Our guest
this week is Yves Fey, whose historical mystery, Floats the Dark Shadow, is set in the dynamic and decadent
world of Belle Époque Paris. Yves has an MFA in Creative Writing from Eugene
Oregon, and a BA in Pictorial Arts from UCLA. She has read, written, and
created art from childhood. A chocolate connoisseur, she's won prizes for her
desserts. Her current fascination is creating perfumes. She's traveled to many
countries in Europe and lived for two years in Indonesia. She currently lives
in the San Francisco area with her husband and three cats.
I adore Art
Nouveau. For me it is almost synonymous with the Belle Époque. Only almost,
because so many art movements cascaded through Paris for decades, starting in
the 1860s with Impressionism and spilling over into the 20th Century. Certainly
the movement was sweeping the world as the century turned. Alphonse Muncha’s
poster Gismonda gave birth to it in Paris.
The boutique from which the movement
actually takes its name was open, selling the modern, cutting-edge designs by
Lalique and Tiffany that now submerge us in a vibrant nostalgia. There are
museums to visit, both huge collections like that of the Musée d’Orsay, and
more intimate ones like the home of Gustav Moreau. If you play the flâneur, you
might even encounter a film company bringing your favorite era to life.
But you
pass far more homes than you will be able to enter. However, you can enter,
sit, and relish the past throughout the city. Starting with the Revolution, you
can eat where the famous of Paris once ate and drink where they
drank—especially if you’re willing to live on tasty street crepes, cheese, and
fruit between forays into these often (but not always) pricey old cafés,
bistros, brasseries, and restaurants.
My novel, Floats
the Dark Shadow, is set in 1897 and much of the Art Nouveau building and
interior design was in progress but not yet completed. A great number of new
businesses revamped themselves for the Exposition of 1900, and still more were
inspired by their lead. I’ve researched—such a lovely synonym for indulged—far
more places than I’ve been able to use. So far. I’ve tried to be as accurate as
possible, though I may have fudged a bit on the décor of Oscar Wilde’s favorite
café, which was probably not yet renovated, but should have been. Le Grand Café
des Capucines is perhaps a bit excessive, even for Oscar, but deliciously
dazzling, with its glowing stained glass ceiling, plush red velvet seating, and
the stray peacock or two.
Chez Julian was already serving gourmet meals in the
then lavish theater district off one of the Grand Boulevards, and will appear
in the second book of the series.
Nowadays the area is much shabbier, but the
restaurant is still extraordinary—the interior gorgeous and the food excellent.
La Fermette Marbeuf would soon be open, and a visitor today can revisit its
glory—though its murals and carvings were actually covered over for decades,
and only rediscovered during a renovation. The food was quite good.
The fare at
Mollard was disappointing, but it was still delightful to visit one of the
first Art Nouveau restaurants in Paris, with its painted columns and delightful
tile murals.
Atop Montmartre, La Mère Catherine also caters primarily to the
busy flood of tourists tromping through the mostly kitschy artists’ square of
the Place de Terte. My heroine would have eaten here, when it was still a
hangout for the local artists.
You can, of course,
move forward in time to the cafés where Picasso, Fitzgerald, and Sartre hung
out, or back to the oldest café in Paris, Le Procope, which opened in 1686.
Voltaire and Rosseau drank the newly imported brew, served by waiters dressed
in Armenian garb. Robespierre, Marat, and Danton had dinner while plotting the
revolution, hurrying upstairs to ring a bell to summon their printer with the
latest call to arms—a bell you can still see on the courtyard wall. Nowadays Le
Procope serves mediocre food in a more classic French setting.
My waiter was
very friendly. If you peer closely, you’ll see he boasted a delightfully
theatrical curled mustache.
The food is much better at two other of Paris’ grande
dames. Le Grand Véfour is the oldest restaurant still on its original site. It
opened in 1784 as Le Café des Chartres, then was refurbished in Pompeian
glamour in 1820. At Le Grand Véfour, you can request the table where Victor
Hugo ate, or perhaps you would prefer to take Colette’s seat?
La Tour d’Argent
claims almost three centuries on Le Grand Véfour, but can only prove its
existence as of an 1860 Baedeker. It’s almost worth a trip to Paris just to eat
the fabled duck at La Tour d’Argent while looking out over the Seine at Notre
Dame. If you do so, you will receive a postcard indicating just how many ducks
have preceded yours—over a million. Here is my plate of duck with figs.
The
meals at these restaurants are quite pricey. I couldn’t do dinner, but lunch
was barely possible and worth a splurge to feel like a member of le tout-Paris.
Mentioned
though not actually entered in my book, is one of my favorite
indulgences—Ladurée in the Place Madeleine. The building was first a bakery
built in 1862, just as the Opéra Garnier was rising. Destroyed by fire during the
Commune of 1871, it was soon rebuilt and reconceived as the first tea shop in
Paris. Jules Cheret, the famous poster artist, was entrusted with the interior
design. None of my many photos capture its charm, so I’ve chosen the one with
the least number of people dining or gathered about the pastry display.
Unlike
cafés, respectable ladies could go to a tea shop on their own, chat and then
venture out to shop in the first department stores such as Le Bon Marché
designed by Monsieur Eiffel. At Ladurée, the hot chocolate is almost as thick
as pudding, and many consider their macarons the best in Paris. It is not Art
Nouveau, but quintessentially Belle Époque. When I first went there a decade
ago, they had recently opened two new shops in Paris – now there are fourteen. Well
over a dozen Ladurées exist elsewhere now, not only in France, but worldwide. There
is even a Ladurée in Saudi Arabia. Whatever novel adventure you undertake,
there is a least a chance you can pause and have tea at Ladurée.
Some of the
restaurants’ sites offer more pictures:
I can't believe I haven't made it to La Tour d’Argent yet, especially since it featured in one of my favorite movies, American Dreamer.
ReplyDeleteReading the descriptions in this blog post makes me want to move your book up in my pile to read!
Such a hard life! You poor woman, having to go to those wonderful places. I'm envious, and I bet the settings are are fun to write. Good luck on the book, and try not to gain too much weight.
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking us on this culinary tour of Paris, Yves! I'm reading your book and enjoying it very much. Very evocative and atmospheric. It's easy to picture the characters in some of these places.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this with us, Yves! That duck with figs is making me hungry, though I bet it's hard to concentrate on the food when you're surrounded by so much beauty (and history) in the restaurant.
ReplyDeleteYves, I think I'm going to have to start following you around! Someone should be writing a book about you! Thanks for this delightful tour through Paris. Loved it!
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