* * *

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.

* * *

By the time the Hotel Lutetia opened its doors in 1910, well-to-do visitors to Paris were familiar with the extravagance of hotel luxury in the City of Light but they hadn’t yet experienced it on the Left Bank. Palatial lodging had until then been a Right Bank affair: Hotel du Louvre, the Meurice, the Ritz, Hotel Normandy and others flourished in the triangle between Place de la Concorde, the Opera and the Louvre, Paris’s primary luxury zone of the Belle Epoque.

Wealthy visitors, including British aristocrats and the like, flocked to that Right Bank zone where, without traveling far, they could call on fellow French aristocrats (who’d had the good sense to marry the wealthy heirs of banking and industry), visit the Louvre by day, attend the Garnier Opera by night, luxuriate in tea rooms, hotel bars, high-class prostitution, see the sights, check out the latest art, fashion and jewelry and shop. There was little reason to stay elsewhere.

The Left Bank also had its shopping attraction in the name of Au Bon Marché, a temple of modern commerce created by Aristide Boucicaut. In the 1860s Boucicaut had launched the concept of the department store—all you could want in a single place—in France and well beyond. The square between Le Bon Marché and the Lutetia would eventually be renamed Square Boucicaut.

The owners of Au Bon Marché (its name was eventually changed to Le Bon Marché by the LVMH group, which has owned the stores since 1984) therefore devised a plan to further cater to the needs and whims of the crème de la crème of shoppers while also attracting members of government (the houses of parliament and most government ministries are nearby) and notables associated with the universities in the Latin Quarter: they would built a hotel unrivaled on the Left Bank.

The hotel was given the grand name Lutetia, after the town developed along the Seine by the Romans after their conquest of the local tribe of Celtic Gauls known as the Parissi. The Lutetia’s architects were Louis Hippolyte Boileau and Henri Tauzin, who designed a building that was a precursor to the Art Deco style. Boileau’s grandfather was the initial architect of Au Bon Marché beginning in 1867, a project to build Paris’s first specifically designed department store that was taken over by Boileau’s father. Boileau himself worked on an expansion of the store in the 1920s.

Though the initial exuberance at the new hotel was stopped in its tracks by the First World War, the Lutetia took off with a bang during the Roaring ‘20s and assumed its role as a purveyor of the spirit of luxury on the Left Bank.

Lutetia’s construction, however, didn’t create a major wave of top-tier hotel construction on the dense central Left Bank. Instead, luxury pursued its evolution on the Right Bank as it extended its reach to the area surrounding the Champs-Elysées. The Hotel Plaza-Athenée which opened on avenue Montaigne in 1913, served as a cornerstone for the development of high-pampering hotels to either side of the Champs-Elysées, then well on its way to becoming a new sector for Paris extravagance.

One hundred years on, the Right Bank, specifically the first, eighth and sixteenth arrondissements, remains the natural herding ground for high luxury lodging and shopping and the preferred bank for department store shopping in Paris.

With 231 rooms, including 60 suites and junior suites, plus a large plush lounge-bar, a magnificent banquet room, meeting rooms, a brasserie and a gastronomic restaurant, the Lutetia’s size makes it an oddity on the central Left Bank. Perhaps because of that the Lutetia seemed to lose its way in the 1990s and early 2000s as boutique 4-stars claimed control of the hotelscape of the 6th arrondissement and edging into the 7th (Relais Christine, Aubusson, Pont Royal, Montalembert, Bel Ami, Villa d’Estrée, Relais Saint Germain, etc.), even if some of those boutiques are quite the store.

I remember going to the Lutetia to meet friends who were staying there in the late ’90s and finding its atmosphere slightly reminiscent of 1945, when the hotel served as a repatriation center for displaced persons and concentration camp survivors. Its dark days from 1940 to 1944 when the occupying German took it over as headquarters for their military intelligence services (Abwehr), however, were long gone. It was a decent place to stay, alright, but I had come to see the Lutetia as yet another Concorde hotel: fine but soulless, on the Left Bank but no longer imbued with the exuberant intellectual spirit of the Left Bank of the 20th century, a 4-star chain mentality in a pretty body. Le Bon Marché still offered fine department store shopping but entering the Lutetia was like going to the mall.

It’s time now to reconsider that point of view.

