Paris Noël – 10.12.10 – 13.12.10
Galeries Lafayette Noël
Tea party at Ladurée, Champs Elysées
Christmas lights at the Place Vendôme
Antoine et Lili, quai de Valmy, Canal Saint-Martin
Canal Saint-Martin
Chocolat à l’ancienne at Cafe de Flore, Boulevard Saint Germain
Les Tuileries
Photos by Chérie City
Parisians love a good food revolution (just see the neo-bistro revolution at Le Fooding) and Pink Flamingo have certainly revolutionised the humble pizza!
Jamie Young and Marie Ravel opened a tiny pizza parlour just off the Canal Saint-Martin and since Pink Flamingo has brought gourmet oddball pizza to Paris’ hip neighbourhoods – the Marais, Aligre, Montmartre and downtown Berlin.
In the summer, you can try out the Pink Flamingo ‘pink-nik’. Just order your pizza at the counter, take a pink balloon and find a spot on the canal, then they’ll bring it over on a bicycle.
But what’s so unusual about the pizza? Rather than the tired old ‘Cappriciosa’ and ‘Quatre-Saisons’, Pink Flamingo pizzas are named presumably in homage of the owners’ favourite folk.
There’s ‘La Bjork’ with smoked salmon and crème fraiche, a paella pizza hybrid named ‘L’Almodovar’ and the pizza of the moment, the ‘Obama’ topped with grilled bacon and pineapple chutney.
We visited the original rue Bichat joint, just a block from the Canal Saint-Martin and conveniently, Le Citizen Hotel, where we were staying. After ordering two pizza at the take-out counter, we went back out into the restaurant, armed with cutlery and a pizza cutter – god help any potential muggers outside Pink Flamingo!
With checkered table cloths and neon pink lighting and lack of central heating, Pink Flamingo feels like an underground bunker diner, where munching on oddball pizza feels slightly illicit.
Staff are friendly and laid-back and our conversation was a schizophrenic mix of French and English words – the easiest way to get by in Paris. They were dressed for the winter chill with woolly jumpers and bobble hats, as it seems their chosen method of delivery is by bicycle.
Everything is chilled out and simple at Pink Flamingo and you’re left to chat and eat your pizzas in peace while the pizza chefs dash around next door.
I noticed that Pink Flamingo also offer their own beer with the Pink Flamingo logo, which would make a pretty cool souvenir. Also spotted was the super cool spray can ‘fire extinguisher’, only to be used by graffiti artists!
Our pizzas arrived quickly and we ordered La Che (14,5 Euros) and La Macias (15,5 Euros), then split the two.
‘La Che’ is topped with Cuban pork (marinated in garlic, lime, coriander and spring onion for 24 hours) and banana plantain chips. The pork was juicy and succulent and the banana plantain chips were more roasted than deep fried and added a lovely sweet flavour to the pizza.
‘La Macias’ was my favourite, covered in tagine-style marinated chicken and preserved lemon, finished off with green and violet olives. It worked surprisingly well with regular mozzarella and tomato sauce and the base was thin and crispy – made using organic dough.
Both pizzas were subtly flavoured, generously adorned with toppings and quite not as wacky as they sound.
Pink Flamingo is perfect for grabbing a quick pizza with friends and I’ve already picked my spot next to the canal for my summer ‘pink-nik’.
Pink Flamingo, 67 rue Bichat, Canal St-Martin, 75010 Paris.
I’ve stayed in most Paris neighbourhoods on the numerous trips to my spiritual home, but the Canal Saint-Martin has long been neglected due to the lack of hotels in the 10th… that is, until the arrival of Le Citizen Hotel.
The Canal Saint-Martin is known as the bobo heart of Paris and was the whimsical location in Amélie where she skims stones across the water and as a little girl, frees ‘le Cachalot’, her suicidal goldfish.
Le Citizen Hotel is a stylish, minimalist-luxe new abode on the Quai de Jemmapes, right at the centre of the ‘canal scène‘. As the name suggests, it takes a functional, democratic approach to travel and is affordable with luxury touches.
