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PARIS THROUGH THE NIGHT
IT’S THREE A.M. WANT SOME ONION SOUP AND OYSTERS? FEEL LIKE SHOOTING SOME POOL? HOW ABOUT GETTING A HAIRCUT? NO PROBLEM. THE CITY OF LIGHT HUMS AT ALL HOURS. BY DAN CARLINSKY. PHOTOGRAPHS BY SEAN McCORMICK.
YOU'RE IN PARIS AND YOU CAN’T SLEEP. MAYBE YOU’RE EXCITED TO BE HERE, MAYBE YOU’RE A HOPELESS NIGHT OWL, OR MAYBE YOUR BODY CLOCK SIMPLY HASN’T CAUGHT UP WITH PARIS TIME YET. YOU MIGHT THINK THAT THE ONLY BUSINESSES OPEN 24 HOURS A DAY IN THIS CITY ARE A FEW STRAY GAS STATIONS OR BARS. YOU WOULD BE WRONG.
Look around and you’ll find a surprising number of places advertising “24h/24” or “ouvert jour et nuit” (open day and night), and they come in a variety of flavors.
Here’s a miniguide to a few of the places that are (almost) always open and waiting for you when you can’t — or won’t — sleep.
 EAT, EAT, AND EAT SOME MORE
Hungry? With such a foodcentric culture, Paris naturally has a fair number of eateries that simply never close their doors. Others remain open through the night, shut down for an hour of prebreakfast housecleaning, and then get right back to business. You needn’t go hungry at any hour.
One 24-hour restaurant that is bursting with tradition is La Tour de Montlhéry, also known as Chez Denise, which looks as if it’s ready for a film crew to start shooting a bistro scene in a French movie. Chez Denise once served denizens of Les Halles, the wholesale-market area known as “the stomach of Paris.” While the market has been gone for nearly 40 years, the bistro has never surrendered — nor even changed its menu much. You can have fish and vegetables if you insist, but customers usually come for platters of charcuterie; giant servings of steak frîtes, pot-au-feu, calf ’s liver, and whatever other meat dishes are on the blackboard; and a side of the house homemade fries.
An old market haunt that’s also still around is Au Pied de Cochon, a jolly brasserie that impresses diners with its signature onion soup, all manner of shellfish, and specialties made of parts of the pig that even the pig didn’t know it had. The late crowd — a mix of theater types, club-goers, and tourists — orders from a night menu that’s priced a bit higher than the regular list.
The owners of Au Pied de Cochon, the Blanc brothers, have a total of 15 brasseries in town, two more of which are centrally located 24-hour spots: Le Grand Café des Capucines, near the Opéra Garnier, and L’Alsace, on the Champs-Élysées. Both offer a broad menu that leads off with half a dozen kinds of oysters and a roster of other shellfish. All three of these Blanc brothers establishments double as all-night specialty-seafood markets, selling Normandy and Brittany oysters to go at any hour. Crates of the crustaceans are part of the house decor.
Around the corner from L’Alsace are La Maison de l’Aubrac, a beef house
with an unexpectedly ambitious wine cellar, and Café le P’Elysées, a
great place to head to for a light meal and a beer.
LATE-NIGHT ADDRESS BOOK
| ALIMENTATION HUIT À 8 (MOBIL), 151, rue de
la Convention, 15th
arrondissement, 011-
331-45-48-43-12
L’ALSACE, 39, avenue
des Champs-Élysées,
8th arrondissement, 011-
331-53-93-97-00, www
.restaurantalsace.com
AU PIED DE COCHON,
6, rue Coquillière, 1st arrondissement,
011-331-
40-13-77-00, www
www.aupieddecochon
.com
BEATI CORPUS,
011-331-48-74-33-16,
www.beati-corpus.com
CAFÉ LE P’ELYSÉES,
39, rue marbeuf, 8th
arrondissement, 011-
331-42-56-14-32,
www.pelysees.com | CERCLE CLICHY MONTMARTRE,
84, rue de Clichy,
9th arrondissement,
011-331-48-78-32-85,
www.