Since 2010 the Lutetia has been the property of the Israeli Alrov Group. Though still under Concorde management, the Lutetia is in the process of reclaiming its discreet yet showy side, a duality that a hotel must master in order to garner attention in the absence of a glowing article in The New York Times, a few glossy magazine spreads, a juicy sex scandal or Starwood points.

The Lutetia has a ways to go if its owners fantasize about joining the ranks of the “palaces,” as they top-tier hotels are known in France, yet the building was designed with as much luxury in mind as the famous names of the Right Bank, so the physical potential remains. Meanwhile, 5-star status mostly requires the will do so at this point. In any case, this is a property worth keeping an eye on.

As a business destination this been a sure bet all along at the right price. It has now been successful of late in enhancing its design, art, and literary cred, which has helped shake off its chain reputation, making it more appealing for free-spirited leisure travelers.

The Lutetia is a 4-star hotel, among the city’s finest in that category, especially for such a large hotel by Paris standards. But stars alone do not make a hotel; travelers should be wary of the star inflation over the past two years as France has harmonized its categories in line with other European countries. Five-stars are not always more prestigious than four.

The Lutetia has more upgrading to do in terms of service and in some of the rooms in order to restore its wow power through and through. Nevertheless, many of the rooms are on fine footing and nearly all have have size in their favor, even the 7th floor rooms, originally reserved for chauffeurs and other personnel accompanying the fortuned clientele. And certain aspects of the Lutetia are clearly intended for a 5-star or even palace clientele. In particular, there are several drole or chic and in some cases spectacular designer suites that, along with works of art in the public spaces and the Art Deco spirit of the building, earns the Lutetia its designer cred.

The more eye-popping of those designer suites—signature suites, they’re called—are clearly intended for high-end travelers, e.g. the 1300-square-foot fifth-floor suite decorated by the sculptor Arman on the themes of music and African art; the Littéraire Suite with its own library; the shoe-themed suite with works by the artist Thierry Bisch; the filmmaker David Lynch has decorated a suite that is an ode to his adoration of Paris. The 7th-floor Hiquily Suite can only be thought of as the female nude suite since they appear everywhere: lamps, table bases, mirrors, etc.

Museum-quality photography adorns the walls of several suites that have been decorated in collaboration with Paris’s Maison Européene de la Photographie. Some of the signature suites have stunning views out to the Eiffel Tower or over the center of the capital. These suites are generally beyond the budget of 4-star travelers and even many 5-star travelers. Yet the more self-assured 5-star travelers who generally look toward the Right Bank for luxury hotel options will not feel like their slumming by considering this Left Bank 4-star option.

Space limitations on the central Left Bank ensure that smaller 3- to 5-star hotels are bound to dominate the hotelscape in the area. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see that the Lutetia is fighting for its reputation and doing a good job of ensuring a place where visitors can live large on the Left Bank.

For those staying in a 4- or 5-star hotel where boutique may be a code word for a lobby you don’t want to sit in and a receptionist who serves as bartender, it’s worth keeping the Lutetia in mind when in search for a somewhat sophisticated place for:

– a meal: Paris, a gastronomic restaurant (one Michelin star) cheffed by Philippe Renard and decorated by Sonia Rykiel, open Mon.-Fri.; Le Lutetia, a brasserie, open daily; a “jazzy brunch” served Sundays noon-2:30pm Sept-May;

– a literary event: among them, events held by the association Les Mots Parleurs, which organizes readings and literary encounters at the hotel one Saturday evening per month;

– a musical evening: in particular jazz in the lounge-bar Wednesday to Saturday evenings, 10pm to 1am, under the programming of in-house pianist Daniel Roca, and

– a drink at Le Bar du Lutetia. Did I mention that I have a cocktail named after me here? No? Well, continue to “Gary’s Cocktail at the Bar of the Hotel Lutetia” for a singular account of how that came about.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

Hotel Lutetia. 45 boulevard Raspail, 6th arrondissement. Tel. 01 49 54 46 46. Metro Sèvres-Babylone. Small spa area. Stylish cigarette and cigar room by the bar. A monthly schedule of literary and jazz events and exhibitions at the Lutetia can be found here.

The post The Reawakening of the Hotel Lutetia: Living Large on the Left Bank appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

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.

The post In Transit: The Route to Shangri-La appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

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.

*

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

Comments may be left below.

The post A Review of the 5-Star Shangri-La Hotel in Paris appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

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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What’s not to enjoy?

