Marc Hafkin Proposed to His Beautiful Wife

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At Café de la Paix in Paris

Henri Julien Dumont - Le Café de la Paix

Henri Julien Dumont – Le Café de la Paix (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

! The Café de la Paix is a famous café located on the northwest corner of the intersection of the Boulevard des Capucines with the Place de l’Opéra in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. Designed by the architect Alfred Armand(fr), who also designed the Grand Hôtel(fr) in which the café is located, the florid interior decor is only exceeded by that of Charles Garnier’s Opéra (located across the plaza). It is said that if one sits at the café, one is bound to run into a friend or acquaintance due to the café’s popularity and reputation.

The Café de la Paix opened June 30, 1862, to serve the Grand-Hôtel de la Paix (named after the nearby rue de la Paix), whose name was later shortened to Grand-Hôtel. It serviced visitors of Expo exhibition in 1867. Its proximity to the Opéra attracted many famous clients, including Jules Massenet, Émile Zola, and Guy de Maupassant. The Café is also the setting for the poem “The Absinthe Drinker” by the Canadian poet, Robert Service

During the Belle Époque, visitors to the Café included Sergei Diaghilev, and the Prince of Wales and future King of the United Kingdom, Edward VII.

A radio studio was later installed in the Café, which broadcast the program “This is Paris” to the United States.

On August 22, 1975, the Café was declared a historic site by the French government.

David Avelange is the Manager of Café de la Paix. He joined in 1989 as a restaurant porter, and then gradually climbed the ladder through the hotel’s various catering departments right up to the present day. A field man of a dynamic disposition, he works daily at ensuring the happiness and pleasure of his guests and of his teams.

“My love for this hotel and this restaurant has been alive for over 20 years! When I joined Café de la Paix in 1989, (which in those days was called “Restaurant Opera”), I was barely 20, and it was the French Revolution Bicentennial. Then I took part in the opening of La Verrière Restaurant in 1990 as a Head Waiter, rising to Senior Head Waiter in 1993. I then worked in the banqueting department for two years, moving to room service until after the year 2000. Having worked in all of the hotel’s catering departments, and on the strength of that experience, I was promoted to Deputy Dining Room Manager at Café de la Paix in 2001. Since 2005, I have the position of Manager of Café de la Paix.

To me, this is happiness on a daily basis, a genuine pleasure to be working on the front line, together with all of the catering teams, towards the well-being of our guests!

Besides, I am very involved with our young employees, who are working and training in the hotel and who I’m sure will be the leading professionals of tomorrow. With a brigade of over 100 people, one of the largest in Paris, it really is a daily challenge! What I love most at Café de la Paix, and the reason why I have already devoted over 20 years if my life to it, is this unique Parisian atmosphere, blending with the frenzy of major sittings, yet providing each and every guest with a customised experience.

To me, Café de la Paix is an exceptional venue, where all the teams, both in the kitchen and the dining room, work together to offer a magical moment to its guests.

We have many very loyal customers whom we are delighted to welcome every time they visit.”

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Marc Hafkin’s page about Café Procope

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Cafe Le Procope

Cafe Le Procope (Photo credit: David Lee Tiller)

Marc Hafkin’s interesting page about Café Procope, in rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, 6th arrondissement, is called the oldest restaurant of Paris in continuous operation. It was opened in 1686 by the Sicilian Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, with a slyly subversive name adopted from the historian Procopius, whose Secret History, the Anekdota, long known of, had been discovered in the Vatican Library and published for the first time ever in 1623: it told the scandals of Emperor Justinian, his ex-dancer Empress, and his court.

Café Procope, in the street then known as rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Prés, started as a café where gentlemen of fashion might drink coffee, the exotic beverage that had previously been served in taverns, or eat a sorbet, served up in porcelain cups by waiters in exotic “Armenian” garb. The escorted ladies who appeared at Café Procope in its earliest days soon disappeared. In 1689 the Comédie française was established across the street— hence the street’s modern name— and the Procope became known as the “theatrical” café, and remained so: it was to the Procope on 18 December 1752 that Rousseau retired before the performance of his last play Narcisse had even finished, all too aware, now that he had seen it mounted, he said publicly, how boring it all was on the stage.

