World stage
Bus Palladium, Le Restaurant, BÉP, Enfants-Rouge properties, France v Senegal, best Right Bank sandwiches, MORE
HOTELS & RESTAURANTS • First Word
It scene
It’s been a long time since Paris had a restaurant that reigned as the city’s Big Room, that white-hot, popular-but-exclusive place where the crowd offers a working definition of Those Who Make The City Cool. But this season, dine there enough times, and you’ll spot everyone interesting in Paris come through Le Restaurant.
Designed by Studio KO, the hottest interior design firm in Paris, the great moody décor of this intimate dining room in the just-opened Bus Palladium hotel gets its wonderfully odd visual DNA from an elision of Tom Jones and Sid Vicious, or that raggedy time period in Paris when disco and punk rock overlapped for a while. This is because the Bus Palladium, now a 35-room five-star hotel in increasingly gentrified Pigalle, was one of the best and most enduringly avant-garde nightclubs in Paris from its original opening in 1965 to 2022 when it closed.
Salvador Dali once showed up here with a panther on a leash, the Rolling Stones played here, and Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin were regulars, and the crowd was a high-voltage mix of aristocrats, rockers, punk-rockers, suburban kids, artists, and fashion designers, along with a tonifying dose of riffraff.
Now, in addition to the sexy party-pad rooms upstairs and a revived club in the basement, the reason Parisians are flocking here is to discover the cooking of young chef Valentin Raffali, who was recruited from his restaurant Livingston in Marseille to run the kitchen here. Luscious and luminously beautiful, Franco-Moroccan Raffali’s cooking has a poignancy that comes from his deep desire to please and the way his culinary creativity is disciplined by an exacting technical precision.
The menu changes according to the season and what’s best in the markets, consistently reflecting Raffali’s fascination with unexpected flavors and textures. Standouts at the moment include trout with nasturtium flowers, rhubarb water, aloe vera, and verjus; tart Tatin of girolles mushrooms with haricots vert and salted apricots; Thai style pig’s feet; and, for dessert, a braided donut with blueberries and almond ice cream. –Alexander Lobrano
→ Bus Palladium Hotel (9th arr) • 6 Rue Pierre Fontaine • Book a room, book a table.
PARIS WORK & PLAY LINKS: Legendary Left Bank cinema Le Saint-Germain-des-Prés reopened last week, with an assist from Chanel • NYC-based real estate brokerage Douglas Elliman expands to Paris • Lee Krasner will make Paris debut via Gagosian, Olney Gleason this October • French furniture designer Erik Schmitt talks taste • Kinda-kid friendly Paris dining recommendations • Ode to the Paris cinema.
REAL ESTATE • On the Market
Three properties for sale around Enfants-Rouges in the 3rd arr:
→ Square du Temple (metro Temple) • 3BR/3BA, 150 m2 apartment • Ask: 2.79M € • character charm in 1890 building, sold fully furnished • Annual maintenance/condo fees: 7440 € • Agent: Charlotte Mantel, Paris Ouest Sotheby’s.
→ Enfants-Rouges (metro République) • 5BR/3BA, 204 m2 apartment • Ask: 3.6M € • third-floor flat with 3m ceilings, preserved mouldings, parquet floors, and fireplaces • Annual maintenance/condo fees: 5989 € • Agent: Caroline Baudry, Barnes.
→ Square du Temple (metro Temple, above) • 5BR/3BA, 383 m2 apartment • Ask: 3.99M € • massive triplex with five suites, each with bedroom and bathroom, plus home cinema and indoor swimming pool • Annual maintenance/condo fees: 21,392 € • Agent: Nelson Ariowitsch, Barnes.
RESTAURANTS • First Word
Bowled over
The Skinny: It’s a family affair at BẾP. Marie Nguyen and Émilien Quéméner, the duo behind Montmartre natural wine bar Sobremesa, have teamed up with Marie’s brother, chef Antoine Nguyen, to open the Vietnamese restaurant in the 9th arrondissement, a neighborhood that has never been a particular hotspot for Vietnamese food. It debuted in April.
The Vibe: Casual and chill, with raw concrete block walls, no tablecloths, and a brushed metal bar at the center. You can pop into BẾP for a quick lunch, or book ahead for a laid-back group dinner, tasting your way through as many dishes as possible. It’s also a solid apéro option, a chance to break out of the usual wine-and-charcuterie or œufs mayo routine.
The Food: At lunch, the focus is on comforting bowls. My companion ordered the cơm tấm pork: grilled pork shoulder with bì chả (shredded pork and toasted rice powder), pickles, cucumber, and rice. Running on nothing more than a sad breakfast smoothie, he added a savory slice of chả trứng, a traditional Vietnamese terrine I went with the veggie version, com tam végé, which was essentially the same with the pork swapped for oyster mushrooms grilled shish-kebab style, their edges caramelized to perfection.
Dinner offers more to taste: snacky dishes like gà chiên, crispy fried chicken lacquered with a savory-sweet nước mắm glaze, and bò tái chanh, a bright Vietnamese-style beef carpaccio dressed with fresh herbs, peanuts, fried onions, lime, and chili oil. Mains are served with rice vermicelli, rice paper, pickles, and fresh herbs and feature crisp-skinned roasted pork belly or a fried fish of the day, served whole for sharing.
The Drink: The wine list is a draw for neo-bistro-loving Parisians. Émilien, whose family founded a wine-tasting club in Brittany, looks after the beverages, including carefully chosen natural wines (by the glass or bottle) and Vietnamese specialties like cà phê sữa đá, Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk on ice or trà xanh 0° (không dộ), iced green tea sweetened by cane sugar. There’s also Saigon beer, and cocktails like a Thai basil smash with gin, lime, and the fresh, fragrant herb.
The Verdict: A comfort-food lunch spot that won’t end the workday the way a classic French bistro can, or a hopping place to meet friends at night for tasty Vietnamese dishes and unexpected wines. –Caitlin Gunther
→ BẾP (9th arr) • 49 rue Marguerite de Rochechouart • Tue-Fri 12h-15h & 19h-23h, Sat 19h-23h • Book.
CULTURE & LEISURE • Le Mondial
France v Senegal • MetLife Stadium (East Rutherford, NJ) • Tue @ 15h • sec 139, 2057 € per (703 € lowest avail)
Aldous Harding • Le Trianon (18th arr) • Fri @ 20h • carre or, 44 € per
Counting Crows• L’Olympia (9th arr) • 12/06 @ 20h • orchestra, 113 € per
GETAWAYS LINKS: On the market in Alsace: a former church blessed with divine stained glass • Sneak peeking London’s St. Clement hotel, soft opening now and fully in September • Inside Mandarin Oriental’s luxe new Mallorca resort.
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GOODS & SERVICES • The Nines
Sandwiches, Right Bank
The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best in Paris and surrounds. Paid subscribers access the complete Nines archive.
Caractère de Cochon (3rd arr), one of best jambon-beurre in town with wide choice of different regional hams and associated pork products