So why is it that male execs in Paris on business often leave on a Friday afternoon or arrive on a Monday morning rather than stay the weekend? Ask them and they’ll respond with a lie: no time, company won’t pay for the extra night, got to be home for my kid’s soccer game.

Women will stay the extra day to go shop for shoes, to hell with the soccer game.

Truth is, guys don’t like to stay the weekend alone because they know that if they have too much free time in a plush hotel they will either be incredibly lonely or will get themselves in trouble, or both. Because for all their comfort and service and accessories, a night in a fine hotel can seem like a waste when a guy’s not getting laid, pardon my French.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was arrested, on a Saturday. Duh!

Given the risks of self-flagellating loneliness, last-night-in-town desperation and the belief (his own and others’) that a sojourn in a plush hotel makes a man more attractive, it’s only natural to stumble upon a hot hotel employee fantasy when traveling alone.

(No one has receptionist fantasies in such hotels; receptionists are bill-pay people, not fantasy material, unlikely to be tipped or winked at or groped.)

Those of us who review luxury hotels know how important it is to test 2 a.m. room service by saying that your mini-bar doesn’t have the right kind of Champagne or that the TV doesn’t seem to be working, and then to open the door in a loosely tied bathrobe. Or is it just me?

Kidding!

Employees in luxury hotels are trained to be obligingly discrete and to let you know with an eloquent nod and a slight smile that you’ve come to the right place and that you belong there by virtue of your inner beauty. Hotel employees in return have their own rich client fantasies

A solitary traveler is therefore prone to believe that they like him, they really like him, and that each employee’s smile-and-nod is a secret message letting him know that he’s been recognized him for his true worth and that he can ask that employee for most personal and discreet attention.

They all start to look like geisha girls and call boys after a while.

It’s not always easy for a guy to distinguish between the lap of luxury and the lap-dance of luxury. But most of us manage.

© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

Theatrical endnote: The DSK-inspired debate about macho Frenchmen or men of power often ignores the fact that high luxury hotels can be fertile ground for high-end prostitution.

I’ve little interest in the debate itself, to tell the truth, but imagining scenarious in the DSK-case has inspired me to outline a French farce of that kind that has a long run in Paris theaters:

A man alone in a luxury suite calls his familiar prostitution agency and asks for them to satisfy his fantasy of sex with a black chambermaid. (French farces tend not to be concerned about an appearance of racism so “black” would be an essential part of his request.) The agency says that they have just the girl for him, she’ll be over in 30 minutes, and they’ll have no problem getting her up to his room. Then, while the man is waiting (note to director: it’s funnier if he’s in his bathrobe) and the hired girl is still in a taxi putting on her chambermaid costume, a real black chambermaid with her own quirks and secrets enters the room. The man assumes that she’s the hired prostitute, playing her role by pretending to be shocked by his advances, and…

The post Sex and the Luxury Hotel appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

What’s not to enjoy?

So why is it that male execs in Paris on business often leave on a Friday afternoon or arrive on a Monday morning rather than stay the weekend? Ask them and they’ll respond with a lie: no time, company won’t pay for the extra night, got to be home for my kid’s soccer game.

Women will stay the extra day to go shop for shoes, to hell with the soccer game.

Truth is, guys don’t like to stay the weekend alone because they know that if they have too much free time in a plush hotel they will either be incredibly lonely or will get themselves in trouble, or both. Because for all their comfort and service and accessories, a night in a fine hotel can seem like a waste when a guy’s not getting laid, pardon my French.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was arrested, on a Saturday. Duh!

Given the risks of self-flagellating loneliness, last-night-in-town desperation and the belief (his own and others’) that a sojourn in a plush hotel makes a man more attractive, it’s only natural to stumble upon a hot hotel employee fantasy when traveling alone.

(No one has receptionist fantasies in such hotels; receptionists are bill-pay people, not fantasy material, unlikely to be tipped or winked at or groped.)

Those of us who review luxury hotels know how important it is to test 2 a.m. room service by saying that your mini-bar doesn’t have the right kind of Champagne or that the TV doesn’t seem to be working, and then to open the door in a loosely tied bathrobe. Or is it just me?

Kidding!

Employees in luxury hotels are trained to be obligingly discrete and to let you know with an eloquent nod and a slight smile that you’ve come to the right place and that you belong there by virtue of your inner beauty. Hotel employees in return have their own rich client fantasies

A solitary traveler is therefore prone to believe that they like him, they really like him, and that each employee’s smile-and-nod is a secret message letting him know that he’s been recognized him for his true worth and that he can ask that employee for most personal and discreet attention.

