Badaude

Badaude's Paris Address Book - Murano Urban Resort

The resort you can resort to without going to the seaside. In fact it's conveniently located just by Republique metro. But is it really a holiday?

The Murano is a design hotel and they like you to know it. On this otherwise kitschily busy boulevard, the hotel's front door is signalled by a trench of white pebbles which burn with a low gas flame by night. Plaster crocodiles leap out at you in the lobby, reflected in mirrorballs. This is as it should be. The hotel is located in the North Marais, Paris’s newest district of cool.

The reception rooms have a James Bond-style international glamour (if you’re not in the mood, you might find it a bit Austin Powers) - a double length white chesterfield sofa; a fibreglass loveseat with integral champagne-cooler and a another wall-to-wall pebble-strewn gas fire. Do you feel like hanging out here? Murano’s a love/hate sort of place. This is not a  hotel for Paris Amelie romantics, and not somewhere you’ll leave with a lukewarm opinion.

 

I love:

The fingerprint sensor to get into your room  saves endless fiddling with scratched key-cards and adds a touch of Oval Office glamour.

The room sizes very generous for a Paris hotel. Big beds, lots of light from the windows, and a pillow menu too.

The hotel’s commitment to live music  a different band or dj in the hotel every night means there’s always a party. On the cd player in your room, you’ll find one of the two albums of funky lounge music produced by the hotel. If you like them you can buy one at reception.

I've heard the restaurant is by no means another po-mo joke but is very good - I haven't eaten there. Englighten me?

 

I hate:

The dark corridors. I can cope with the pitch-black lift, although it is a little difficult to get the right button for you floor, but I really like to be able to see my way to my door.

Paying an extra fee for room service.

The engineering degree I need to operate the entertainment system controls. I don’t know what I did but the TV somehow switched itself on about 4am.

Hmmm depends on my mood:

The kidult-friendly ‘TV snacks-style’ menu and range of cute toys (including an ‘erotic-kit’) to buy from room-service.

 

I'm not bothered by:

the famous black toilet paper, though I've heard some people really don’t like it. If you’re concerned, don’t worry. My bathroom offered a regular white roll too...

 

Murano Urban Resort

13 Boulevard du Temple, 75003 Paris

00 33 1 42 71 20 00

www.muranoresort.com

 

Have you tried that black loo paper? Let me know what you thought below...

Doing it by the book? Port Eliot Special!

 I spent last weekend at the fabulous Port Eliot Festival, partying, shmoozing and doing quite a lot of drawing...

(double-click on any drawing to enlarge it - click again to enlarge it further)

Last time it was a 'Literary Festival'. This year it's simply 'The Port Eliot Festival'. Fair enough: about two thirds of the events are music, comedy, dance or frankly evade description. That leaves around one-third of the weekend devoted to books. In the Port Eliot programme guide, Tom Hodgkinson eulogises the delights of wandering 'around the sacred groves of Port Eliot with a slim volume of verse in your hand'. Well, a book might serve to swat the midges, but did anyone at the festical get the chance to actually open one?

Saturday was glorious sun, Sunday relentless drizzle. I didn't get to see half the things I wanted to. On the good side, I saw more than half the things I never knew I wanted to see. I guess that's festivals. I loved Murray Lachlan-Young's Modern Cautionary Tales and Wurlitza's live pop-to-classical mix played along to FW Murnau's silent movie classic, Sunrise.
I was sad to miss Hadley Freeman's style Q&A. Alain de Botton's wife has a nice haircut. So nice I wish I'd taken a photo of her to take to my hairdressers. I have enormous mosquito bites all over my legs despite wearing jeans or thick leggings. How did that happen?

And what did I bring to read? L'Homme a l'envers by Fred Vargas - a French crime novel. Did I read a page? Well, no...

This post can also be seen at Guardian Books Online.

TAGS: PORT ELIOT, ST GERMANS, BLOOMSBURY, PERSEPHONE BOOKS, TOM HODGKINSON, THE IDLER, GAVIN PRETOR-PINNEY, THE CLOUD SOCIETY, BEN MOOR, COELACANTH, MATTHEW DE ABAITUA, FAMOUS FIVE, VIRGIL'S GEORGICS, THE FOREVER WAR, JOE HALDEMAN, UNTITLED BOOKS, LONELY HEARTS, BRIEF ENCOUNTERS, EDWYN COLLINS, RIP IT UP AND START AGAIN, GENOME, MATT RIDLEY, FRANKIE AND STANKIE, BARBARA TRAPIDO, HG WELLS, KIPPS, HOWARD JACOBSON, HUMPHRY REPTON, CATHERINE ST GERMANS

Badaude's Paris Addresses - Jerome Dreyfuss

Soldes still on? Let's check out the final markdowns...