academie-billard.com
LES CHIMÈRES,
133, rue
saint-Antoine, 4th arrondissement,
011-331-
42-72-71-97
CINEBANK, several
dozen locations,
www.cinebank.fr
LE DÉPART SAINT-MI-
CHEL, 1, place saintmichel,
5th arrondissement,
011-331-43-54-
24-55
ELYFLEURS, 82, avenue de Wagram, 17th arrondissement, 011- 31-47-66-87-19,
www.elyfleurs.com
ÉPICERIE SHELL, 10,
boulevard Raspail, 7th arrondissement, 011-331-45-48-43-12
| L’ETINCELLE, 42 bis, rue de rivoli, 4th arrondissement,
011-331-42-72-09-76
EXTÉRIEUR QUAI, 5,
rue d’Alsace, 10th arrondissement,
011-331-40-35-73-79
LE GRAND CAFÉ DES
CAPUCINES, 4, boulevard des apucines,
9th arrondissement,
011-331-43-12-19-00,
www.legrandcafe.com
JARDIN DU CARROUSEL,
place du Carrousel, 1st arrondissement
KIOSQUE PRESSE, 2,
boulevard montmartre,
9th arrondissement,
011-331-53-34-63-11
LA MAISON DE
L’AUBRAC, 37, rue marbeuf, 8th arrondissement,
011-331-43-59-05-14, www.maisonaubrac.fr | LA MAISON BLANCHE, 21 rue de dunkerque, 10th arrondissement, 011-331-48-78-15-92, www.maison-blanche.fr
MILK INTERNET HALL,
various locations,
www.milklub.com
OLD NAVY, 150, boulevard saint-Germain,
6th arrondissement,
011-331-43-26-88-09
ORDIGOOD,
011-336-22-42-84-77, www.ordigood.com
PHARMACIE DES
CHAMPS, 84, avenue des Champs-Élysées,
8th arrondissement, 011-331-45-62-02-41
PHARMACIE EUROPÉENNE,
6, place de Clichy,
9th arrondissement,
011-331-48-74-65-18
| POSTE CENTRALE DU
LOUVRE, 52, rue du louvre,
1st arrondissement,
011-331-44-70-95-04
PUB SAINT-GERMAIN,
17, rue l’Ancienne Comédie,
6th arrondissement,
011-331-56-81-13-13
SALEM, 20, boulevard de Clichy, 18th arrondissement,
011-331-46-06-60-03
LA TOUR DE MONTLHÉRY
(CHEZ DENISE),
5, rue des Prouvaires,
1st arrondissement,
011-331-42-36-21-82
(weekdays only)
YATOOPARTOO,
various locations,
www.yatoopartoo.com |
Here are some other notables:
L’Etincelle, in the Marais, serves salads and sandwiches and sports a wraparound terrace.
Le Départ Saint-Michel, in the Latin Quarter, features bar food, including open-faced sandwiches on superb Poilâne sourdough bread, and is a good place for people-watching.
Le Pub Saint-Germain, in Saint-Germain, is a clubby place with somewhat refined pub food and eclectic furnishings, which have been updated since this spot’s heady heyday in the 1960s.
Old Navy, which is also in Saint-Germain, offers a simple menu, a long list of beers, sports on the tele, and a tobacco counter.
In most cities, the area around the railroad station is crowded with places where you can eat and drink. The strip along the south side of the Gare du Nord is no exception — it’s a typical train-station neighborhood on steroids. The all-night draw on the street is the brasserie La Maison Blanche. Over by the Gare de l’Est, there’s Extérieur Quai, a 24-hour bar with high-kitsch murals and, for the pinball crowd, les flippers. “If you want to play and eat some moules frîtes or côte de boeuf at three o’clock in the morning,” says the owner, Marcel Bénezet, “come here.”
MISCELLANY, PART I
Perhaps you just have the munchies? Salem bakery, just off place de Clichy, sells pastries, sandwiches, quiches, and pizzas 24 hours a day. Due to the area’s Arab population, many of Salem’s goodies are made with almonds or pistachios — just the things to alleviate those cravings.
