Take the microcosm of my street for example, it’s like clockwork – every morning at 6.35am the rubbish trucks rumble down the street and the rubbish men chide each other at the top of their lungs to ensure the whole neighbourhood is fully awake, at 9.30am the motley British bulldog at number 50 grumpily hobbles out for his daily walk, at 10.00am the angry homeless lady who sits outside the supermarket emerges from a cardboard box with her ‘I am hungry’ sign (I bought her a freshly made ham, cheese and salad baguette once and she threw it at me and yelled ‘I am not a bin’), at 11.30am a white terrier with an incredibly strange limp dances down the street to the local cafe, jumps up onto his high chair and watches patiently while his owner sips her espresso, at around 4.00pm as the second daily round of bread is coming out of the oven at the bakery below Monsieur Dupont saunters in, cuts to the front of the line and orders a ‘well cooked’ baguette, at around 4.01pm Monsieur Julien who works at the bakery tells him to go to the back of the line and stop pushing in, and at 7.00pm every night a bearded man stands below my building, whistles once, then yells something that sounds vaguely like “wally” into the distance, and repeats the process three times before leaving.

I too have become quite set in my routine. At 8am on Mondays and Wednesdays I meet Salmon Hayek for a run in Luxembourg Gardens (coincidentally the same time that a group of 50 Parisian fireman set out for their morning run), at 8.30pm on Thursdays Dolly Tatin, Robert Brownie Jr. and I convene for wine and cult movie night, and every Sunday at around 1.00pm I can be found chowing down a burger in a corner booth at Paris hotspot  La Perle with Edith Pilaf.

It’s hard to put your finger on how this unassuming old corner bar (once the scene of the infamous rant that cost John Galliano his job at Dior) came to be a trendy Paris institution.  It certainly isn’t the tired 70’s decor, the harried staff, nor the bitter coffee that keeps people coming back. And yet I seem to find myself there time and time again. I stand by Elton Scone as he flirts with the tribes of dapper dandies spilling onto the heaving terrace on balmy summer nights,  once a week Grease Witherspoon and I will duck in for a quick aperitif and a gossip (once a week Grease Witherspoon and I will stumble out 2 bottles of rose later) and Sienna Millet drags me in for the ‘Bonne Mine’ (‘the looking good’) juice whenever she comes to town. But what I really go back for is the burger – that delicious, sloppy, sauce filled, pickled-up morsel of goodness served with perfectly crispy shoe-string fries.

This burger is seriously something else. It could be the large juicy pickles, it could be the perfectly rare, cheese covered meat patty, it could be the unctuous tangy mayonnaise complete with tid-bits of shallot that is generously smattered on both sides of the bun, or it could be the fact that I am always hungover and ‘hangry’ when I eat it. Either way, it truly has my heart.

The world may be your oyster, but this burger is definitely the Perle.

xoxo

Paris Stilton

Until recently, Le Mosaique in the Marais, the long-standing red and white tiled, hole-in-the-wall hot-dog booth was one of the only purveyors of hot-dogs in Paris.  There is of course the french version which you will find stacked on top of each other in bad bakeries near The Pompidou Centre, but after a recent episode which I will call A Curious Incident of a (Hot) Dog in the Night-Time, I can safely say that there is nothing ok about a turgid boiled red wiener covered in melted emmental and lodged in a pasty white bun.

Never fear, these days hip hot-dog stands are popping up all over town. The team from Hutch Hot Dog House in the 10th whip up a mean New York style chicken dog topped with confit onions, red hot ketchup, cabbage and American mustard; while across town, the messiah of the burger, Little Fernand, has now branched into gourmet dogs with recipes such as the cider-honey mustard sausage – I guess we would call it a haute dog.

There is even a vegan hot dog and burger parlour, East-Side Burger, for those who are more about the soy-sage than the sausage.

So, not wanting to fall behind in the fast-moving world of food trends, Robert Brownie Jr., Katy Peri-Peri and I decided to try our luck with the ‘chien-chaud’ at Glass, the latest venture from the trendy crew behind Candelaria and Le Mary-Celeste.  Located derrière an eery unmarked black door, next to a seedy flourescent-lit sex-shop in a side street in SoPi (South Pigalle) this hot-dog parlour/ speakeasy cocktail bar is pretty darn cool.