It was the unexampled mix of habitués that surprised visitors, though no one remarked on the absence of women. Louis, chevalier de Mailly, in Les Entretiens des caffés, 1702, remarked:

“The cafés are most agreeable places, and ones where one finds all sorts of people of different characters. There one sees fine young gentlemen, agreeably enjoying themselves; there one sees the savants who come to leave aside the laborious spirit of the study; there one sees others whose gravity and plumpness stand in for merit. Those, in a raised voice, often impose silence on the deftest wit, and rouse themselves to praise everything that is to be blamed, and blame everything that is worthy of praise. How entertaining for those of spirit to see originals setting themselves up as arbiters of good taste and deciding with an imperious tone what is over their depth!”

Throughout the 18th century, the brasserie Procope was the meeting place of the intellectual establishment, and of the nouvellistes of the scandal-gossip trade, whose remarks at Procope were repeated in the police reports. Not all the Encyclopédistes drank forty cups of coffee a day like Voltaire, who mixed his with chocolate, but they all met at Procope, as did Benjamin Franklin, John Paul Jones and Thomas Jefferson.

Alain-René Lesage described the hubbub at Procope in La Valise Trouvée (1772): “There is an ebb and flow of all conditions of men, nobles and cooks, wits and sots, pell mell, all chattering in full chorus to their heart’s content.” Indicating an increasingly democratic mix. Writing a few years after the death of Voltaire, Louis-Sébastien Mercier noted:

“ All the works of this Paris-born writer seem to have been made for the capital. It was foremost in his mind when he wrote. While composing, he was looking towards the French Academy, the public of Comédie française, the Café Procope, and a circle of young musketeers. He hardly ever had anything else in sight.     ”

During the Revolution, the Phrygian cap, soon to be the symbol of Liberty, was first displayed at the Procope; the Cordeliers, Robespierre, Danton and Marat all used the cafe as a meeting place. After the Restoration, another famous customer was Alexander von Humboldt, who lunched here during the 1820s every day from 11am to noon. The Procope retained its literary cachet: Alfred de Musset, George Sand, Gustave Planche, the philosopher Pierre Leroux, M. Coquille, editor of Le Monde, Anatole France were all regulars. Under the Second Empire, August Jean-Marie Vermorel of Le Reforme or Léon Gambetta would expound their plans for social reform.

Café Procope was refurbished in 1988 to 1989 in 18th-century style. It received Pompeian red walls, crystal chandeliers, 18th century oval portraits of famous people that have been patrons, and a tinkly piano. The waiters were dressed in quasi-revolutionary uniforms.

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Marc Hafkin’s French Cafes

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Paris Sunset from the Louvre window

Paris Sunset from the Louvre window (Photo credit: Dimitry B)

The number of French cafes has steeply declined over the past few decades, as the country’s celebrated cafe culture has battled against legal and societal challenges – most recently a smoking ban, but also a general reluctance to adapt to a younger clientele. Yet in Paris, where the romantic’s idea of a good time is to while the afternoon away on a sidewalk table, nursing a petit noir (an espresso) and observing passers-by, cafes are still a long way from oblivion. Every Parisian has a favourite haunt – one that may have no distinguishing feature besides being around the corner from his apartment or workplace – and nothing will make you feel local like finding one of your own. But in the meantime, here’s a selection of notable spots that place a particular emphasis on the ambiance and the quality of the coffee.

The Café des 2 Moulins‘ claim to fame came in the form of Jean-Pierre Jeunet‘s instant classic film Amélie, which used it as the heroine’s charmingly vintage place of employ. Ten years after the film’s release, tourists still pop in on their pilgrimage tour of Amélie’s Montmartre, but it has largely gone back to being a comfy neighbourhood café – minus the tobacco counter, which has been nixed in favour of more sitting room. The scatter of tables and bright red chairs on the sloping pavement is the perfect vantage point from which to observe the lively street market.
• 15 rue Lepic, 18th, +33 1 4254 9050. Métro: Blanche

