Watching what’s going on around you is always entertaining—the waiting staff are brisk but friendly, and as professional as they come. They’re divided into ranks, like an orchestra. At the bottom of the prestigious heap you have the guys in long white aprons and waistcoats—these are the violinists who carry the weight of the melody, and they sway between the tables holding giant trays of food at shoulder level. Above them are the people in black suits and bow ties—soloists who take orders and banter with the customers.*********** And conducting the whole symphony (and a place this size needs several conductors) are the maître d’s in their shiny suits, chic and commanding, forever flitting about checking that everyone is getting what they came for.
As a place for a romantic dinner, it’s not an intimate venue, but couples seem to go there to get a loving buzz. It’s like a short trip on a classic ocean liner—it’s a communal experience, but you have your own snug cabin. And, of course, it’s best known for its seafood, so it’s the perfect place to order the ultimate, stripped-down romantic menu—a couple of dozen oysters and a bottle of Champagne. And if that doesn’t get your Parisian hormones going, nothing will.
Love in the maquis
Perhaps you prefer your romantic rendez-vous with a little less of an open-space feel, and you may also be looking for somewhere less conventional, which is where my next address comes in.
First, though, a couple of warnings …
The restaurant in question is located near the second least romantically named square in Paris—République.************ And not only is it near an unromantic square, it also has a rather banal name—the Café Restaurant Le Temple. It’s right opposite Temple métro station, and should not be confused with the Tabac of the same name a few yards nearer République.
To make things worse, this Temple was the prison mentioned earlier, the place where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were held before they were taken to Concorde to have their heads cut off. Pas très romantique.
Luckily, the restaurant has not opted for a dungeon theme—it’s a Corsican place. If you’re meeting a Parisien or Parisienne (and a hearty slap on the back to you if that’s the case) the Corsican theme could be another potential risk to the romantic ambiance—to Parisians, Corsica is less a rugged green jewel in the Mediterranean than the home of people who like to amuse themselves in the winter by blowing up holiday homes. Best to check first whether your date, or one of his or her relatives, has recently lost a beach house to high explosives.
The décor might at first sight be a little off-putting, too. One of the collages on the wall features a pair of gun-toting Corsican hunters apparently lying in wait for Parisians, and the rest is a riot of kitsch. Almost every surface is covered in fake panther skin—seats, lamps, the ceiling, the walls, everything. I even happen to know that down in the loos, the soap dispenser, hand dryer and toilet-brush holder are painted in panther camouflage, as if they had been designed by someone with a synthetic-fur fetish.
Those surfaces of the restaurant that aren’t devoted to the worship of the nylon panther are covered in zebra skin or pictures of Marilyn Monroe. She is on posters and photos pinned to the wall, as well as featuring on all the coffee cups.
All of this might sound a bit gaudy to people who think of Paris as a place where everyone wears dark-blue Chanel suits and eats croissants with their fingertips, but most Parisians much prefer kitsch to chic. The real Paris is colourful and over the top, like the Art Nouveau interior of the Galeries Lafayette, the older métro stations with their lurid green vegetable-matter entrances, or the Centre Pompidou.
The tables at the Café Restaurant Le Temple are very close together, and to squeeze the woman on to the banquette,************* you virtually have to redecorate the place, pulling out the chair and table and making sure the neighbours don’t have glasses or condiments too close to the edge of their table, so that you avoid a messy sweeping-off accident.
In this place, though, the density of tables is compensated for by the fact that they’re divided off into small panther-skin booths. You are sitting very close to your neighbours, but you’re separated from them by a small partition. It’s as close to intimacy as you’ll get in most Parisian restaurants.
The food here is simple French, but with a little something extra from the islands (and not only Corsica)—salmon in a coconut sauce, for example, or scallops served in a cassolette (a sort of fish stew). They also do an excellent version of an old favourite of mine, the salade de chèvre chaud, or goat’s-cheese toasts with a green salad.
So if you’re sure your partner will not be put off thoughts of love by fake zebra skin, Marilyn Monroe, Corsican cowboys and quirky food, this is an offbeat place to try. And quite frankly, worse things can happen than ending a romantic evening with a little game of ‘I’ll be Marilyn, you be the Corsican cowboy’ (or vice-versa, of course).
Say it with fleurs
And there we have it. For romance, Paris is a city that can’t fail. You just have to let it do its magic. And to press the point home, I will finish with a single telling statistic—in the Paris Pages Jaunes, there are 641 florists listed. In the London Yellow Pages, there are 707. But London is approximately seventeen times bigger than Paris (1,706 square kilometres as opposed to only 105 square kilometres). What’s more, sit in any restaurant in Paris and your dinner will almost certainly be interrupted by a man trying to sell you a rose. Frankly, if you can’t get the romantic mood right, you don’t deserve to be in Paris.
But if you do press the right buttons, and the ambiance does end up amoureuse, it is only natural that your thoughts might