The dimly lit room is decked out with walls of broken mirrors, kitsch disco balls and beautiful bobo-chic Parisians sipping novelty cocktails and imported craft beer at the bar. Meanwhile the not-so French clientele sit in booths slugging pints of Brooklyn Lager, knocking back boiler-makers (a shot followed by a chaser of beer) and chowing down hot-dogs.  We were, obviously, the latter.

For the hot-dog, we had the choice between two flavours – the Classic and the Chihuahua. I personally am not into small dogs.  I had images of ordering a Chihuahua and being stuck eating a small fluffy bun with a nasty bite to it. So Robert Brownie Jr. and I went for the Classic – good pure organic beef sausage in a freshly baked bun, ketchup and mustard – it was ok (I wouldn’t want to give a dog a bad name) but it wasn’t wow. 

Katy Peri-Peri’s misleadingly named Chihuahua, however – stuffed with homemade guacomole and pico de gallo, topped with a fresh side order of pickles and oozing with mustard and ketchup, was amazing. It was the god of dogs.

Robert Brownie Jr. and I were seething with food envy.

But, not ones to be upstaged in the food ordering department – we got back on the horse and ordered another dog.

The first hot dog was rather large.  And added to a pint of Brookyn lager, there was definitely no need for a second.  It was gluttonous and greedy and not altogether ideal before a week of sun-bathing in Normandy. But geez was it worth it. The Chihuahua exceeded all my expectations.

As we were munching on our Chihuahuas, I caught a few judgmental stares from the elegant French girls around us, sipping their cocktails and delicately nibbling on their singular hot dog.

But I brushed it off – this mad dog was worth the fatness. And in any event, people in Glass houses really shouldn’t throw stones.

xoxo

Paris Stilton

So after a summer spent eating my way through Italy and with a sunny sejour planned for November, it is now time to start a liquid diet.

Luckily I know all the right places to go:

Chez Jeanette 

This über trendy bar in the boho 10th arrondissement is what the people who frequent it would like to call a modern day guinguette - a popular watering hole of the 30’s and 40’s where the French would go to eat, drink and dance.  The slightly tired looking interior makes a charming contrast to the fresh-faced, fashion-forward clientele that crowd into this Paris institution.

Charming, inexpensive, unpretentious, and, on Saturday nights, utterly packed.

La Belle Hortense

A literary bar anywhere else in the world would probably just mean a bar with books in the background – which is what I had imagined when I walked into La Belle Hortense literary bar in the Marais for the first time.  That is until I noticed the girl at the end of the bar – red wine in hand, nose buried in an old Proust novel, whilst across the way a young jet-set couple were being recited Baudelaire by a man who looked like Balzac.

I, on the other hand, spent the night getting reprimanded by a flamboyant dandy with a silk neck tie for having brought along with me six young muscular Australian men who were, much to his displeasure, all straight.

A bottle of Pommery, a plate of charcuterie, and a first edition copy of Existentialism is a Humanism…only in Paris.

Chez Eva Pritsky

Decorated with its mismatched upholstered seventies couches, trompe l’oeil’d ceiling and relics from a bygone era, this brocante store by day, bar by night, run by stalwart Eva Pritsky is a true Paris gem. Watching as her dedicated patrons saunter through the bright turquoise panelled door, showering Eva with hugs and kisses, it is clear she has been a fixture of Menilmontant for a very long time.

The last time I went to Eva’s, a young rastafarian was having an indepth conversation with an 80 year old whisky drinking gentleman in a three piece suit, while a man who could only have been Salvador Dali reincarnated stood next to me with his twirly moustache, slicked back black hair and smoking jacket, and in a thick Spanish accent ordered a glass of wine.

As Eva slowly shuffles around her tiny make-shift kitchen, cigarette constantly hanging out of her mouth, and fetches your €2.50 beer or glass of cask wine with obligatory peanuts, you have the impression that you are in the company of an old friend in an old magical world that you never want to leave.

Candelaria

Tucked away behind a tiny, trendy taco bar in ‘haut‘ Marais, this little hidden cave bar oozes understated cool. After a greeting from the jolly giant decked out in his oversized plaid coat and oversized geek chic glasses at the front door, you elbow your way through the heaving mass of red lipsticked, high waisted jean wearing, balayaged bohemian locals cluttering the utterly divine smelling corridor, through a non-descript white door and emerge into a dark candle lit cocktail cave, where chipotle’d magaritas are being shaken to some eclectic underground French beat.

Incidentally, the tacos are totally yummy (it would have been rude not to try them).

Yep, this is definitely what they meant by la vie en rosé.

xoxo

Paris Stilton