Right next to the Isabel Marant boutique on the rue Jacob, is the shop of her husband, accessories desiger Jerome Dreyfuss. There must be something about having a shop next to your wife’s because when I step into Dreyfus's new store I immediately fall in love. There's Yves, Bernard, Robert, Edmond - all so French and handsome that I can hardly choose between them. But I'm not talking about the staff - these are this season's bags. Dreyfuss is famous for his cute multipocketed satchels in sizes from big to really tiny, produced in matte leathers in delicious sweetie colours.  In the end, I decide on a night out with Paul - the little clutch; not too flashy maybe, but I‘m sure he has hidden depths...

 

 

1 Rue Jacob, 75006
Call: 33.1.4354.7093

www.jerome-dreyfuss.com

Reading is Sexier in Paris!

It's always sexier with Maitresse, for whom I've just designed this header, especially when yor company includes Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Kiki de Montparnasse, Jean Rhys and Jean-Paul Sartre:

 

They're sitting in Le Select in Montparnasse, a bar I've always liked for it's old-school brown stuffiness - decor seemingly unchanged since James Baldwin's era. Le Select regular, Maitresse, wrote a hilarious piece about literary tourism in the toilettes.

While I was working on the pic, I discovered Djuna Barnes was not only a writer but a fantastic illustrator which got me thinking: if I had a header like Maitresse's, which Parisian artists would be there with me and, more importantly,  where would we be drinking?

I think I'd start by asking Honore Daumier, the daddy of French cartooning, who was imprisoned for five months for charicaturing Louis Phillipe as a pear. 

Am I allowed tourists and short-term residents? Francophobe, Hogarth, visited Paris, as did Francophile Aubrey Beardsley on his last, tuburcular journey to the South of France. Francophile, Posy Simmonds whose wonderfully funny reworking of Flaubert, Gemma Bovery, clearly knows Paris and Parisians (see Gemma's French lover's super-Parisienne girlfriend and her dreadful mother).

No one drew the Parisians so well as Jean-Jaques Sempe and Ludwig Bemelmans. And, talking of children's book illustrators, I've always loved Roger Duvoisin's sophisticated line.

Sadly I couldn't invite Herge, despite his influence on French culture and last year's exibition at the Pompidou, as he lived in Belgium all his life. Instead, I'll have Henri Cartier-Bresson with his almost inhuman ability to capture other people's intensely emotional public moments.

Contemporary Paris artists? How about Miss Tic and Sophie Calle - both of them share my interest in wandering anonymously around the streets of Paris and elsewhere.

Where to drink? HCB and Djuna would prefer Montparnasse, Sempe, a little bar like le Rubis. Hogarth wouldn't be happy anywhere, Posy, maybe somewhere in 16e, but Daumier would hardly recognise modern Paris outside the Ile Saint Louis. We'll just have to go for my choice: either Cafe de la Mairie or La Palette or L'Abribus in Belleville, or cocktails at the very hip Curio Parlour, or that little bar by the Marche d'Aligre or any one of a hundred other good bars in the city. Decision: given they're artists, let's make it the bar of Marais art bookshop, La Belle Hortense. Drawing is sexier in Paris too.

Chiche! (challenge). Who would you invite? I challenge Belette, Adam, Coquette.

And please add your fantasy Paris dinner party/pub crawl list of invitees below:

Badaude's Paris Address Book - Les Prairies de Paris

It's the troisieme demarqe* of the soldes! So let's shop!

Les Prairies de Paris is currently on 50% discount.

Laetitia Ivanez's designs for Les Prairies de Paris have a sleekly retro feel. There's a heavy air of Parisian nostalgia in her collections. Models wearing Boshoi blouses and cloche hats look like they might be on their way to a sitting with Man Ray or Matisse (the original Art-Deco style jewellery is particularly good). But this is tempered by cuts which are a little bit funky; a little bit studio 54, 100% Parisien. This is a boutique where you'll find restrained French Chic with a gold tassel trimming.

