Heidi Ellison
Au Bon Coin
Homemade Goodness
Au Bon Coin is the kind of restaurant you’d have a hard time finding unless you had a friend who lived around the corner, which, luckily, I do. Tucked away in a back street in the 5th arrondissement, it serves … Read More
Réflexions sur la Question Antisémite
On Anti-Semitism in France: Inferiority Complex?
Delphine Horvilleur, one of only three women rabbis in France, goes back to the origins of anti-Semitism in her latest book, Réflexions sur la Question Antisémite (Reflections on the Question of Anti-Semitism) to show how racism and anti-Semitism differ from each … Read More
Artists in Montmartre
Wild Life on the Butte
The Musée de Montmartre bills itself as “the most charming museum in Paris,” and that may well be true. The word “charming” kept popping into my mind as I perused its current exhibition, “Artists in Montmartre: Legendary Places and Studios,” … Read More
Goguette Restaurant
Go-Getting Wine Bar
In French, to be “en goguette,” means to be out on the town having a good time, so Goguette is the perfect name for this new wine bar/restaurant with three dining rooms, one after another. The first two were full of … Read More
Une Jeunesse Dorée
The Palace Years
The Paris nightclub Le Palace, which had its heyday in the 1980s, has taken on mythic status in the French imagination in the way that Studio 54 did in the United States. Now we have an autobiographical film, Une Jeunesse Dorée (Golden … Read More
The Nadars: A Photographic Legend
A Clan of Shutterbugs
I first came across the name Nadar while I was reading Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and started collecting other books about him and his work, including a small book of portraits by Paul Nadar of Proust and … Read More
The Paris Update Restaurant Awards 2019
Last Year's Best 10 Restaurants
A welcome touch of Mexico La Condesa Subtle hints of Mexican flavors brilliantly enliven seasonal dishes in this love of a restaurant. Tiny place/big expectations L’Innocence Chef Anne Legrand cooks up highly refined meals in front of diners in the same … Read More
La Condesa Restaurant
A Meal Fit for Royalty
Update, January 16, 2019: On a return visit this week, La Condesa lived up to my first extremely positive impression with more creative, often stunningly good dishes, charmingly served in a handsome decor. The amuse-bouches included a small corn tostada with … Read More
Japon-Japonismes: Objets Inspirés
The Shock of the New
While visiting the exhibition “Japan-Japanisms: Inspired Objects” at Paris’s Musées des Arts Décoratifs, it occurred to me that modern Western art as we know it might have been something entirely different if the arts and crafts of Japan hadn’t suddenly … Read More
Papa Poule
Homestyle, but Better
It is almost never a good idea to wander around the streets of Paris looking at menus in windows in hopes of finding a good restaurant – you usually end up with a mediocre meal. We lucked out the other … Read More