* * *

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

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* * *

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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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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* * *

I was headed to meet my friend L. at the Shangri-La, a high-luxury hotel that had recently opened in Paris. I had an appointment to interview the head bartender and a reservation at one of the hotel’s restaurants L. is my favorite research partner. She loves being treated like a princess, and like a princess she’s quick to point out flaw and enchantment.

When all goes well I’m on time. When all goes well for L. she’s 10 minutes late. So even though I was going to arrive at the Shangri-La Hotel a bit past our planned 8:15 p.m. rendez-vous, I had a small window of lateness when I left my apartment across the city at 7:45.

Before I’d gone a hundred yards I found a wallet on the cobblestones along the canal.

I picked it up. I looked around to see if anyone noticed. There were people outside a bar across the street but no one seemed to be paying attention.

Various studies, not highly scientific, have been performed in which wallets containing some money and contact information and photographs were intentionally strewn through a city or in a public space such as a bus station in order to find out how many wallets will be turned in or returned to the owner and with what contents.

I don’t recall the conclusion of those studies, but I didn’t like the thought of being watched for someone’s experiment as I tried to decide what to do with the wallet.

It was a thin brown leather wallet. There wasn’t much inside: a few plastic and paper cards, several receipts, 50€.

I looked at the receipts. The first was from La Madonnina, an Italian pasta restaurant on rue Marie et Louise, one street over. The receipt was dated the previous day shortly after 9 o’clock, 21:01:17 to be exact. The man, I assumed he was a man because he’d dined alone, had eaten a burrata con pomodorini, a glass of wine and a paccheri con pomorini for a total of 23.50€. My friend Henri once got sick after eating a pasta with seafood dish at La Madonnina—it was a silly thing to order in such a restaurant in the first place—but I’ve had several palatable pasta dishes there.

I thought of taking the wallet to the restaurant. But what would they do with it? That’s what they would likely say to me.

A second receipt in the wallet had today’s date and the time 19:32:34, so about 15 minutes ago. It came from the McDonald’s a few hundred yards from where I stood. The man had apparently dropped his wallet coming from McDonald’s and walking north along the canal, perhaps with a bag containing 1 Mx ch. Mythic Bac, 1 Nugget 6 and 1 frite Maxi Best of, as indicated on the receipt, totaling 11€35.

I looked around for someone eating from a McDonald’s bag on the edge of the canal. No one fit that description. Perhaps he had lost the wallet while eating fries out of the  bag as he walked north along the canal.

The man was Italian. Not that Italians alone in Paris necessarily eat pasta one evening then McDonald’s the next, though I suppose many do, but because there were two credit cards from Italian banks and a business card from a government ministry, all in the name of Italians. I say Italians, plural, because the credit cards had two different names on them, though one of the plastic cards and the business card had the same name, so I figured that to be his real name. On a dog-eared piece of paper bearing the name of one of the banks, the one with his “real” name, there was a message that I figured, without knowing Italian, to mean that in case this was found a certain phone number in Italy should be called.

I studied the contents of the wallet for a few minutes. I looked around for someone who might be in search of a wallet and/or who would be carrying a bag from McDonald’s. I didn’t know what to do with the wallet, but I knew that I didn’t want to spend the evening at the police station turning in a found wallet.

So I walked slowly across the bridge with the wallet in my hands, looking back to see if someone had his nose down on the paving stones along the canal looking for a lost article. Once I was out of sight from where I originally found the wallet I put it in my front pants pocket and walked on quickly to the metro.

I once lost my passport the day before an international flight. It must have fallen out of the folder I was carrying when I’d gone to make a photocopy, and by the time I got home I had a message from someone telling me that he’d found it. When I asked how he found my phone number he said that he’d called information, which surprised me because I’d thought that my number was unlisted. Apparently it wasn’t. He gave me his address and I went to pick it up immediately. I brought along a nice bottle of wine as a thank you gift.

My hero opened the door and I thanked him effusively. He assured me that he’d done nothing special. He initially refused the bottle of wine, saying it was unnecessary. But I insisted. He slurred when he spoke and he smelled of alcohol. He was drunk. He wasn’t the least bit interested in hearing how appreciative I was. He just wanted to get on with whatever he’d been doing, so he took the bottle and immediately closed the door.

