"But wait!" exclaims the disenfranchised, albeit nonexistent reader, "Why can't you tell us about Parisian restaurants?"
"Well," I respond sagely, though in a voice tinged with resignation, "I had no time to write because I was enjoying them rather too much for the first few weeks, and now I'm too broke to enjoy them very much at all."
But hah! I just happen to be writing another blog in conjunction with my fellow Stanfordians and a few law students at ASSAS, in which I travel around Paris to sites of literary fame, and compare their past condition to their present experience. Which brings me to... Cafe de Flore, my first entry in that blog and, conveniently enough, a cafe, and hence appropriate for this blog as well. Like I said, automatic 5 out of 5 for being in the 5th arrondissement Paris and for having such a strong, cool history. Enjoy:
Popular as the Metro may be for its predictable (if not unfortunately diurnal) timetables and ability to get you to any destination with an alleged maximum of two train changes, Paris is a city made for walking. The reason I mention this is that, practically from the moment the plane touched down at Charles de Gaulle Airport four weeks ago, that’s all I’ve been doing. Pick a direction, and walk.
After settling in to my host family’s apartment in the 15th arrondissement, my first thought was, “So where can I walk to now?” Getting a feeling (which turned out to be more or less correct) that I was somewhere southwest of the action, I figured that east and up along Vaugirard would be the way to go.
The turns are now a blur; the reasoning, forgotten. Eventually, however, I tore my eyes away from the mouth-watering storefronts of Rue de Rennes, took in my surroundings, and had to catch my breath. From left to right: Lipp’s, Café de Flore, Les Deux Magots.
I’d only been in Paris for five days at this point – meaning I still had enough money to afford coffee and a croissant at one of these now upscale literary Meccas – and it was still a bit early for tourist season to have taken its toll on the available seating. Having become pretty (theoretically) familiar with Lipp’s and Les Deux Magots thanks to an Ernest Hemingway kick last quarter, I headed instead to the less familiar (and hence, less intimidating) Café de Flore.
Clearly, I don’t read a lot of philosophy, or Café de Flore would’ve had me just as awed. Evidently, as I found out on Wikipedia later that evening, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir are known to have frequented this warm, busy café to discuss existentialism over drinks. Oh. Okay.
Nowadays, the literary prize the Prix de Flore is presented each year to a budding French writer and includes not only a cash prize of about €6,000, but a glass of Pouilly-Fumé (a white wine from the Loire) every day for a year. Additionally, Sophia Coppola once mentioned that Flore was her favorite place to hold production meetings for Lost in Translation.
Not like I knew any of this walking in there. For about three hours, I nursed some hot milk (side note: has anyone else noticed that dairy products in Europe, while delicious, taste very differently from the American variety? or do I have a taste bud-altering tumor?) and a croissant, and tried to coax my memory into remembering the past five days well enough to get them semi-accurately into my journal.
Generally, I’m used to pressure to eat, pay, and move on, especially at such highly trafficked cafes, but the waiters didn’t seem to mind at all that I’d just sort of stationed myself in a booth with paper, pen, and no visible intention of leaving. A couple even dropped by to ask (in French, which was a little bit of an ego boost) about my studies, how long I’d be in Paris, where in the States I came from—apparently one of the waiters hails from Texas. Anyways, a few weeks have past, and maybe that kind of long-term hangout is no longer acceptable, now that tourism’s up and the pressure’s on to keep people moving in and out, but I’ve only been back once since then, and for a much shorter cappuccino break.
They say that not much has changed at Flore over the decades, except for the fashion of the clientele. “The atmosphere, the energetic flow of conversations, and the mythology of the Flore mark it as an institution of Parisian culture,” remarked one observer.
Who knows? Maybe they let me stay because they thought I was writing the Next Great American Novel.
Hell, maybe I was.