Ther shoes and bags (especially the clutch pochettes in fluo-bright python) are objects you’ll just want to put on a pedestal and admire, or maybe stroke. Order shoes in half a size up as they run small.

The opening hours are, erm, Parisian (11h00-13h30 most days except, maybe, Mondays, then a French-style one-hour lunchbreak during which the shop is closed, then 14h30-19h00) but that's all a part of the exclusive feeling you get as soon as you step into the very minimal boutique on the hidden rue du Pre aux Clercs in Saint Germain. They recently opened a supsized space in the Marais, where the minimalism is even more extreme - if you can even tell it's a shop: the windows are mostly filled with enormous cut-outs from the movie, Blow-Up. If you can find the store, the achievement in enough. Even if you don't buy, you'll feel you have arrived. 

*troisieme demarque - third reduction

Les Prairies de Paris

6 rue du Pre aux Clercs 75007 

23 rue Debelleyme, 75003 Paris

Badaude's Paris Address Book - Baracane

Hidden down a tiny street sandwiched between Place de la Bastille and Place des Vosges, both of them heaving with Paris life, Baracane can be a welcome escape from the Marais bustle into the old South West of France.

What looks like a little Mom and Pop enterprise is actually the bistronomique offspring of the more expensive L’Oulette restaurant in the Bercy business quarter. The menu is traditional : foie gras; duck confit (there’s a lot of duck); tarte aux pommes, but there are always little changes to the dishes, depending on what the chef bought at the maket that morning and there’s a daily menu du marché.

Customers are a mix of visitors and French, and service is friendly and informal. As soon as you sit down, the waiter offers all kinds of odd Sud-Ouestern aperitifs with ingredients you’ve never heard of. I usually accept. Some of them taste a bit like seawater but others are surprisingly good.

I eat old favourites, snails, cassoulet and try to leave room for my favourite dessert: prune and Armagnac ice cream. They also have some stunning Armagnacs with which to round off your dinner. You couldn’t get much more French than this. I wander out of the restaurant, expecting to turn the corner into some dusty square in Poitiers. I run into Paris Gay Pride.  OK, I really am in the Marais after all.

Set menus range from the 12 Euro ‘express’ lunchtime menu (a dish, a drink and a coffee) to 26 Euro and 34 Euro dinner menus. You could also order a la carte for 11 Euros starters/puddings and 19 Euros mains.

38, rue des Tournelles
75004 Paris
Téléphone : 01 42 71 43 33

Métro :Bastille, Chemin-Vert

Closed Saturday lunch and all Sunday

http://www.l-oulette.com/baracane.php

Have you been to the Sud-Ouest courtesy of Baracane? Tell me what you ate here.

Cette Semaine...

I'm on vacances... à bientôt!

 

TAGS: VENUS, BOTICELLI, CHLOE BIKINI, PUDEUR

Badaude's Paris Address Book - Astier

This is a real ‘nappe aux carreux rouges’ resto. This means a ‘red checked tablecloth’ joint, where the cooking is hearty and the atmosphere more than a little lively. Bang in the middle of one of the coolest streets in 11e, surrounded by hip bars, serving clubbers, tourists, business diners and locals. It's somewhere to take the folks if they want to see all sorts of Paris in one place.

 

The waiters are only averagely stressed for Parisian waiters, which means they're on a knife-edge of caffeine-fuelled tension and the restaurant is busy - so busy that it’s sometimes difficult for your waiter to get through the narrow gaps between the tables to you - which only increases the lively atmosphere. The advice is, book, especially at the weekend.

 

The best starter is the home-cured herrings which appear in a huge terrine for you to help yourself. Mains are traditional and heavy – like rognons (kidneys) in mustard, steaks, and all sorts of dishes that come in cute mini-casseroles.

 

Puddings are also hearty (crème brulee, tarte tatin). Only think about ordering them if you think you can cope with the truly fantastic cheese course that comes between the main course and dessert. The waiter brings a selection of about 20 on a huge basketwork tray. You cut a little, then a little more…

 

The restaurant is open every day for lunch and dinner which can be a godsend when the rest of Paris closes up on Sunday and Monday nights. Fixed-price menu (4 courses, including cheese): 31 Euros. Fixed-price lunch menus at 14.50, 19.50 and 25.50 Euros.

 

http://www.restaurant-astier.com/

44, rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Paris. Métro: Oberkampf. Watch out for that confusing street layout right outside the metro. Despite having eaten here a good few times, I get lost every time I step outside the metro...