Now, with a stranger’s wallet in my pocket, I crossed Boulevard Magenta at the corner of Place de la République on the way to the metro station. Three people stood on the opposite side of the street, two men and a woman. I had noticed them as I was crossing the street and had inadvertently caught the eye of one of them. As I walked by one of the men said something in my direction that I didn’t understand. I kept walking, but four or five quick steps further on I turned back because one of them had called out after me what sounded like a curse, and I don’t like being cursed at by beggars.

I looked back with a glare. The three of them had their eyes on me. They looked angry.

Or was it hopeful? Something now told me that they hadn’t actually cursed at me but had asked me for help. Perhaps it was simply for money, but they had indeed asked for something. There were two men and a woman. One of the men was my height, muscular and balding. The other man and the woman were tall, thin, dark-haired. They were probably in their mid-30s. The men wore jeans and dark t-shirts. The woman wore jeans and an ivory blouse.

“You can help?” the taller of the two men said in French in a heavy foreign accent.

“Please?” said the woman.

It was a busy intersection, I didn’t see any reason to be worried, but I was aware that I had my own wallet in my jacket’s breast pocket and a stranger’s wallet in my front pants pocket. Since I was going to interview the head bartender at Shangri-La and test one of its restaurant I also had my camera in a jacket pocket and my notebook in one hand.

I approached the three strangers cautiously, one hand against the breast pocket of my jacket and the other, holding the notebook, on the front pocket of my pants, as though trying to protect my virtue.

I tried to keep a safe distance but they came in close.

The man who had asked for help said, “Someone take our car.”

“Someone stole your car?” We were at a busy intersection where there seemed no place to even park a car other than two delivery spots by the bus lane.

“Yes, steal our car. It was here”—the three of them pointed further along the boulevard—“and when we return it’s not here.”

The woman also spoke some French and would repeat or add to what the first man said, “Yes, steal our car… It was here and now not here.”

The other man nodded when she spoke but otherwise said nothing. He seemed to be sizing me up.

Romanian? Bulgarian? I guessed.

“You call the police for us?” said the first man.

The subject-verb question sounds like a command in English but it was softened here by three pairs of brown-eyed hope. They were serious.

“You call the police?” said the woman. She was quite pretty, tall with thin shoulders, curly black hair, sweet eyes, a kind, chiseled chin. She could have been an Eastern European rock star.

What kind of thief asks you to call the police?, I thought. Still, I discreetly had a hand on each wallet and knew that I would have to shift my defenses in order to take out my phone.

The woman must have sensed my unwillingness to do so because she took out her own phone and handed it to me. The man who spoke some French said something to the man who spoke none and the latter took out a document and held it in front of me. I didn’t take either the phone or the document in my hand.

The document he held in front of me was the ID paper for the car. It was a Renault, 2002. He pointed to the license plate number.

“Blue,” I understood him say in some language, perhaps mine.

The man who spoke French said something else to him—it was apparently the latter’s car and he then showed me his driver license. He was from Kazakhstan. I don’t think I’d ever met Kazakhstanis.

“You call police?” said the woman. “Say someone steal our car.”

I can never remember if the number for the police in France is 17 or 18, the other being the fire department.

“Eighteen,” I told her. “One, eight.”

She dialed. I then took the phone in the hand that had been protecting my jacket pocket. It’s hard not to trust someone who’s asking you to call the police with her own cell phone. Still, they were crowding awfully close. One of them emitted a leathery lavender scent with a hint of vanilla. Or perhaps it was their collective scent that I smelled. I tried not to look awkward by pressing my wrist to my breast pocket and the phone to my ear.

Eighteen, it turns out, is the fire department. The fire department operator transferred me to the police, 17, one seven.

When the police department answered I told the male voice that I was with some foreigners who didn’t speak French who had just had their car stolen on Boulevard Magenta.

“It’s been towed,” he said wearily. “It’s at the pound.”

“How’s that?” I said. What I meant was how could he know which car I was talking about and where exactly it was now?

“It’s been impounded,” he repeated, apparently understanding the situation without me having to describe it.

“They say it was stolen.”

“Illegally parked,” he said. “I’ll give you the number of the Pantin pound.”

“Just a second.”

I signaled to my friends that I needed to write something down. I released my hand from the Italian’s wallet in my front pocket, handed my open notebook to the woman while taking out my pen to write down the number.

When I hung up I told the three Kazakhstanis that their car had been towed because illegally parked.

“Not stolen?” said the woman.

“Apparently.”