The hotel is discreet and unmarked, accessed by pressing the buzzer on the door. Once inside, it is warm, intimate and calming, with a canteen-style lounge filled with art and design books.
We stayed the Zen Suite on the top floor – a bright, airy open-plan room in soft muted colours with pale wood features, dark wood floors and some interesting design touches.
The most telling mark of an exceptional hotel is the bed, and our double bed was cloudlike, with sumptuous linen and simply divine. A testament to the bed’s superiority was that on arrival, we fell asleep for a good three hours (also helped by a 5.30am Eurostar train).
Add to that a flat screen 26″ TV mounted on the wall, a selection of hand picked art and design books and you’ll find it hard to actually leave your bed!
I fell in love with the landscape of structured wool cushions that made up a graduated sitting area next to the window, framing an enviable view of the Canal Saint-Martin.
I’ve made a mental note add such seating arrangements to my future ‘dream apartment’, which currently looks like a melange of my favourite hotel rooms.
The blue-tiled bathroom was perfectly sized and came with plenty fluffy towels, soft bathrobes and spa toiletries by Omnisense Paris, mounted on the shower wall.
The water pressure in the shower was just right and another cool design touch was the flat disc shower head.
All the toiletries we could possibly need for our stay were presented on a slate and my favourite thing was the bottle of Omnisense Paris body oil, which had a warm vanilla scent.
A fun feature was the magic tablets, which grew into a disposable face cloth when dampened – very Japanese and fitting the to ‘zen’ outlook.
We were given an iPad to use during our stay, although we could also get complimentary WIFI access on my laptop with a log-in code.
Le Citizen have really thought about how to use the iPads as a self-concierge service and have added homepage shortcuts to information about the breakfast, minibar and hotel facility information.
To help us visitors get the best out of our stay in Paris, they have loaded the iPads with apps from ‘in the know’ travel sites, including French food bible, Le Fooding.
The mini bar and cupboard were filled with a combination of delicious healthy or indulgent snacks at a reasonable price.
The only aspect that could be improved was that housekeeping was slightly relaxed and there was no coffee or filtered water that is usually offered. As the hotel is so new, this will no doubt be brought up to speed and I’m sure the friendly staff would have obliged with replacements had we requested.
In the morning, Le Citizen offers a Cafe-Croissant for 5 Euros or a full continental breakfast for 12 Euros, a selection of Japanese tea and cake in the afternoon and a choice of fresh bento boxes throughout the day.
Le Citizen Hotel has been thought out to the last detail to suit the luxury budget traveller and the Zen Suite offers more value than the average Paris hotel room at the same price.
The location is perfect for experiencing the charm of the Canal Saint-Martin and the buzzing bars and restaurants of the 10th arrondissement. By the end of your stay, you’ll feel like you belong in this small neighbourhood and you’ll never want to leave…
Double rooms start from 169 Euros and the Zen Suite is priced at 249 Euros per night.
Le Citizen Hotel, 96 Quai de Jemmapes, 75010 Paris.
Must Eats in the 10e: Hotel du Nord, La Fidélité, Pink Flamingo Pizza, La Tête dans les Olives.
* Cherie City received press rates for Le Citizen Hotel.
It takes a special kind of restaurant to lure models to the Rue Saint-Denis area of eastern Paris to munch on bloodied steak and chocolate fondant. Colette’s Fashion Week dinner for Alexander Wang at La Fidélité was well-documented in the blogosphere, with Purple’s Olivier Zahm, Natasha Poly, Dasha Zhukova, Lou Doillon, Lara Stone and Milla Jovovich in attendance.
La Fidélité is on the wrong side of the tracks from the bobo Canal Saint-Martin, but then again, the restaurant belongs to André and Lionel (of La Clique and Le Baron), so it must be worth a try, right?
Given that it’s La Fidélité’s first birthday this month and everyone is going out before Christmas, I thought that it would be almost impossible to get a table, but Coralie rang ahead and booked us in without any problems.
