Lasting impression
Castel de Très Girard, Marais properties, À Côté d’la Plaque, La Joie, Lanqi Spa, Hoy, restaurants cooking by flame, MORE
On Monday, we dropped the FOUND Summer ‘26 Report, a roundup of our favorite new Paris restaurants, cultural finds, and getaways from the second quarter of 2026. Paid subscribers get access to Summer Reports across all FOUND cities (perfect travel cheatsheets). Here’s the full set:
GETAWAYS • Burgundy
Lingering on
In the heart of the Côte de Nuits, surrounded by vineyards that stretch toward the horizon, Castel de Très Girard sits just high enough above the vines to take in the view, yet remains rooted within the landscape.
GETAWAYS LINKS: Cap Fear: Cap Ferret grapples with wildfires • Nine French country houses for escaping the city • On the market in Provence, an artist’s home with lush garden • Across Europe, the hottest pop-ups for the rest of summer 2026 • How to get lost in Cancale.
REAL ESTATE • On the Market
Three properties currently for sale in the Marais.
→ Hôtel de Ville (metro Rambuteau, above) • 3BR/3BA, 176 m2 apartment • Ask: 2.75M € • tri-level residence built around 12th-century fireplace, courtyard entrance on quiet pedestrian street • Annual condo charges: 4228 € • Agent: Alexis Delachapelle, Engel & Völkers.
→ Les Archives (metro Rambuteau) • 3BR/3BA, 140 m2 apartment • Ask: 3.99M € • restored corner unit inside former Couvent de la Merci, overlooking National Archives gardens • Annual condo charges: 3600 €, taxe foncière 2866 € • Agent: Junot Marais.
→ Vertbois (metro Strasbourg-Saint-Denis) • 6BR/5BA, 418 m2 house-like residence • Ask: 5.5M € • discreetly marketed 18th-century property, high-end renovation, private garden terrace in quiet Marais corner • Annual condo charges: 6850 € • Agent: Nelson Ariowitsch, Barnes.
CULTURE & LEISURE • En Plein Air
Ensemble Diderot / Johannes Pramsohler • Paris Jazz Festival • Parc Floral de Paris (Vincennes) • Sun 16/08 @ 16h • GA, free
Salomé Gasselin – PRISM • Classique au Vert • Parc Floral de Paris (Vincennes) • Sat 15/08 @ 16h • GA, free
Le Festival des Essentiels • Montreuil, Gennevilliers, 20th, 12th, 18th arrs. • thru 09/08 • GA, free.
WORK • Friday Routine
Independent streak
RAPHAËLE MARCHAL • TV columnist, festival host, content creator, author, & print journalist
Neighborhood you work in: It depends on my assignments and clients. I work from home, the TF1 Tower, and very often, Hoy on Rue des Martyrs. I juggle professional meetings, computer work, yoga, and lunch there — it’s my coworking space, my second home. I love being a bit nomadic. Funny anecdote: two weeks ago, I had a very important call, followed immediately by a meeting at Le Bon Marché. There wasn’t enough time to take the metro between the two, so I ended up taking my call right in the middle of the Bon Marché communications team — luckily, I know them well! I also have two-year-old twins, so working from home is ideal. Whenever I have a break, I cook for them.
Neighborhood you live in: 16th arr
It’s Friday afternoon. How are you rolling into the weekend?
By Friday afternoon, I’ve usually reviewed the week ahead. I’ve never minded working on a Saturday or Sunday — there’s something quite pleasant about working when others aren’t. It’s quieter.
My reflex is to make sure I have everything ready for the boys’ meals so I can relax afterward. If we’re staying in Paris, I’ll schedule a couple of yoga sessions, brunches, dinners with friends, and some time just the two of us. Whether it’s a big departure with suitcases and trains, or a quiet weekend at home, we always manage to do exactly what we feel like doing — and by Sunday night, we usually say, “wow, that was such a good weekend.”
What’s on the agenda for today?
Today I’m writing my Friday column for Bonjour La Matinale on TF1. The concept is simple: We build the segment around the guilty pleasure of our Friday celebrity guest. Sometimes I find out at the last minute (which means it’s a sprint), but this time I’ve known in advance, so I can prepare.
We’re welcoming Anne Roumanoff this week, but we’ve also had guests like Laurent Lafitte, Pierre Niney, and Manu Payet. Often, the topics are ones I wouldn’t necessarily have chosen myself, which makes it interesting. I try to highlight a great artisan, add a useful takeaway for viewers, and of course, include a few jokes and some wordplay.
