< paris : DEFINED > place vendôme / palais royal < neighborhood : EDIT >
Napoleonic echoes, diamonds, totally LIT coffee, a hidden restaurant run by Americans, weird art. This Paris neighborhood hides its FREAK under a solid layer of CHIC...
PARIS D E F I N E D MAGAZINE »»» PLACES »» NEIGHBORHOODS » place vendôme / palais royal
Oh, la la, Place Vendôme — thou art so posh but so cold, and barren. It’s best to appreciate you from the comfort of a bicycle seat, circling your central column several times like some fertility ritual giving alms at yet another phallic French monument [French architects did not spare the rod when they reconstructed the city and one supposes that the 1800s were a kind of zenith for straight things pointing ~oh, so unsubtly~ at the sky...] while gazing over at the Ritz and...the beautiful lamp posts? And then heading over to the nearby Rue Saint-Honoré and the Palais Royal for a cozier [but still luxe] shopping and noshing. Resist the blitz of press urging you to visit the Ritz’ newish pâtisserie — we found it to be overly touristy and unwelcoming. [Giving it to you straight, potential ramifications be damned.] Aside from the PR machine buzz, the lines are long, the seating is poorly planned and we found the staff [at least on the day we dared visit] to be incredibly rude, even by Paris standards.
Some Place Vendôme overshare: Once, when strolling the glittery window displays in this jewelry mecca whilst on a Tinder (first!) date, le monsieur tried to buy a diamond bracelet for your dear Editor-in-Mischief, which her therapist took as a Very Bad Sign. [He claimed to be affiliated with Sarkozy and there were lots of reasons why it all didn’t work out but mostly one gets kicked out of Antifa, it is said, if they accept something from Van Cleef & Arpels on the first date...] A similar attempt to offer a gift of a €3,000 lamp from one of the nearby Palais Royal galleries was also rebuffed, but the motorcycle ride was gleefully accepted.
Skip Tinder, et al [or don’t, although French dating app « Happn » is more interesting due to the geolocation effect — meet lawyers and bankers near the Trocadéro and film crew types and musicians near the Canal St. Martin] and instead nip around the corner from the Napoleon-celebrating rod of the Place Vendôme to one of our favorite coffee shops — Café Nuances — for a ~totally lit~ rose latte... ça déchire...
« coffee + tea shops »
café nuances // 25 rue danielle casanova // 1st arrondissement
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