Just Back From…Paris

Last month, our daughter moved to Paris for her year of study abroad, which gave us a completely new perspective and experience of the city—setting up an apartment and figuring out all the things one needs to know when living in a new place. We wanted to help Clara with the move—Edinburgh, where she goes to university, is much smaller and easier to navigate, plus she has her very established friend group there. Also, this was the first time she would be living alone, in an 8th-floor walkup to boot. Yes, she lives in something called a  chambre de bonne—historically, the apartments for maids of the people who lived in the front part of the building and who had elevators. Luckily Clara’s apartment has a proper (albeit tiny) bathroom and kitchen, and great light. (Some of these chambres de bonne in her building share a hallway bathroom.) She technically lives in the 3rd arrondissement (Haut-Marais), but is closer to Canal St Martin in the 10th, an area I haven’t really explored much. 

Luckily for me my friend, cookbook author Emiko Davies, had just stayed in this area and  written about it  in her Substack (subscribe  here!), so I mapped all of her suggestions out before we arrived. It was comforting to feel familiar with the neighborhood, even though it was our first time. While we wanted to stay near Clara, the Maison & Objet design show was going on, which meant all of the hotels near her (and actually in most of the city) were sold out.  Hotel Providence, right around the corner from her, was our first choice, but when we couldn’t get in we decided to try their new sister hotel, the  Eldorado, even though it’s in the 18th arr. about a half hour away by metro or car. I was worried it was going to be too far from everything, but once we checked in, we fell in love with the hotel and the neighborhood. It felt self-contained with everything you’d want in it, from the butcher to the cheese shop to the perfect flower stand, small restaurants filled with locals and no big global brands. In a way it reminded me of everything I love about Bordeaux, that charming French-city feeling and all the signs that people actually live in it. 

But first, the  Eldorado: We absolutely loved it. The scale (26 rooms), the palette (many shades of green—they wanted to create a country house feeling in the city), the well-appointed rooms (walls and closets upholstered in the most beautiful fabrics), the smart use of space (no useless furniture in the room, plus and a bathroom with a huge tub)…and the garden, which has a charming outdoor restaurant that makes you completely forget you’re in a big city. For our morning run we headed to Parc Monceau, and along the way passed through Rue de Lévis, a pedestrian-only historical market street, and wished we could stop to eat all the beautiful cheeses and fruits. We actually did stop to look at realtors’ windows, because this neighborhood was making us really fall in love with Paris. Literally every restaurant we saw on Rue des Dames looked like some place we’d love to try. But that wasn’t why we were here—we were on a mission to make Clara feel as comfortable as possible in her new place, so we’ll have to keep exploring the 18th on our next visit later this fall.

We needed to find some fabric to cover a chair in her furnished apartment, so we headed towards Sacre Coeur, where we’d never thought to notice all the fabric stores just below it. We went to  Reine  (basically the  Mood  of Paris), which has four floors and such incredible choices and prices that we resolved to come back for fabric for anything we redo at our new house in the Médoc. Another place where we had great luck was  Maison des Vacances, which we happened upon while walking; we found a sweet decorative pillow for Clara and lots of beautiful linens for me (which I didn’t buy but am still thinking about). We got up early to ride to the south of Paris for the Vanves flea market, where we found a gilded early 20th-century full-length mirror that was perfect for her apartment for just 80 euros. And Matt bought Clara her first good sauté pan and paring knife at his favorite kitchenware store in the city,  E. Dehillerin.

But it wasn’t all moving/decorating tasks—we did get to visit the new  Cravan  bar in the 6th. We’ve been fans of the original in the 16th for years (it’s still open!) and love the owner Franck Audoux—Matt included one of his recipes in his  Negroni  book. His new bar is about 10x the size of the original and it’s super clever/cool, has incredible cocktails, a Rizzoli bookstore floor, and is a great alternative to the obvious landmark on the block (yes, of course we love Cafe Flore, but it’s nice to try something new!). If you’re checking luggage on the way home, pick up one of their bottles of pre-made cocktails—they’re incredible and you’ll be the only person in your friend group serving it. We returned to  Nodaiwa, Clara’s favorite Japanese restaurant, which specializes in eel—and it was solid. In her neighborhood, we had lunch at  Le Chardon, a small restaurant that’s decorated in an eclectic flea-market way with very market-to-table, unfussy dishes—I loved my fresh pea gazpacho. We also had dinner at  Le Verre Vole  with a friend who lives in the neighborhood, who also gave us a very long list of all her favorites here. (I’ll be completely updating our  Paris Black Book  this fall with all of these additions and many more we’ve collected this year!)

Speaking of updates, earlier in the summer we spent a couple of days in Paris at the  Grand Pigalle  in Montmartre, a hotel from the Experimental Group, who I think do a great job (loved their hotels in Biarritz, Venice, Menorca, and their other Paris hotel,  Grands Boulevards). The room was small (remember, we are The Overpackers!), but it had a little terrace and was super charming. A highlight was that the kitchen is run by the restaurant Frenchie, which means you get their famous maple syrup and bacon scones for breakfast and can book a table for dinner much more easily! There are so many good new hotels that have opened this year, or ones that are new to me, so we’ll be putting those into that  Paris Black Book!