Of course, you could buy the fixings and make your own snack. Paris supermarkets don’t do late hours, and even neighborhood corner groceries don’t stay open past midnight, but there are options. Paris has several all-night service stations, two with the French version of an all-night 7-Eleven attached. At the Mobil station on rue de la Convention, there’s Alimentation Huit à 8, an around-the-clock convenience store. And next to the Shell station on boulevard Raspail, there’s Épicerie Shell, a roomy, clean, well-lit store that offers everything from bread and cookies to fresh fruits and vegetables, crème fraîche, and inexpensive wines. You can even buy the latest copy of Michelin’s red guide to Paris there and get a head start on choosing tomorrow’s restaurant.
Your stomach’s calling, but you don’t feel like traveling? Chances are you’re not too far from a YaTooPartoo, an automatic supermarket that displays more than 200 everyday products on refrigerated shelves behind glass. These carry chips, cold drinks, prepared foods, sandwiches, and all other manner of grocery-store miscellany.
When looking for magazines, newspapers, or a quick souvenir, you need a newsstand. Most are shuttered by midnight, but in the summer, at least, you can shop at any hour at the well-stocked Kiosque Presse by the top of the escalator of the Grands Boulevards Métro station on boulevard Montmartre. According to the man behind the counter, the business stays open ’round the clock from Easter to early September. “We don’t close during tourist season,” he says, “because tourists are on the street day and night.” To satisfy your English-languagenews cravings, you can choose from eight British newspapers. And if you insist, you can even grab a Paris souvenir T-shirt or one of those little Eiffel Towers.
A NIGHT OWL’S TRANSPORTATION GUIDE
During the week, the paris Métro (www.ratp.fr), the generally smooth, efficient subway system, shuts down from one to 5:30 a.m. But on saturday nights, service is extended to 2:15 a.m. on all 16 lines. the same schedule has been promised for Friday nights and is to be implemented sometime this year. says Marie-Christine Boully-demange of the city’s tourist office: “there’s a demand for later hours. the city has to talk to the unions, but maybe in a few years, we can have a little more — we hope.”
When subways and regular buses take a rest, special night buses pick up the slack in order to keep public transportation rolling 24 hours a day. the Noctilien bus network — which services two circular routes and 40 spokes in all directions — operates from 12:30 to 5:30 a.m., seven days a week. the night buses connect with the city’s suburban and long-distance train stations (www.noctilien.fr).
Taxis can be hard to find at night, especially around two a.m., when most bars close. there are stations where drivers are supposed to queue so would-be passengers can find them, but at odd hours you’re better off phoning a taxi service. in general, your smartest move for gathering public-transportation information is to ask advice from someone who lives or works in the area. All parisians know which bus lines stop in their neighborhoods, and every parisian has a favorite cab company’s phone number at hand.
Finally, as part of a new go-green traffic-cutting program that was unveiled in July, thousands of bicycles are now available for low-cost rental at hundreds of special sidewalk locations around the city (www.velib.paris.fr). Computerized stations will take your credit card to cover the small rental fee, give the bike a high-tech look-over when you return it, and add a steep charge if you’ve mangled the thing. |
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SURF WORK MAIL PLAY
If any part of society in any land thrives around the clock, it’s the Internet subculture — thus the half a dozen 24-hour Internet cafés in Paris, each of which is fronted with a bold orange-andwhite exterior with a giant milk bottle. The sign outside reads Milk Internet Hall (slogan: “Milk: Your World in a Bottle”), and, in English, the offer (or command): “surf work mail play.” Inside, rows of zombies are seated on orange chairs before flat-screen monitors, surfing, gaming, and tapping, tapping, tapping; the scene could be the newsroom at the Robot Daily Tribune. Says the guy at the desk: “Some of them sit down during the evening and stay all night. We have free Skype service, so tourists come at all hours to talk to their families at home on a different clock.”
