in Montmartre. That explains the line that forms outside by noon, or even by 11:30am. Come before 11:30 or after 2 to avoid a long line.

If no seats are available you can always pick up some good sweet or savory offerings at the excellent Goutran Cherrier bakery across the street at 22 rue Caulaincourt.

After brunch, consider a stroll nearby in the atmospheric Montmartre Cemetery, final resting place to Degas, Berlioz, Offenbach, Nijinsky, Truffaut, Stendhal, Zola, Dalida and 22,000 others.

Coquelicot, 24 rue des Abbesses, 18th arr. Metro Abbesses or Pigalle. Tel. 01 46 06 18 77.

Coquelicot, meaning poppy (you will see red poppy flowers everywhere), is primarily a bakery though it also acts as a café. The high quality bread at Coquelicot is a good reason to stop here. Since it’s primarily a bakery it is, of the three places noted here, the least attractive for a lengthy sit. Unlike the other two on this list, however, there’s an easy way to beat the weekend brunch crowds: come for brunch during the week. You can reserve or just stop by. Coquelicot also serves a various types of simple breakfast, a wise choice for the weekday traveler.

In addition to the tables outside and on the ground floor there’s plenty of (tight) seating upstairs.

This reputable moderately-priced restaurant, otherwise serving a range of Paris classics, proposes a pleasing Sunday brunch. Decent though not exceptional as far as brunches go, but the place is appealing for a long brunch sit, without the constant bustle of the two mentioned above. And on the approach to this restaurant Rue Tholozé has a great uphill views toward the windmill of the Moulin de la Galette, the open-air dance bar subject of Renoir’s famous “Bal du Moulin de la Galette” in the Orsay Museum.

Kudos to owner Ludovic Janssens for being such a friendly and accommodating owner when I brunched here. He was willing to remake the pancake batter when I told him the pancakes were too thin, which he quickly saw was true. Most owners in Paris would have simply invited me to pay the bill and leave. Pancakes are typically served as part of the dessert portion of brunch in Paris and, even at their best, tend to be less fluffy and contain less flour than their American counterparts.

Prices
A typical brunch in Paris runs 17-26 euros and naturally much more in luxury hotels and fashion-conscious restaurants. Le Café Qui Parle and Coquelicot are in the lower end of that range. Le Petit Parisien, which is a restaurant, is mid-range.

© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

Comments may be left below.

The post Brunch in Montmartre appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The cusp of spring is prime time for skytrees, and the images below, taken in the third weeks of March, are prime examples of skytrees in Paris: Arc de Triomphe, Notre-Dame, Saint Sulpice and Montmartre/Sacré Coeur by nightfall.

My favorite early spring skytrees were noticed during a recent evening while wandering around Montmartre before meeting friends for dinner.

Dinner too was a treat. We dined at Le Grand 8, a highly recommendable moderately-priced restaurant just downhill from Sacré Coeur on its lesser visited eastern side. There, Kamel Tabti and Stéphane Tomeï and their staff amiably serve simply and well-prepared dishes and natural/organic wines. It’s at once urbane, rustic and homey.

Le Grand 8. 8 rue Lamarck, 18th arrondissement. Tel. 01 42 55 04 55. Metro Anvers. Open for lunch Sat. and Sun. noon-3pm, for dinner Wed-Sun. 7-11:30pm. Reservations are advisable. www.legrand8.fr

The post Skytrees: Montmartre By Nightfall appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Meanwhile, on the side streets and alleyways of Cairo and Alexandria, some of the surprising yet ordinary colors of the Egyptian night have gone unnoticed.

But they were there all along—the pastel greens, the magical blues, the luxuriant reds and the languid golden yellows, lit by street lamps and neon lights and bulbs in stairwells.

And they are now in Montmartre in an exhibition of the photographs by Thibault de Puyfontaine showing until March 27 at the Little Big Galerie.

Mr. de Puyfontaine’s night images look like dreamscapes but they are indeed real. His “Late Colors,” as he has entitled the series, are neither modified nor constructed but rather found, witnessed, perhaps awaited.

Mr. de Puyfontaine’s night are warm but not hot. His eye appears to be seeking an impassive idyll, far removed from raw emotion of the type we’ve witnessed on television these past few weeks.

Well lit by streetlamps or neon lights or bulbs in stairwells, there are few dark shadows in these scenes. The photographer’s framing is at times ominously silent yet one rarely senses danger or intrigue in these photographs. They are patient and nostalgic without melancholy. I am reminded in some of the images in the exhibition of timeless photographs of Montmartre at night, with Cairo’s green-red-blue in place of Paris’s yellow-gold-beige.

There are few people in these night images, yet the photographer is indeed examining the artifacts of the inhabitants: panels leaning against a wall, a fleeting view of a man by a pool table, a chair and an empty stand outside what might be a closed shop, handprints of blood from a sacrificed animal during the feast of Eid al-Adha (below). The photographer has muted the sounds of the city but I suspect that the inhabitants are still well awake and have simply gone inside for the night.

Born in 1980 in Clichy, a suburb of Paris, Thibault de Puyfontaine is just beginning to spread his wings as a photographer. Most of the photographs from “Late Colors” were taken over several years as he returned to Egypt for about one month every three months from 2007 to early 2010. During that time he became increasingly interested in photographing its cities by night.

