Historic, Vintage, Cool (Paris)

By Karen Beishuizen

I have this thing for anything historic, vintage or cool. Especially when it comes to hotels, restaurants, diners, cafes and music venues. I want to show you landmarks around the world which are Historic, Vintage and Cool.

Let’s go to Paris!

La Closerie des Lilas

La Closerie des Lilas is a famous Parisian restaurant and brasserie located on the Boulevard du Montparnasse in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was opened in 1847 by François Bullier. It was named after a theatre piece called ”La Closerie des Genets” by Frédéric Soulié. It was renamed into La Closerie des Lilas because its owner, Bullier, used to plant lilac flowers.

Inside it’s chic and cosy with mosaic flooring and red imitation leather seats.

Many artists and intellectuals became regulars: Émile Zola, Paul Cézanne, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, James Joyce, Paul Verlaine, André Gide, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Ernest Hemingway, and more recently Tim Burton and Johnny Depp.

La Closerie des Lilas owes much of its artistic popularity to Hemingway, who would write short stories and articles for the Toronto Star and completed the first draft of “The Sun Also Rises” here.

Now there’s a chair with his name on a metal plaque. His face also graces their menu as a reminder that this spot was one of the writer’s well-frequented spots in Paris.
It was on the terrace of La Closerie that Fitzgerald had Hemingway read the manuscript of “The Great Gatsby”.

Over the decades, La Closerie des Lilas has become a literary Parisien monument where contemporary artists, filmmakers and philosophers still rub shoulders with writers and ordinary food lovers.

At the beginning of the century, Paul Fort walked through the door of La Closerie des Lilas and settled in. He could often be seen playing chess with Lenin on the terrace.

Two movies starring Woody Allen have scenes taking place at La Closerie des Lilas: “What’s New Pussycat?” and “Midnight in Paris”.

People come here as much to rediscover the atmosphere of a bygone Paris as to enjoy a French dish.

Let yourself be tempted by the Hemingway beef fillet flambéed with Bourbon!

Have a drink at La Closerie des Lilas and feel the history of the place and of all the artists who have frequented it.

Check out La Closerie des Lilas’s website: HERE

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