Carrying your own laptop? If it freezes or goes dark and no amount of rebooting or battery jiggling revives it, you’re just a phone call away from a techie at Ordigood. After midnight, the usual fees for an on-site job are doubled: The minimum service call becomes 100 euros, and virus disinfection will set you back 150 euros. You’ll clench your teeth but be relieved to be back online.
Twenty-first century or not, sometimes you just have to mail something. And sometimes, perhaps, the call strikes at an odd hour. Need stamps for that card or package? The city’s Poste Centrale, the centrally located main post office, is open throughout the night.
MISCELLANY, PART II
They say that Paris itself is a museum, what with its graceful architecture, fountains, and outdoor sculptures at every turn. Counted among this museumlike city’s rich displays are Aristide Maillol’s 18 zaftig women in bronze, which are spaced among the topiary hedges at Jardin du Carrousel, the garden between the west wings of the Louvre. (There’s no merry-go-round; the place is named for a horse exhibition that was held there in 1662 by Louis XIV and which featured a parade of 655 horsemen and their assorted entourages and trumpeters.) The sculpture collection and the entire garden are ungated and always open.
If art isn’t your pleasure and somehow you can’t manage to find anything else to do in Paris, perhaps you have a VCR or DVD player in your hotel room and will settle for watching a movie. You and your credit card can put together a night’s worth of entertainment at the nearest outlet of Cinebank, a national video automat that has dozens of locations in town.
If you prefer to make your own entertainment, try Les Chimères, a burgersand- tapas restaurant and an all-night bar in the Marais. The two-level venue attracts an eclectic young crowd by offering a happy hour, major sporting events on TV, and — for incurable extroverts and those who enjoy watching them — karaoke from 10 p.m. to five a.m. When the karaoke machine goes silent, the place closes for an hour and then reopens at six a.m. for the early breakfast crowd.
Another place for late-night activity (although not 24 hours — it’s closed from 5:45 to 11 a.m.) is the century-old billiard academy Cercle Clichy Montmartre, which has 16 tables. The air-conditioned academy — don’t call it a pool hall — hosts regular tournaments, requires an ID for entry, and allows no minors. “Retirees come in the afternoon,” the doorman explains. “At night, you see lawyers and people coming from the office in white shirts. Older people play bil- liards; the young ones play American pool. We have a snooker table for the English.”
Do you need a couple of aspirin? In a back corner of the Galerie des Champs, a two-level mini-mall on the Champs-Élysées, you’ll find the Pharmacie des Champs, which dispenses aspirin and a lot more. There are bottles and tins of whatever you need to stop your pain, to stop smoking, to lose or gain weight, and to fix up your insides and your outside. McDonald’s and the other shops in the Galerie may close during the late hours, but the Pharmacie des Champs does not. And if you’re up near Montmartre and need to fix a headache or a stomachache, look for the big green-lit cross flashing across the place de Clichy — it shows the way to the Pharmacie Européenne, which never closes and is a larger drugstore.
BODY (AND SOUL) MAINTENANCE
After a late night, does it take a bit of, well, work to get you looking your best for that morning meeting? No matter what the hour, Beati Corpus will answer your phone call and send a team member to your home, office, or hotel in less than 30 minutes to give you a haircut, shampoo, manicure, pedicure, facial, or massage. The outfit, which has been in business for 15 years, lists 17 top hotels as references and brags about having worked on such celebrities as Madonna, Elton John, Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Nicole Kidman, Andre Agassi, Mme Kennedy, and the sultan of Brunei. There’s no word about whether those folks called during the day or at night.
Been out all night painting the town rouge? Feeling guilty about it? Sorry, Paris has no all-night church at which you can absolve yourself, but if you’ll have some explaining to do as dawn breaks, head over to avenue de Wagram, above the Arc de Triomphe, and pay a visit to Elyfleurs. A big flower shop that’s been open around the clock for years, it’s a favorite of concierges and dinner guests all over town. Choose a bouquet — better make it a big one — of something pretty. If you’re feeling very guilty, add a bottle of Champagne from the shop’s cooler. Now go back and face the music. Good luck.
DAN CARLINSKY often visits — and writes about — France.
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