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Category / My Secret Paris

10 Places to Dine à la Belle Epoque in Paris

Forget the Michelin-starred restaurants, Paris is all about time-traveling! 1. L’Ecurie: Drinking with Hemingway 58, rue de la Montagne Ste-Geneviève, 5eme This is my favorite place to get drunk tipsy on red wine with a good paté de campagne and Steak Frites. I imagine Hemingway would have loved it too. In fact, he only lived…

10 Places in Paris for an Indian Summer

Feel like summer is slipping away all too quickly as September approaches? Nessy has compiled her list Paris’ best terraces and al fresco spots just when you need them most… 1. Secret Courtyard Dining in the Marais JAJA Tucked away in the vibrant streets of the Marais, just meters away from the Point-Virgule, Paris’ last…

Wandering Through the Oldest (and Emptiest) Hospital in Paris

Notre Dame has a very unusual neighbour that no one ever visits. If you’re facing the cathedral’s famous facade, surrounded by a sea of tourists and selfie-sticks, turn to your left and spot the blue door behind the chestnut trees, marked “Entrée“. And enter you must! This blue portal opens up to the Hôtel Dieu, Paris’…

Paris’ Utopian Village of Concrete Cabbage

If Ernest Hemingway made Paris a moveable feast, architect Gérard Grandval made its Créteil suburb the vegetable course. Built during the 1970s, the Créteil Cabbages, or “Choux de Créteil,” are French Brutalism at its finest. The ‘utopian’ residency is composed of 10 otherworldly buildings whose balconies extend like giant, concrete petals – hence the nickname, “the…

PARIS: 10 Trendy Restaurants better than Celebrity fly trap, L’Avenue

With Paris haute couture week currently in full swing, American celebrities are flocking into town, including tabloid darlings du jour, Lana Del Rey and Kim Kardashian. …And they’re all being spotted at the damn same place, paparazzi heaven, L’Avenue. Just a few steps from the grand Plaza Athenée hotel with its top designer boutiques, L’Avenue…

PHANTOMS of PARIS: The Midnight Wanderers

We all have it; that itch for exploring, to discover what’s behind the closed doors of our cities, under our feet and overhead. Urban environments hide buried secrets of the past all around us and if curious enough, we can find them. For a while now, I’ve been following the online imprint of a small…

PARIS: Unpretentious, Honest Food gems

The decoration? “On s’en fou!” as the French say when they don’t give a toss. There’s a bit of a misconception when picking restaurants in thinking that fancy design, good-looking staff or a trendy following make for a good meal. In my book, places that don’t fuss over decor indicate they’re thinking about the food…

The Haunting ‘Human Zoo’ of Paris

In the furthest corner of the Vincennes woods of Paris, lies the remains of what was once a public exhibition to promote French colonialism over 100 years ago and what we can only refer to today as the equivalent of a human zoo. In 1907, six different villages were built in the Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale, representing all…

Shshshsh! Private Parties in Paris….

When I first moved to Paris, I quickly found out that the real nightlife was not in the bars or in the clubs but in the Parisian apartments. House parties. House parties galore. I wasn’t sure at first how I was going to get invited to one, but sure enough, if you break away from…

The Last House of Fans, Paris

There was once a secret language used by women for centuries to communicate unspoken sentiments across the room. It was the code of duchesses and ladies-in-waiting; women who made bi-weekly trips to the opera armed with an exquisite accessory that with a simple flick of her wrist, could declare her true feelings for a gentleman sat across…

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