She translated for the man with the muscles who didn’t speak French. He pointed endearingly to the phone for me to call the pound.

I let the woman dial the number on her phone and asked her to hold it to my ear since I’d have to write down some information. I could have freed both hands by holding the phone against my shoulder but I felt still felt a need to protect some of my virtue.

The guy at the pound sounded as weary as the policeman. I told him that I was looking for a blue 2002 Renault and gave him the license plate number. He confirmed that it was at the Pantin pound and gave me the address, 15 rue de la Marseillaise in the 19th. He told me that the closest metro stop was Porte de Pantin. He also told me that they closed at 8:30.

I gave the Kazakhstanis the information and told them they would have to hurry.

I told them there was a direct line by metro from where we were and that they’d have to ask for directions when they got out. I tore out the page on which I’d written down the information.

“If we give address to taxi he will take us,” the woman said without bothering with the question mark.

“Yes,” I said. “About 15 minutes.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Thank you,” said the other one who spoke French.

“Thank you,” said the one who’d had his car towed.

“No problem,” I said, cautiously feeling myself up so check that both of my wallets were there and that my camera was in my pocket and that I had my notebook and my pen.

“Thank you,” they all said.

I pointed in the direction they had to go.

I was sorry to see them go. I liked them. One of them – of the three of them collectively – smelled good. They had such hopeful eyes. I watched them cross the street. They seemed happy to be trying to get their car from the pound.

I felt a bit lonely. I thought, “Now there’s someone I’d like to get drunk and stupid and have an adventure with.” And then I remembered that I was going to do just that going to just that, with L., through a long evening of food and drink at the Shangri-La. I was looking forward to telling her about my adventures as the good Samaritan, even though in one of those adventures I could be considered a thief for having a stranger’s wallet in my pocket.

I ran down to the metro station. It was 8:15 by the time the next metro came, the time I was supposed to meet with L. at the Shangri-La, still about 25 minutes away. I could have sent a text message to say I was running late but chances are she was going to be at least 15 minutes late herself.

I found a corner seat in the subway car with no one beside me and took out the Italian’s wallet to examine the contents piece by piece. I saw again what he’d had for dinner last night and what he’d had at McDonald’s less than an hour ago. I saw the different names on the two credit cards. I looked at the card from the Italian government ministry and the dog-eared card from a bank saying to call a certain number if the accompanying credit card has been found.

I figured that the thing to do was to find someone at the hotel who spoke Italian to call the number on the card to say that I’d found the wallet, even though by then I would be across the city from where it was lost.

A text messages from L. arrive: “Ur late,” meaning that she’d just arrived, 15 minutes late herself. Three minutes later I received a second text message saying, “I feel like a whore standing outside of a luxury hotel wearing high heels.”

I responded to the second message: “5 min. Negotiate for 2.”

L. shook her head when she saw me coming, which drew attention to her décolleté.

“You look beautiful,” I told her.

“I only look beautiful when you’re late.”

“That’s because you have a certain glow when you’re upset.”

She offered me her check with pretend reluctance.

“I have a good excuse,” I told her, “I’ve been helping strangers in distress.”

“That doesn’t help me,” she said.

Inside the hotel I asked the concierge for his help with the Italian. He confirmed that the card in the wallet said to call that number if the accompanying credit card was found.

He was nice enough to dial the number, to ask in Frenchified Italian if the person on the other end spoke French. But then handed me the phone.

It was quickly apparent that the man on the other end didn’t speak French. I tried English but that didn’t help. He said, “What can do?”

I said, “Yes, I want to know what you can.”

He repeated, “What can do?” perhaps an Italian version of C’est la vie.

My route to Shangri-La had been paved with good intentions, but now L. was looking at me with an air of “I got dressed in my décolleté best so that you could wander what to do with an Italian’s wallet?”

I hung up and decided to end the matter there for the evening. I would take the wallet to the polic station in the morning.

L. told me that I owed her a drink. Fifty euros would about cover it. I resisted having an Italian pay for it.

© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

A review of the bar and restaurant La Bauhinia at the Shangri-La tested that evening can be found here.
A review of the Shangri-La Hotel can be found here.
More “In Transit” vignettes can be found here and here.

Comments may be left below.

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Location
The choice of a long-ignored block of Paris’s 16th arrondissement for the Shangri-La Hotel was considered questionable well before the 5-star establishment opened in December 2010. Respectably askew from the glitter of the city’s Golden Triangle, this part of Avenue Iéna is considered by some to be a kind of no-man’s land bordered by lesser known museums. But it is indeed a worthy location.