Just a block from the Comédie Française theatre and the Louvre, this century-old coffee shop stocks more than 20 varieties of single-origin beans and house blends, freshly roasted and gloriously aromatic. It also operates as a quaint salon de café, where you can sample the coffee of your choice (about €3) with an optional slice of cake provided by an Austrian pastry shop across town. The cosy window seats in the upstairs room are particularly enviable.
• 256 rue Saint-Honoré, 1st, +33 1 4260 6739, cafesverlet.com. Métro: Pyramides

Although Parisians have (depressingly) taken to Starbucks like ducks to water, coffee buffs prefer to quench their thirst for American-style coffee establishments at Merce & The Muse, an East Village-hip coffee shop run by a young American expat in the upper Marais. Exacting about the quality of her beans (ordered from Copenhagen’s Coffee Collective) and the technique to brew them, she has attracted a loyal clientele who sit stylishly around the low communal table with a real latte (€4) and a homemade carrot muffin.
• 1 bis rue Dupuis, 3rd, +33 9 5314 5304. Métro: Temple

A refuge for coffee purists just across the river from the Ile Saint-Louis, La Caféothèque (“the coffee library”) was created by Gloria Montenegro, a Guatemalan who prides herself on offering the world’s finest coffees, imported in direct trade from small plantations. The beans are roasted daily in the big yellow roaster out front, filling the air with irresistible aromas, and are brewed by trained baristas, using an espresso machine from famed Florence maker La Marzocco.
• 52 rue de l’Hôtel de Ville, 4th, +33 1 5301 8384, lacafeotheque.com. Métro: Pont Marie
I would say that Coutume Café is a new favourite of Marc Hafkin!

The stone walls and wooden floorboards at Café de la Nouvelle Mairie have borne witness to countless idealistic student conversations, close as it is to the Sorbonne, the lycée Henri IV and the Ecole Normale Supérieure. More recently, the sidewalk terrace that looks out on to a tiny square has become a gathering point for the artsy characters pouring out from the Universal Music offices across the street, and on the tables you’re as likely to see cups of coffee as glasses of natural wine (starting from €4) from the well-curated chalkboard list.
• 19 rue des Fossés, 5th, +33 1 4407 0441. Métro: Cardinal Lemoine

Le Comptoir du Relais is best known as chef Yves Camdeborde’s deservedly touted restaurant, where he serves an excellent taster menu on week nights (for which it is very hard to score a reservation) and Basque-inspired bistro dishes the rest of the time. In the afternoon, between lunchtime and dinner, the Comptoir also operates as a cafe, and its small terrace is the perfect spot to sit and drink while watching the bustling carrefour de l’Odéon.
• 3 carrefour de l’Odéon, 6th, +33 1 4427 0797. Métro: Odéon

Coutume Café was recently opened by a passionate French-Australian duo, whose ambition is to speed up the revival of the Paris coffee scene and wean Parisians from the substandard, acrid robusta most cafés still insist upon. Their high-ceilinged lab-cum-cafe is a coffee geek’s dream: beans are roasted on site and brewed in just about every contraption known to man – including a Japanese siphon, a steam-punk cold drip machine that produces exceptional coffee in 24 hours, and the first “Strada” Marzocco espresso machine in Paris.
• 47 rue de Babylone, 7th, +33 1 4551 5047, coutumecafe.com. Métro: Saint-François-Xavier

Serial restaurateur Thierry Costes and street artist André Emmanuel have created this pocket-sized hotel, located in the happening Pigalle area. The restaurant on the ground floor is open all day, and outside of the crazy meal hours it is a pleasant, quiet place to have coffee or a Perrier-rondelle (sparkling water with a slice of lemon) – especially if the weather allows you to sit in the lovely courtyard garden out back, with its greenery and mini-pond.
• 8 rue de Navarin, 9th, +33 1 4878 3180, hotelamourparis.fr. Métro: Saint-Georges

Serial restaurateur Thierry Costes and street artist André Emmanuel have created this pocket-sized hotel, located in the happening Pigalle area. The restaurant on the ground floor is open all day, and outside of the crazy meal hours it is a pleasant, quiet place to have coffee or a Perrier-rondelle (sparkling water with a slice of lemon) – especially if the weather allows you to sit in the lovely courtyard garden out back, with its greenery and mini-pond.
• 8 rue de Navarin, 9th, +33 1 4878 3180, hotelamourparis.fr. Métro: Saint-Georges