We arrived at 8pm and as usual, we stayed chatting and drinking wine until closing time at midnight! La Fidélité has a traditional, unpretentious brasserie atmosphere and it feels sociable but more private than other restaurants, with the tables set quite far apart and cosy booths. The waiters were laid-back and friendly and didn’t try and hurry us up to free the table.
La Fidélité was most recently a brasserie called Les Zingot, before the take-over, so it attracts a mixed crowd of local regulars, in-the-know couples and groups of young, trendy friends. At the end of the night, we saw a model and her boyfriend dancing around the bar to tradition French chansons, so its reputation is totally undeserved.
There is just enough choice on the menu and there were a number of different wines to go with whatever you order. We chose a bottle of Brouilly (€30), and though it was on the pricey side, it was light, fruity and dangerously easy to drink. Our waiter also brought a full basket of fresh rustic bread.
The food is mostly good old traditional brasserie fare, but I was more than happy to have steak with béarnaise sauce and grilled potatoes (€22) – Steven had the same.
When our meal came, the steak was enormous, juicy and cooked to perfection. The béarnaise sauce had a hint of tarragon and was so delicious, I couldn’t help slathering it all over my steak and potatoes and bread. It also came on a bed of green salad with French dressing and the grilled potatoes were tasty but could have been a bit more fresh out of the oven.
Coralie went for a veal cutlet with a ragout of potatoes (€20) cooked pink. Her potatoes came bubbling hot in a mini Le Creuset pot and the veal was, by her account, just right.
Even though Steven and I ate cake at almost every meal in Paris, we all couldn’t resist ordering a dessert each, well it was holiday time after all. Coralie went for the brioche pain perdu with a caramel sauce (€8.50), which tasted incredible! The brioche was moist and infused with a light custard and had a caramelised, crunchy top.
After watching Master Chef: The Professionals, I discovered just how hard it is to make a chocolate fondant, so we thought we’d test the chef’s skills. The fondant had just the right level of gooiness and the molten chocolate sauce came oozing out straight away.
La Fidélité is now one of my favourite restaurants in Paris and I hope to keep revisiting whenever I’m in town. It really does have everything – great food, a informal but buzzy atmosphere and friendly, genuine service. Bravo André and Lionel, my next stop will be dinner at Hotel Amour!
How would you describe a city like Paris? Do you automatically think of a Robert Doisneau image of two lover kissing in front of the Hotel de Ville or is the Eiffel Tower lit up at night inscribed in your memory? Paris is undoubtedly magical, but the beyond the confines of the tourist trails is one of the most multi-cultural, artistic and unconventional capitals in Europe.
The Paris Ile-de-France Comite Regionale du Tourisme has just launched a short viral film to promote the young and vibrant side of the city that many visitors end up missing.
The three and a half minute film entitled Kisses From Paris is directed by French actor/director Yvan Attal (who is also Charlotte Gainsbourg’s partner) and is sound tracked by Rufus Wainwright’s atmospheric Leaving For Paris. The Paris tourist board loved his sketch in New York, I Love You so much that they commissioned Yvan to express his own creative vision of the “New Paris Ile-de-France”.
The film features two young lovers, played by Zoé Schellenberg and Pierre Perrier snogging their way through Paris, stopping only to marvel at the amazing sights around them. In between declaring how much they adore each other, the couple study the art at the Beaubourg and the Palais de Tokyo, stroll along the Canal Saint-Martin, go to a gig at the Chateau de Vincenne and hunt for vintage treasures at the Saint Ouen flea market.
The film is intense, stylish and dreamy but in a more realistic than whimsical way. It reminds me of Before Sunrise and its sequel Before Sunset (shot in Paris), where Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy meet on a train and get to know each other in a day before going their separate ways, then meeting up in Paris nine years on.
Kisses From Paris does nothing to dispel the myth of Paris as a city for lovers and not all of us have a Louis Garrel look-a-like to kiss all over town, but it offers a new, alternative Paris to fall in love with.
To find out more about ‘le nouveau Paris’ and to win a trip to Paris, visit the website.