Paris Stays Up Late - March
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Once the blazer is on and the door slams shut, where do Paris’s Night Owls go? Here are the places, people, and works that dressed my nights. In March, I:
— Claimed a stool at one of the best cocktail bars in Paris: Bar Nouveau. 12 seats, 7 drinks. When they described them to me, it sounded like a dessert menu. "No reservations because it’s trop petit." But in a few weeks, the spot will launch the capital's very first cocktail tasting menu. Six courses (one of them practically edible), paced over two hours. The 4 PM and 7 PM seatings are designed to make sure you leave on your own two feet. Sounds promising.
— Kicked off the night at Rives, an Aveyronnais bistro in the 11th, run by a young chef hailing from a lineage of Aubrac restaurateurs. The two irresistible draws in my book? The sausage and aligot with red wine sauce: flawless (just like the rest of the menu). The turntable by the zinc counter, with its collection of 70s disco-funk vinyl and the promise of a 1 AM closing time (or later when the team invites a DJ—keep an eye on their insta). My kind of "kick-starter" table.
— Dove into 'The Last Hurrah' by British photographer Dafydd Jones, documenting Oxford University parties in the early 80s. "I loved Oxford: the light, the buildings, the early morning mist. For May balls I would usually skip the all-night partying and arrive at dawn to catch the bleary-eyed survivors." You spot a young Hugh Grant and Boris Johnson at the onset of a difficult morning. Untied bow ties and crumpled ballgowns: superb.
— Danced on a Sunday night at the Rex (right next to our Suites) for the Legends party. A single date to watch American house music figure Louie Vega take over the decks. Even on Sundays, Paris stays up late.
— Spent a few nights at La Colombe d’Or, the legendary hotel in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. The place was frequented by Matisse, Chagall, and many others: artists could settle their bills with an a painting. The upper crust of French and Hollywood cinema were regular there too.
The hotel, still run by the same family, fully lives up to its reputation. Dining under a Picasso, sleeping in a Provençal room illuminated by paintings, swimming early morning laps in the heated pool under the patronage of a Calder mobile, and finally, having breakfast on the sun-drenched terrace: it was well worth leaving Paris for a winter weekend on the French Riviera.
"Parties are a theater," Dafydd Jones reminds us. It's up to you to choose the play and the costume.
Let the show begin,