If it feels like you’re on top of the world, it’s because you are: La Mer à Boire overlooks the Parc de Belleville, one of the highest points in Paris, which offers a gorgeous vista of the cityscape all the way out to the Eiffel Tower. At the first sign of balmy weather, the large paved terrace is in high demand with the young local crowd, but inside is just as nice: the bright orange cafe offers free Wi-Fi, and serves as a gallery for cartoonists and graphic novelists, as well as a concert hall for young musicians on weekend nights.
• 1 rue des Envierges, 20th, +33 1 4358 2943, la.meraboire.com. Métro: Pyrénées

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Marc Hafkin’s Cafe Suggestions

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Coffee

Coffee (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

A café (/ˈkæfeɪ/ or /kæˈfeɪ/), also spelled cafe, in most countries is an establishment that focuses on serving coffee. The name derives from the French, Portuguese and Spanish word for the drink and is sometimes pronounced “kaff” (/ˈkæf/) in Britain.

In the United States, “cafe” may refer to an informal restaurant offering a range of hot meals and made-to-order sandwiches, also known as a coffeeshop, while what is regarded as a café elsewhere is termed a coffeehouse.

In most European countries, such as Austria, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, and others, the term café means a restaurant primarily serving coffee as well as pastries such as cakes, tarts, pies, Danish pastries, or bun. Many cafés also serve light meals such as sandwiches. European cafés often have tables on the pavement (sidewalk) as well as indoors. Some cafés also serve alcoholic beverages, particularly in Southern European countries.

In the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland a café (with the acute accent) is similar to those in other European countries, while a cafe (without acute accent, and often pronounced “caff”) is more likely to be a greasy spoon style eating place, serving mainly fried food, in particular breakfast dishes.

In the Netherlands and Belgium, a café is the equivalent of a bar, and also sells alcoholic beverages. In the Netherlands a koffiehuis (nl) serves coffee, while a coffee shop (using the English term) sells soft drugs (cannabis and hashish) and is generally not allowed to sell alcoholic beverages.

In France most cafés serve as lunch restaurants in the day, and bars in the evening. They generally do not have pastries except during mornings, where a croissant or pain au chocolat can be purchased with breakfast coffee.

In Italy cafés are similar to those found in France and known as bar. They typically serve a variety of espresso coffee, cakes and alcoholic drinks. Bars in city centres usually have different prices for consumption at the bar and consumption at a table.

A café or coffee shop is a restaurant with full-service tables and counters and broad menu offerings over extended periods of the day. In hotels, the coffee shop is a more popular-priced alternative to the formal dining room. Coffee shops often encourage families and provide special menus for children. To establish a family-friendly atmosphere, in many localities coffee shops do not serve wine or beer.

The most common English spelling, café, is the French, Portuguese and Spanish spelling, and was adopted by English-speaking countries in the late 19th century. As English generally makes little use of diacritical marks, anglicisation includes a tendency to omit them and to place the onus on the readers to remember how it’s pronounced, without being given the accents. Thus the spelling cafe has become very common in English-language usage throughout the world, especially for the less formal, i.e. “greasy spoon” variety (although orthographic prescriptivists often disapprove of it). The Italian spelling, caffè, is also sometimes used in English. In southern England, especially around London in the 1950s, the French pronunciation was often facetiously altered to /ˈkæf/ and spelt caff.

The English words coffee and café both descend from the continental European translingual word root /kafe/, which appears in many European languages with various naturalized spellings, including Italian (caffè); Portuguese, Spanish, and French (café); German (Kaffee); Polish (kawa); Ukrainian (кава, ‘kava’); and others. European awareness of coffee (the plant, its seeds, the beverage made from the seeds, and the shops that sell the beverage) came through Europeans’ contact with Turkey, and the Europeans borrowed both the beverage and the word root from the Turks, who got them from the Arabs. The Arabic name qahwa (قهوة) was transformed into kaweh (strength, vigor) in the Ottoman Empire, and it spread from there to Europe, probably first through the Mediterranean languages (Italian, Spanish, French, Catalan, etc.) and thence to German, English, and others, though there is another well-based theory that it first spread to Europe through Poland and Ukraine, through their contacts with the Ottoman Empire.

Marc Hafkin

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