Paris

A spring return to Paris becomes a richly layered journey through riverside neighborhoods, lively markets, beloved museums, memorable meals, and the timeless elegance that keeps travelers coming back to the City of Light.

Gastronomy, glamour, grandeur. The words evoke visions of Paris, the cultural capital that has lured Americans for almost 200 years. David McCullough’s book The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris describes determined Americans including author James Fenimore Cooper, artist Samuel F.B. Morse, physician Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and feminist educator Emma Willard, who braved the Atlantic in the 1830s seeking an enlightening experience in Paris. Artists, and writers; debutantes and divorcées, performers and poets; students and flaneurs followed. Most are unabashedly enthralled by the city’s stellar art, food, fashion and the beauty of Haussmanian-style architecture, tree-lined boulevards and historic riverbanks. I’ve been enticed by Paris since I was a 19-year-old student at the Sorbonne, and on dozens of subsequent forays, including this past March. Spring was in the air, and the mild weather encouraged trees to bud, flowers to bloom, and young people to lounge on the green grass.

Weekend A La Parisienne
On weekends, Parisians head to a market, wander, linger in a café and people watch; that’s exactly what my daughter, Alison, and I chose to do. We chose a route through the oldest, riverside neighborhoods that I had discovered during a Market-to-Meal cooking class at La Cuisine Paris. On that October morning, in 2021, when Paris had just opened after a Covid shut-down, a small group of foodies met Chef Cyril at the Marché Maubert on Boulevard Saint Germain and—after voting for what we wanted to prepare and eat for lunch—we followed the chef as he purchased the duck breasts, fresh garlic, asparagus, and a selection of cheese and bread at his favorite artisanal food stalls. With students carrying some of the precious ingredients, we set out off, swiftly, down narrow streets to the nearby Seine and across pedestrian bridges to the cooking school kitchen on the Right Bank.

At the market, Alison and I watched chickens turn on the rotisserie, sampled foie gras and shared a pain au chocolate; then, we took a similar route across the river, but at a snail’s pace and with a different destination: the shops and bistros in The Marais. We strolled by the tiny boutiques and art galleries that line the streets to the quai and across a pedestrian bridge behind Île de la Cité, it’s my favorite view of Nôtre Dame and adjacent to the garden above the Memorial des Martyrs, dedicated to the 200,000 French deported to Nazi concentration camps during World War II. A second short bridge reaches the ancient Île Saint Louis, where the cobblestone streets are lined with shops and cafés and head towards the bridge to the Right Bank, where there wasn’t another person inside the pocket garden bordered by blooming yellow daffodils. We continued block by block, and shop by shop past a busy market and through the Marais to a tiny outdoor café, in the miniscule Place Sainte Catherine, hidden behind rue de Jarente. Our walk—like hundreds of magical strolls through Paris—was as joyful as opening a surprise gift.

Museums
I always reserve timed museum tickets for weekday mornings at 10 am and on this trip, we spent hours at The Louvre, checked out the Van Gogh room at The Musée d’Orsay, saw the extraordinary Matisse exhibit at the Grand Palais. Among the jeweled treasures at The Musée des Arts Decoratifs, there was an entire parlor car from VSOE Orient Express, which I once traveled from Venice to London, on display. I wanted to return to L’Orangerie for Monet’s Water Lillies, the newly renovated Picasso Museum and the fabulous Fondation Louis Vuitton--Frank Gehry’s soaring ship-shaped opus in the Bois de Boulogne, which reinterprets 19th century glass garden buildings (and where some of the terraces view the Eiffel Tower). But, I reminded myself why I titled my first book You Can’t Do It All; you can’t, so I didn’t.

Restaurants
In the City of Light, none twinkle more brightly than those that appear on the hour at the Eiffel Tower; they light up the sky—and everyone’s mood—for five solid minutes. Those lights forever thrill me so I choose restaurants with that view: Les Ombres, Giraffe, Carette Trocadero and Margaux, where the onion soup is topped with a puff-pastry so high that it’s called a Hot Air Balloon and where they happened to flambée my Crepes Suzette, just as the tower lighted. On this trip, I decided to splurge on a gastronomic lunch on the second level of the Eiffel Tower, at Le Jules Verne. The two Michelin-star restaurant is reached by an exclusive-to-guests, six-person elevator which ascends sideways and views Paris through the steel skeleton.

The three course (least expensive) meal features about ten extravagant items, including a truffle studded one: two amuses, a crab starter, a main dish with langoustines, each with a foamy side dish, a sorbet palate cleanser, two pre-desserts, a dessert and a take-home chocolate biscuit. Our other meals were in museums or at traditional bistros: the teeny Le Bon Georges, with the best purveyors of beef, which most guests share; Le Perraudin, with owners from Alain Ducasse’s kitchen and Chez Denise, with its vast chalkboard menu.

Hotel
We stayed at the Hotel Norman, a boutique hotel on rue Balzac, where the author once lived just off the mile-long Champs Élysées. The five-star hotel boasts a stylish modernist vibe by architect and interior designer Thomas Vidalenc and houses the popular Vietnamese restaurant named Thiou. The restaurant, which is adjacent to the lounge and bar, reflects the nickname of its famed and much appreciated Chef Apiradee Thirakomen. Our minimalist junior suite had a full-length sofa in the seating area, well executed woodwork throughout including the well-designed closet and two little balconies facing the rooftops of Paris. The hotel is very near the Arc du Triomphe at the Étoile, where twelve main avenues converge, including Boulevard Haussman, adjacent to the hotel, so it’s a short walk to the stunning house museum: the Musée Jacquemart-André. Instead of returning there after an all-night flight, I relished a relaxing hour in the small subterranean spa, where I received a hydrating Omnisens facial.

About Irvina Lew
Irvina Lew is the author of Forays in France: A Flavorful Memoir, with engaging vignettes reflecting years of travels to Paris, the Riviera and Wine Regions. The culinary travelogue is available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and, for signed copies, visit: foraysinfrance.com