They all start to look like geisha girls and call boys after a while.

It’s not always easy for a guy to distinguish between the lap of luxury and the lap-dance of luxury. But most of us manage.

© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

Theatrical endnote: The DSK-inspired debate about macho Frenchmen or men of power often ignores the fact that high luxury hotels can be fertile ground for high-end prostitution.

I’ve little interest in the debate itself, to tell the truth, but imagining scenarious in the DSK-case has inspired me to outline a French farce of that kind that has a long run in Paris theaters:

A man alone in a luxury suite calls his familiar prostitution agency and asks for them to satisfy his fantasy of sex with a black chambermaid. (French farces tend not to be concerned about an appearance of racism so “black” would be an essential part of his request.) The agency says that they have just the girl for him, she’ll be over in 30 minutes, and they’ll have no problem getting her up to his room. Then, while the man is waiting (note to director: it’s funnier if he’s in his bathrobe) and the hired girl is still in a taxi putting on her chambermaid costume, a real black chambermaid with her own quirks and secrets enters the room. The man assumes that she’s the hired prostitute, playing her role by pretending to be shocked by his advances, and…

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The public spaces

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

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

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

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

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

The bedrooms and suites

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

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

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

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

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

Qatari Diar and Raffles

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

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

The location

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

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

The palaces of Paris

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

© 2010, Gary Lee Kraut

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The décor brightens to Louis Seize, Empire, and Napoleon III (not Victorian) in the 62 bedrooms, yet the sense of tradition remains undeterred. The hotel was fully renovated in 2000, but other than wifi, cable, well-positioned TVs, and air conditioning in the rooms, it fully inhabits its classic French décor, a mix of well-mannered motifs in yellow-gold, green, red, and blue-gray, with white-framed armchairs, fabric-covered walls, canopied beds (in the junior suites), and classic writing tables. Time hasn’t stood still at the Victoria Palace Hotel, it simply moves at a very livable pace.

Situated in the nook of a short street, the hotel feels confidential without snobbery and offers very good comfort without pretension. Those looking for glitter and gloss should head toward more modernista hotels in this category where, at equal price, the décor may be brighter and the space likely smaller. The rooms at the Victoria Palace are all spacious by Paris standards, with standard (“deluxe”) rooms averaging a comfortable 250 square feet and junior suites at 375 square feet. There are also four one-bedroom suites.

The Victoria Palace is a rarity in the 4-star hotel landscape of Paris in that it is owner Philippe Schmitt’s only hotel, he comes to the office here, and he lives nearby. The hotel, built in 1913, long after the deaths of the aforementioned Napoleon (1873) and Victoria (1901), was bought by Mr. Schmitt’s father in 1936. Though there are no records indicating why the hotel was originally given the name Victoria, he says that it was “probably” named in honor of Spanish Queen Victoria Eugenia.

After a drink with Michael Erwin, the director of sales, in the hotel bar (which I won’t call Victorian but where I could only think to order Port), I did some research and learned that Victoria Eugenia grew up in Victorian England and was the granddaughter of British Queen Victoria. Sufficiently disturbed by thoughts of European royalty, I then went up to my room, a junior suite that I regretted having for only one night, to write up some notes before going out to dinner.

My room, as all the rooms here, had a writing table and hotel stationery in a leather folder. That may sound standard for any hotel sporting 3, 4 or 5 stars, but in most of them you scarcely pay attention to the table unless looking for a place to empty your pocket change or set down a laptop or purse. Furthermore, in most hotels you see it as a desk not as a writing table.

Mine wasn’t anything special as writing tables go, a simple straight-legged wooden affair with a glass top, but within the old-fashioned atmosphere of the room and of the hotel I was inspired to use it to pen a letter on monogrammed VP hotel stationery, even if I had to invent a recipient:

“Dear Aunt Fedora, A short note to let you know that I’ve arrived in Paris and checked in at the lovely hotel you recommended. It’s just as you described, except that I’d call the hotel bar Napoleon III rather than Victorian. Off to dinner now. More tomorrow. Fondly, …”

If it wasn’t returned to the hotel then someone in Dayton, Ohio is now dreaming of Paris. As well she should.

Victoria Palace Hotel, 6 rue Blaise-Desgoffe, 6th arrondissement. Tel. 01 45 49 70 00. www.victoriapalace.com. Metro Saint Placide.

