As I walk into the Bistro des Vosges on the corner of Rue Chemin Vert and Boulevard Beaumarchais in the Marais district of Paris, Phillipe is polishing glasses. I haven’t seen him in over a year but before we say hello, he puts a glass of chilled Kronenbourg beer on the counter and extends his hand. As we exchange family news, he’s a new grandfather and my youngest has graduated college, 93 year old Monsieur Moreau, whom I met years ago in the bistro, stumbles in and greets me with a hug. He says he’s glad to see me again and knew I’d be back. I ask him why.
“Because we always come back here. This is the place we come to feel good. This is Paris, how it used to be!” Since he’s come here for over 80 years, I know he’s right. We toast to the cafe and I tell Phillipe I’d like a 6pm dinner reservation for my group of 9. His eyebrows shoot up.
“6pm?!?! Mais non!”, “But no!”, he insists. I explain my group just arrived from the States and wants to eat early so they can go to bed.
“Then you must go to McDonalds or Burger King! The soup l’oignon and tarte a la fromage will not be finished until 7 o’clock. You know that!”, and laughs. Yes, of course, I have come here for nearly 20 years and should have remembered. Since these two dishes, the onion soup and cheese tartes are always favorites of my people, a fact he has never forgotten, I agree to 7pm and we shake hands.
“Come at 6:30 and I will gift each of your people a glass of champagne.” As I leave, a few locals walk in and he throws up his arms in greeting. As they mill about choosing where to sit, he has already poured each of them the drink he knows they’ll want.
Phillipe has been at the Bistro des Vosges for over 30 years, but that is less than a third of the age of the cafe which opened in the golden days of Paris, the early 1920s. In 1920 the city was filled with expats, writers like Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and the artists Jean Miro and Picasso,. According to Monsieur Moreau, several of the artists used to sit in the bistro’s back alcove and draw or write. I don’t know if this is true, but it fits the atmosphere.
From old photos I’ve seen, the cafe looks much the same now as it did in the 20s with its tiny black-and-white floor tiles, plush banquettes lining the walls, white marble top tables, black bentwood chairs, and coffee-creme lacquered walls. Posters advertising Cinzano aperitif, St. Remy cognac or Kronenbourg beer, all evocative of the spirit of Paris 1920, dot the walls, then as now. The clustered tables in the mirrored back alcove have a feeling of intimacy, the perfect place to sketch or write.
As appealing as it is, during the hundred years the bistro has been here only a few tourists have wandered in. Most ask directions to the Place des Vosges, a square of tony red brick apartment buildings where Victor hugo lived and wrote LES MISERABLES (the book, not the musical), the location of the Bastille Prison (torn down during the French revolution and replaced with a giant pillar at the end of the block), or the location of the Picasso Museum (three blocks away), but rarely stay to eat and never ask about the history of the bistro, this island of calm in the center of a turbulent world. They miss a lot.
In 1943 Phillipe’s father watched from the bar as the Nazis goose stepped down Boulevard Beaumarchais, occupied the city, rounded up Jews in this neighborhood and sent them to Auschwitz. Some Jews resisted and were shot. The Nazis left the bodies in the street as a warning: resist and be killed.
“My papa saw how fragile life is. So have I.” Phillipe was in the cafe in 2015 when terrorists killed 12 journalists at ‘Charlie Hebdo’ the satirical newspaper in the Marais that had printed a mocking portrait of Mohammed. We clinked our shot glasses and toasted to better times and a calmer life.
Life in the Marais had, for the most part, been calm when it was the quiet, leafy residence of the nobility in the 1700s, but by the end of the 19th century it had become a mixture of slums, red light districts and squalid working class apartments. By 1920, real estate was cheap enabling the first owners to open the bistro. With its classy interior and simple but excellent food, it survived the rough neighborhood.
It was still rough, when, In 1968, I came to Paris on holiday. I was a university student in Munich and, on a budget of $3 a day, found a youth hostel and wandered the streets of Marais. Back then, the smelly but convenient sidewalk pissoirs, where men ducked in to relieve themselves of beer, were still in the middle of sidewalks. Crepe stands, little carts with hot flat stones, were on every street corner. The crepe chef poured batter on the stone, flipped the steaming thin pancake until it was golden brown, filled it with cheeses or ham or strawberries as the customer wished, rolled it up and charged 2 Francs, about 40 cents. I made whole meals of them. Everyone smoked 15 cents a pack unfiltered Gaulois cigarettes, and drank 25 cent beer. I loved the Marais. It was cheap and fun. Once I went into a bar for a beer and some lady named Antoinette was dancing the cancan on the bar top, music blaring, kicking her heels up over her head, no underwear and loving every minute of it. That was the Marais.
Today the red light district has moved out, the pissoirs and crepe stands are gone, few people smoke and beer is $5. In place of the dive bar and Antoinette is an upscale home design store wedged between a lunch boutique with avocado toasts and Perrier, and a men’s nail salon. But the Bistro des Vosges sails on like it always has, with waiters like Phillipe who know what you want before you sit down. The cafe will never be listed in ‘Condé Nast Traveler’ or ‘Fortune’ magazine, has no maitre’ d’, sommelier, or menus without prices. It’s not the sort of trendy ‘nouvelle cuisine’ restaurant, where tiny, one-bite portions sit in the middle of huge white plates for equally huge prices. Instead, perfectly seasoned, hearty wraps, omelets, brats, lamb chops and stews come steaming and fresh, served with a smile, and often a suggestion of a good wine.
As agreed, we arrive at 6:30pm. Our tables are set with starched white linen, polished silver and gleaming glassware. Phillipe comes over, a bottle of champagne in each hand, and pours the bubbly golden liquid into the tall flutes.
“My way to welcome you to my cafe!”, he says with a bow. What a way to start a dinner.
My people order French onion soup; cheese and onion tartes; quiches; escargot in buttery garlic sauce, salads, tartines, galettes, omelets and charcuterie boards heaped with ham, salami slices, pickles, cheese chunks and butter. It is a feast of French country cooking. At the end, as we finish our creme caramel and cognac, I think, yes, Monsieur Moreau is right, this is Paris as it used to be.
