Tag: nana

Categories
Architecture Art Design Developers Luxury Restaurants Town Houses

Passage des Panoramas + Musée Grévin Paris

A Lesson in Skiagraphy

It’s a diorama come to life. The past is present in Passage des Panoramas. A timeline as permeable as an Alice Rohrwacher film (La Chimera, 2023). It’s straight out of an Émile Zola novel. Literally (Nana, 1880). Built in 1799, this was the first covered arcade in Paris, oozing period character and historic authenticity. It combines beauty with functionality with rarity. Elegant white arches support the glazed pitched roof over rows of exquisite wooden shopfronts with colourful painted panels. Passage des Panoramas is a shortcut between Palais Royal and Montmartre. Only 17 such arcades have survived Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s rebuilding of the city.

There’s quirky and there’s Victoria Station Wagon Restaurant which is like a railway coach derailed at the entrance. A winged wolf and a bejewelled lynx peer through the windows of Caffè Stern in the centre. Philippe Starck designed the interior of this petite restaurant owned by the Alajmo group which runs the three Michelin star Le Calandre in Padova. Postcards of flooded streets and reclining kittens can be found in Maison Prins. On the opposite side of Boulevard Montmartre is Musée Grévin which opened in 1882. It’s where celebrities come to life – in wax.

Categories
People Restaurants

Café Le Brébant Paris + Pacha

At Midday Venus Passes

“Earlier that morning Zoé had made the apartment over to a caterer from Brébant’s and his staff of helpers and waiters. Brébant’s would provide the food, the crockery, the glasses, the tablecloth and napkins, the flowers, and everything down to the chairs and footstools.” In between preparing her mistress Nana’s toilette, Zoé knew where to go to get set up for a party. Nana is Émile Zola’s ninth novel in his journalistic 20 volume Les Rougon-Macquart series. It captures the loucheness of society during the reign of Napoléon III. Café Le Brébant had been open 15 years when Nana was published in 1880. The Second French Empire has never truly ended on Boulevard Poissonnière. This is still Paris, the Paris of letters, of pleasure, of romance. Wicker and tassled lightshades hanging midair sway in the gentle summer breeze cooling the terrace of Café Le Brébant. Pacha the resident Maine Coon cat plays and poses and preens herself, blissfully unaware of her role in the street theatre of life. Très Grand Guignol.