True, there are no LVMH storefronts across the street— instead, there’s the breathtaking permanent collection of Asian art at the Guimet Museum nearby. And there are no colorful Paris macaroons in bakery shop windows in the neighborhood—instead, on Wednesday and Saturday mornings one of the capital’s most appealing outdoor produce and flower market unfurls around the corner on Avenue du Président Wilson.

I would understand better if people argued that it was difficult to get a taxi in the immediate area on a rainy day. I imagine it is. Then again, taxis are hard to come by in any neighborhood in Paris on a rainy day.

The Shangri-La may not be central to the Golden Triangle, but a great hotel is capable of being the center of its own universe. This hotel is still developing and at this writing has yet to prove such greatness, at least not to me, but it does have a quiet grandness. Besides, the location of choice in the City of Light isn’t a street or an arrondissement but Paris itself.

Anyway, the location is Paris enough that I heard a generous amount of well-spoken French in the tea room/lounge while having a cup of Pu’er chrysanthemum tea. I’ve no special affection for flowery teas, but while waiting for an appointment in the hotel lounge with a cup and a pot of it in front of me, I realized that it didn’t matter how central the hotel was because I was the one who was centered.

Décor
The building at the heart of the 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. The hotel’s public spaces successfully play the Parisian parlor game of showing class through restraint.

Shangri-La has not set out here to offer Parisians an Asian touch but to offer a Parisian home to travelers who may well have already been to Asia. Nevertheless, the welcome tea in the rooms, the Ming-inspired vases by the entrance, the veneers, the occasional silk vest (an awkward touch, sorry to say, on otherwise Paris service folk) and some coy feminine nods let us know that the Shangri-La chain is indeed based in Hong Kong.

There’s a stolid luxury here of revisited early 19th-century themes of straight lines, dark wood, marble, bronze, gilt. The beautiful wallpaper and wall fabrics made me want to caress the walls in the corridors and in the bedrooms. The high-class amenities and gadgetry (e.g. TV integrated into the mirror) are all present as in any recent hotel of this standing.

The décor edges towards clarity and minimalism rather than showiness. I can understand why some say that Pierre-Yves Rochon’s contemporary Empire décor lacks fantasy, though what appeals to me here is precisely that discretion. Several more ornate reception rooms exist at the Shangri-La for private events, otherwise the décor, like the location, doesn’t scream “Destination for stars, sheiks and fashion victims.”

In avoiding the touches of frou-frou that are sometimes merely intended to show that a hotel is as cool and contemporary as its would-be clients, Shangri-La may have erred on the side of caution. However, I do think of the decor as generally graceful. And in three visits to (not nights in) the Shangri-La I’ve yet to see much in the way of the zoo of fashionistas and vulgarity that can inhabit some of Paris’s finest hotels. That’s a good sign.

Eiffel Tower Views
More than half of the 81 rooms and suites have a direct view of the Eiffel Tower and the Seine, including magnificent terraces with several of the untouchable suites and some balconies with more standard rooms. The Eiffel Tower view from two of the most precious suites has already made the rounds of the magazines favored by those who can almost afford to stay there.

Interestingly, the hotel’s most expensive suite, the nearly 3000-sq.-ft. Imperial Suite, whose posted rate is 18000€ per night, does not have an Eiffel Tower view. That’s because that suite is a part of Roland Bonaparte’s original private mansion, and Eiffel’s Tower, completed several years before the mansion was built, held little favor with the upper class at the turn of the century.

Bar and Restaurants
The Shangri-La Hotel has three restaurants: the intimate and formal L’Abeille (The Bee), named for a symbol of the Bonaparte family, the polished La Bauhinia, named for the flower on the flag of Hong Kong, serving French cuisine along with select Asian dishes, and Shang Palace, serving gourmet Cantonese cuisine. A “well-being space,” including a swimming pool, is due to open later this year for the exclusive use of hotel guests.

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For more on Shangri-La’s public areas, in particular its bar and the restaurant La Bauhinia, read the continuation of this review: La Bauhinia at Shangri-La: Seductively Polished Cuisine and a Little Cleavage.

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

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Shangri-La Hotel, 10 avenue d’Iéna, 16th arrondissement. Tel. 01 53 67 19 91. Room rates begin at 750€ (over $1000) per night.

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