Having discovered a passion for “Late Colors,” he now considers the work of the period represented in this exhibition as Chapter 1 of an international project to photograph cities at night. His most recent photo in the show was actually taken Mozambique. Below, he stands in front of that image, entitled “The Train of Blade Runner.”

Next stop, he says: Asia.

Late Colors by Thibault de Puyfontaine, Feb. 8 to March 27
Little Big Galerie, 45 rue Lepic, 18th arrondissement. http://www.littlebiggalerie.com/. Tel. 01 42 52 81 25. Open Tues.-Sun. 2:30pm-7:30pm, Sat. 11am-7:30pm. Little Big Galerie is exclusively devoted to photography. To continue the mood of colored alleys and discover a little-known piece of Montmartre, ask to visit the cul-de-sac behind the gallery.

(c) 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Montmartre By Day, Egypt By Night appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The event is at once a celebration of community and folklore and of course wine in the wide neighborhood that, unsuspecting to most first-time visitors to Montmartre, lies just beyond Sacré Coeur and the tourist scene on Place du Tertre.

In 1932 a third-of-an-acre plot on the northern face of the hill of Montmartre was usurped by City Hall and planted with vines as both a reminder of Montmartre’s winegrowing history and as a way of preventing a developer from taking over the lot. Baptized Clos Montmartre, the vines are primarily gamay with some pinot noir and a few hybrid vines thrown into the mix.

Two smaller vine plots in this, the 18th, arrondissement also get attention during the festival: Clos Bretonneau, a part of Hospital Bretonneau, located across the street from Montmartre Cemetery, and a handful of vines in the Ruisseau Gardens near Porte de Clignancourt. However it is Clos Montmartre, by the corner of Rue des Saules and Rue Saint Vincent, across the street from the old cabaret Le Lapin Agile, that stands as the declaration of independence of the Republic of Montmartre and as the excuse for Montmartre’s annual Grape Harvest Festival since 1934.

Wine auction

In addition to its celebration of all things Montmartre, the festival is also the occasion to raise money for local causes. What better way then to raise funds than through a wine auction—not of the wines of Clos Montmartre (a doubtful production but by all accounts improving) but by wines from around France donated for the occasion. Auction items formed a wine lover’s tour de France: Alsace, Burgundy, Corsica, Provence, Languedoc, Bordeaux, Jurançon (southwest) and much from the Rhone Valley. A bottle of Clos Montmartre (ostensibly priced at 45 euros) was given with each lot of auctioned wine.

The auction took place this year at La Bonne Franquette, located just uphill from the vineyard and one of the many restaurant/wine halls that earned Montmartre its reputation as a place the party in late 19th-century Paris. La Bonne Franquette’s motto, written on its façade is “Aimer, Manger, Boire & Chanter” – Love, Eat, Drink & Sing.

The charity wine auction is by invitation only, which may explain why the atmosphere was rather subdued, with few mounting bids. Nevertheless, under the hammer of auctioneer Pierre Cornette de Saint-Cyr and with wine commentary provided by Enrico Bernardo, winner of Best Sommelier in the World in 2004, and Thierry Desseauve, co-author of Le Grand Guide des Vins de France, and the encouragement of Brigitte Houdinière, president of the 18th arrondissement’s Events and Social Actions Committee, about 8500 euros was raised for local charities.

Afterwards donors, auctioneers, several attending winemakers who’d contributed bottles for the auction, and assorted others were invited to stay for dinner.

La Bonne Franquette

The term à la bonne franquette is loosely translated as “eating simply, without ceremony” but further indicates a relaxed meal among friends. One can certainly eat well à la bonne franquette, as we did that evening, but one does so without expecting gastronomy or formality.

A sign on the façade of La Bonne Franquette indicates that Pissaro, Sisley, Degas, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others once frequented the joint (without ceremony) and that its garden is depicted in a painting called “La Guingette” by Van Gogh, now in the Orsay. That could well make this a tourist restaurant of the most basic sort, yet La Bonne Franquette, under the management of Patrick Fracheboud since 1980, maintains a kind of easy-going authenticity and a folksiness that’s only partly contrived, along with an extensive wine list.

Part bistro, part cabaret, part garden dance café, part wine bar (next door), the atmosphere is at once a post-Impressionist artifact and a place to “eat simply, without ceremony,” “have a relaxed meal among friends”—and why not “love, eat, drink & sing” too!

For the post wine auction dinner we were served a Jurançon to accompany the foie gras, a Muscadet to accompany the haddock and Champagne-doused choucroute, a Fleurie to accompany the beef stew au Beaujolais, and a sparkling Montlouis to accompany the candied chestnut, … and an accordionist to accompany us in song. Well, not all of us were French enough to know the words.

© 2010, Gary Lee Kraut

La Bonne Franquette, corner of 2 rue des Saules and 18 rue Saint Rustiques, 18th arrondissement. Tel. 01 42 52 02 42.www.labonnefranquette.com. Metro Abbesses or Lamarck Caulincourt. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Patrick Fracheboud also operates the restaurant Les Noces de Jeannette, 14 rue Favart, 2nd arrondissement.

Montmartre Tourist Office, official site: www.montmartre-guide.com.

Montmartre Grape Harvest Festival, Fête des Vendanges: www.fetedesvendangesdemontmartre.com.

The post Montmartre Celebrates Grape Harvest with Wine Auction at La Bonne Franquette appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.