After that, I need to film a Thermomix video ahead of a gala. I’ll revisit the brief and think about how to present both the recipe and the challenge creatively. Then I have yoga and lunch with a dear friend who works at Ruinart — we’ve collaborated a lot and become very close. I’m also preparing my next reel for my YouTube channel À Côté d’la Plaque. It’s a recipe by Stéphanie Le Quellec that we filmed earlier, and I’ll repost it for asparagus season. Tonight will be calm, as I went out every evening last week, so I’m slowing down. A bit of cooking, a quiet evening. That’s a fairly typical day.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
Last Saturday, I went to La Joie on Rue du Chemin Vert — extraordinary. I travelled to Sri Lanka fifteen years ago, and the food left a lasting impression on me. At La Joie, I rediscovered those haunting flavours. On Île Saint-Louis, a former Noma chef recently opened Cypsele (intel) — that’s my next target. It’s open Wednesday to Saturday, part of the new wave, and it looks completely mad in the best way.
How about a little leisure or culture?
I recently saw Panayotis Pascot’s show — powerful, introspective, funny, and sad at the same time; slightly uncomfortable, yet deeply touching. I had loved his first show so much I saw it twice, and this one is really something. In a completely different style, I adored Alexandre Kominek at the Olympia — no limits, but brilliant. I also love going to the ballet at Palais Garnier. Bastille moves me less, but Garnier is something else entirely. With the children, we loved Euphoria at the Grand Palais and an exhibition at Palais de Tokyo. At two years old, their attention span is still short, but I can’t wait to take them to the theatre and cinema when they’re older.
Any weekend getaways?
It’s a gift from my partner and me to my father-in-law, though I initiated the idea: three days of hiking and bivouac in Switzerland this summer. Daytime picnic cooking over a grill, nights partly under the stars, partly in mountain refuges.
He loves hiking but has never truly slept in the mountains. For us, it’s something deeply meaningful. A friend in the Basque Country organizes clandestine mountain lunches (completely legal!) where we hike, settle in a shepherd’s hut, light a fire, grill homemade bread, and slice sashimi. Through him, we connected with a Swiss high-mountain guide, fully equipped for alpine terrain and glaciers. For three days, they’ll take us through hiking, a bit of mountaineering, bivouacs, refuges, and endless stories about landscapes and plants. That’s the kind of gift I consider essential: experiences you remember for life, that reconnect you to its meaning.
What was your last great vacation?
My most formative travel memories date back to childhood — Vietnam, Kenya, and Egypt between the ages of eight and 12. They shaped me deeply. I once told my parents, “If I never travel again later in life, it won’t matter — I’ve already lived so well with you.”
More recently, Mauritius has been a place we love returning to. Beyond the beautiful hotels, the island offers extraordinary terroir and hiking. One highlight is a tiny hut called Vik’s, nestled at the far end of the beach of the Lux Le Morne hotel. The owner is a fisherman who takes you out to catch sea urchins, serves his homemade rum, and prepares everything himself. When making dessert, he presses sugar cane on the spot to caramelize bananas with coconut powder. It’s surreal — pots stacked to the ceiling, intimate seating for two to six people, completely embodied and authentic.
In Port Louis, I love the bouchons at Jim Snack in an extraordinary broth, the delicious rotis and dholl puris at Chapeau La Paille, and the allouda at Pillay — a large glass of custard with tapioca pearls and ice cream on top, drunk as an aperitif. It makes no sense, but it’s brilliant. Mauritian friends who’ve lived there for 20 years have shown us all the best spots.
What store or service do you always recommend?
I often send people to Lanqi Spa for ancestral Chinese massage treatments. It’s powerful and deeply restorative. They read your face the moment you arrive, almost like reflexology, but purely visual. Beyond sleep and hydration, they’ll tell you if your energy is blocked or your liver is struggling. I love it.
In the same holistic spirit, I frequently recommend Madoula, an energy healer at Hoy. Magnetism, holistic therapies — I’m almost becoming an expert in that world, haha. It’s unexpected — people assume I’d recommend chocolatiers. But lately, it’s energy work.
PARIS WORK & PLAY LINKS: Why August is Paris’s best-kept secret • What’s open on Monday in Paris? • Ma Vie En Rouge: Paris during a heatwave.
RESTAURANTS • The Nines
Cooking, by flame
The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best in Paris and surrounds. Paid subscribers access the complete Nines archive.
Fogo (17th arr, above), high-end flame cooking w/ superb products, from Challans baby duck to Brittany blue lobster, plus large cuts of meat to share