Heidi Ellison
La Bécane à Gaston Restaurant
Too Much Like Home
Another week, another slightly disappointing restaurant. This is getting tiresome. Once again, a friend and I had high hopes for a bistro, La Bécane à Gaston, based on word-of-mouth recommendations. Decor-wise, La Bécane resembles the restaurants I have reviewed in … Read More
Henry Wessel, Fil Noir, Marguerite Bornhauser
Dark Stories
American photographer Henry Wessel (1942-2018), the subject of the exhibition “Henry Wessel: A Dark Thread” at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), had the unusual habit of not looking at the contact sheets of his photos until a year had … Read More
Trois B
Juggling with Three Balls
I love meatballs. Who doesn’t? Well, vegetarians, I guess, but even they can eat at Trois B, a new restaurant in the 19th arrondissement specializing in “balls.” It is not the only one, however. The first one, reviewed here, had … Read More
Saint Petersburg
Finding France in Saint Petersburg
What’s so French about Saint Petersburg? Quite a lot, surprisingly. I was recently invited to visit the watery Russian city on the Gulf of Finland, with its canals, river and sea, and found it to be almost a museum of … Read More
Dora Maar
The Price of A-musing Picasso
Photographer and painter Dora Maar (1907-97), who was Picasso’s lover for eight years, beginning in 1936 (“I wasn’t his mistress,” she once said, “he was my master”), is probably best known today as “The Weeping Woman” in Picasso’s portraits of … Read More
Le Maquis
Taming the Maquis
Not much is happening gastronomically out near the northern edge of Paris, although there are some cool places like the eco-friendly café/restaurant the Recyclerie. Now, however, a modest little bistro with equally modest prices and above-average food has opened. It’s … Read More
Chambord, 1519-2019: Building Utopia
The 500th Birthday of Heaven on Earth
The Château de Chambord is probably the most extraordinary of the Loire Valley châteaux, its massive structure and dozens of mismatched rooftop turrets and chimneys rising dramatically from its flat setting. There has never been much to see inside, however, … Read More
Padam Padam
A Bit of This and a Bit of That
I had high hopes for the new Montmartre restaurant Padam Padam (presumably named after Édith Piaf’s famous song) after reading a highly complimentary review in a French magazine, Télérama, which noted that the cheffe, Marine Thomas, had previously worked with … Read More
Sibyl
Woman as Volcano
No wonder there is so much mistrust of psychiatrists when the French keep making films like Sibyl, directed by Justine Triet. Sibyl (Virginie Efira) is a novelist turned shrink who wants to write another novel, so she dumps most of … Read More
Romantic Paris
Romance in Turbulent Times
After the fall of Napoleon and his empire in 1815, 19th-century France lived through a series of monarchical restorations and new revolutions, with Paris always at the center of events. The major exhibition “Romantic Paris” at the Petit Palais looks at what … Read More