© 2010, Gary Lee Kraut

YOUR VICTORIA PALACE HOTEL THREE-MINUTE RADIUS GUIDE

The pace quickens by the time you get to the corner at rue de Rennes, the major artery between the Saint Germain and Montparnasse quarters. The Saint Placide metro stop is nearby. The hotel is a 10-minute walk from the boutiquey heart of the Saint Germain quarter in one direction, from the Luxembourg Garden in another, and from the brassy brasseries of the Montparnasse quarter in yet another. Within the more immediate neighborhood you’ll find the following:

– Your closest parking garage: The hotel has its own next door.

– Your closest pharmacy: Pharmacie Slakmon, 145 rue de Rennes.
– Your morning jog: A 2-mile run takes you straight to the Luxembourg Garden, once around the park, and back. Add a little over a mile for each additional lap around the park.

Your Hunger and Thirst
– Your grocery store: Franprix, at the corner by the hotel, 2 rue Blaise Desgoffe.

– Your food shops: Food shops gather on rue Notre-Dame des Champs, by the Saint-Placide metro stop. There you’ll find Gilles Vérot (#3), a great local deli that’s ever proud of having been named head cheese champion of France in 1997 (good terrines and pates if you aren’t a head cheese fan), and Thevenin (#5), a decent pastry shop-bakery. Nearby there’s a fruit and vegetable stand, a pharmacy, a Chinese take-out, and, if you’re feeling homesick, a place called Bagels and Brownies (#12).
Rue du Cherche-Midi is the other food shop zone in your neighborhood, with Bio Génération (#68-70), an organic grocery and healthy whatnot shop; fishmonger Poissonnerie Lise Yvon (#52), not because you’re planning on cooking but so that you’ll know what’s what on the menu, and Le Potager du Midi (#108), a cute little fruit and vegetable stand.
Several minutes beyond the 3-minute radius is the Raspail outdoor food market, held Tues.-Fri. 7 a.m. – 2/2:30 p.m., and its manifestation as an organic food market on Sun., same time. Also beyond the neighborhood radius are the food shops on rue de Sevres and most notably the appetizing Grande Epicerie (#38).
– Your delicious pastries: Coronova, 47 rue de l’Abbé Grégoire.

– Your chocolate shops: Philippe Pascoët, 52 rue Saint Placide, and Jean-Charles Rochoux, 16 rue d’Assas, are top choices. Also nearby are A La Mère de Famille (candied chestnuts) and Puyricard (a company based in Provence), 106 rue du Cherche-Midi.

– Your wine shops: Le Gastronaute (organic), 117 rue du Cherche-Midi; Enoteca (Italian), 77 rue du Cherche-Midi; Le Vin en Tête (varied), 53 rue Saint Placide; Le Vin en Bouche, 27 rue de l’Abbé Grégoire.

– Your cozy bistro and tearoom: L’Horloge, 72 rue du Cherche Midi.
– Your sweet little lunch and tea room: Mamie Gateaux, 66 rue du Cherche-Midi. Open 11:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.
– Your light Berber-leaning lunch and tearoom: Chez les Filles, 64 rue du Cherche-Midi. Open noon – 6 p.m. “Berber Brunch” served Sunday 12:30-5:30 p.m.
– Your reliable busy brasserie-café: Le Rousseau, 45 rue du Cherche-Midi.
– Your quirky little find: Le Petit Verdot, 75 rue du Cherche-Midi.
– Your classic, old-fashion, quality bistro specializing in meat dishes: Joséphine (Chez Dumonet), 117 rue du Cherche-Midi. Tel. 01 45 48 52 40.
– The hotel also provides a dependable list of local restaurants. Inquire at the reception.

Notable shops
– Your Paris wig and toupee shop: MC-Maison de la Chevelure, 77 rue de Vaugirard.
– Your Paris wedding gown: Les Mariées de Provence, 24 rue de l’Abbé Grégoire; Catherine Varnier, 48 rue d’Assas; Mi & Canna, 59 boulevard Raspail.
– Your luxury dog accessories: Dog & Design, 110 rue du Cherche-Midi.
– Your second-hand clothing etc. shops: Chercheminippes, 102, 109, 110, 111, 114, 124 rue du Cherche-Midi. Yes, six different shops.
– Your major electronics etc. store: FNAC, 136 rue de Rennes.

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