L’ABC du Parfum

Visit Canal Saint-Martin

Even if it’s raining and cold? Oui. 

No doubt you haven’t seen it before, especially if you haven’t spent real time in Paris in the last 15 years. Five or ten years ago it was the up and coming neighborhood; now it has up and come. Agnes B. on the main drag, and A.P.C. Just down from that, and a boulangerie that is said to be the city’s best. I can’t be the judge of that, try as I might, but at least it has the advantage of its name: Du Pain et Des Idées. 

Merci

Chocolat Chaud

Yes, Paris is the best in almost every way. No real disagreement here. But when you eat and drink as much chocolate as I do, you get picky. You can’t help it.

We headed to Angelica for the chocolate, because our excellent guide at the Louvre recommended it as the best. Their locale on Rue de Vaugirard was our destination (though the very first location on rue de Rivoli is meant to be the most beautiful), and we walked (and walked) from Bon Marche to get there (and walked). (At this point of the trip, there is some bickering about the best way to get anywhere, and I continue to hold out for the rare times when I am right.) (In general, it’s good to be a travel writer with an abysmal sense of direction. That’s how you happen upon those surprises that matter most.)

And the cafe is charming, the chocolate thick, the bowl of whipped creme on the side very elegant. Glad we went. Another place off the list.

However, the chocolat at Buci, just up rue Dauphine, was thicker and maybe tastier–at my request, they went easy on the lait. And we still haven’t been to a Maison de Chocolat in Paris, though those in New York serve an excellent hot chocolat. And that is how my husband won me back, giving me a box of their chocolates about 13 years ago.

This is all silly, except when it’s cold and you are tired and a little scared for the whole world, and a warm cup of chocolate can keep you going for another few hours.

Late last night, at the crepe place we visited for dinner–a nice inexpensive place on rue St Andre des Arts, no doubt in a spot I visited in the 80s when poor and cold and wandering Paris–I had chocolat chaud again. Definitely not recommended. But was warming and stimulating, so I did not sleep for a long time, thinking about the new year.

On the last day, after we’d taken a perfume making class–recommended–the “nose” sent us to a cafe on Trocadero for a snack and people watching. And, yes, they had a hot chocolate.

and h