Ma Cocotte: new restaurant in the Paris markets of St-Ouen

This summer in Paris, my best find has been Ma Cocotte, the fantastic restaurant in la puces de Clignancourt et St-Ouen.  This new place to eat makes a pleasant change to the more traditional restaurant fare in this little corner of Paris.  Annually so many people make a pilgrimage to the most famous of Paris' flea markets, that frankly it was about time that a beautiful and modern Paris restaurant has found it way there!

{image vintage finds}

Created from the ground up by French design royalty Philippe Starck, equally well known as an interior designer and for his industrial design and consumer goods, this restaurant could never fail to please visually.  And it also hits the mark wonderfully for a perfect lunch time meal on a sunny Sunday stroll at the markets!

{image unknown source}

Starck has personally sourced items from the flea markets of St-Ouen - thus - far from creating a modern restaurant at odds with it's surroundings - the restaurant sits so comfortably within the markets of Paul Bert and Serpette you could think it is a newly opened vintage store!

Starck in his restaurant

His inspiration was the dealers' own lunch time meal tables laid out to share with their friends, their laughter and chatter.  He wanted a place of his own to eat on his regular trips to the markets, with his own friends to share laughter and chatter.  From this modest plan, comes the transformation of an industrial building to a 'market must-do'!

{image Sarah Lavoine}

And hopefully you won't be as naive as I am, to the video art installation! On the back wall, against the natural bricks are two artworks framed identically, one photographic, or rather I thought both were - until the image of a person leaning on the glass partition appeared different each time I looked away and then looked back!

{image via Ma Cocotte}

The surprise downstairs in this vintage styling utopia, are that the bathrooms are a sea of utilitarian white tile and 'public bathhouse' styling that have been said to resemble something from Kubrick's 2001!

{image The Wall Street Journal}

Last year when I was there this building at the entrance to the Paul-Bert market could have been mistaken for a cement parking garage.  Starck refers to the building as a 'monopoly house' which now houses this two-story hip restaurant with so much Parisian design cred.

From the vintage furniture selection to the wood and steel panel lift garage doors, a contemporary and deliciously simple menu, arranged to share with friends; this is an exciting new addition to the traditional brasserie fare of St-Ouen.

Hope you take the time to enjoy on your next visit!
Jennifer.
x


MA COCOTTE
106, Rue des Rosiers 94400 Saint-Ouen
T: 01 49 51 70 00

OPEN DAILY
12pm to 3pm and 7pm to 11pm Weekdays
8am to 11pm Saturday and Sunday

Good Coffee? In Paris? Mais oui!

As I said in my summer catch up post a couple of weeks ago (here), I have a friend who spent a delightful wintry Christmas in Paris (reads shades of green over this~!!). Catching up with her about her trip, and chatting about coffee in Paris, reminded me of a post I have been meaning to write for quite some time.

When I first returned to Paris after an absence of more than 10 years, I had a wonderful time amid the excitement of revisiting the city; exploring it with my young family and through my children's eyes.

However, with everything to love about sitting and eating in a cafe in Paris, the coffee being served was not, and became my one great disappointment on that trip.  It seemed that 'good coffee' and 'Paris' did not want to be in the same sentence.

'Flat white' at Kooka Boora

As someone who thoroughly enjoys a velvety 'flat white' to start the day, and someone willing to go out of my way to 'get a good one', a trickle of bitter brown liquid and some warmed packaged heat-treated milk, does not constitute a coffee to be savoured.  Merely one to be endured.

On starting my little business, and therefore making more regular trips, I decided to be a lot more prepared and did some online research before I headed off again.

Well, I am certainly not the only one in the blogosphere to have been politely trying all sorts of combinations of un café, un café crème, un crème or un express to find out what seems most like the Australian 'flat white' or 'latte' (for an technical explanation see here).  As it turned out there were many like-minded individuals saying: the French are great at so many things but 'what the ...?' when it came to Parisian coffee!

Kooka Boora Café

And boy did that research pay off!  Not only did I find some great coffee, but some quirkly little cafes and places to visit, in areas I may not have otherwise explored~!

And over the last few years, the wheels of change are steadily turning and this will now be one of the things I look forward to on my upcoming buying trip.

Here are my absolute and favourite top two that are definitely worth going out of your way to find:

KB Café Shop

1. KB Café Shop, 53 rue Trudaine / 62 rue des Martyrs, 9th 
(aka Kooka Boora Café, KB Café)

When travelling I love to live like a local, and rarely visit 'expat enclaves'.  Here I make a major exception.  Excellent coffee, excellent choice of coffee, fast friendly service.  Ceiling high windows, loads of lovely light.  And an atmosphere that is a hybrid of Australian-relaxed and Paris-hip, rolled into one.  Good speed on the free wifi too, if you are in need of some of that also.

Coutume Café image via riccolo

2. Coutume Café, 47 rue de Babylone, 7th

A little out of the way unless you are staying in the 7th, and coincidentally also Australian part-owned, Coutume Cafe has been winning awards for its coffee since it opened in 2011.  It roasts it's own great blend, which is bought and served by other cafes!  To get your bearings: it's around the corner from arguably the best department store in Paris, Le Bon Marché, and 20 minutes walk in one direction is Musée d'Orsay, and about 20 minutes walk in another is the Champ de Mars and La Tour Eiffel.  In a quiet streeet, but the cafe has it's own vibey atmosphere.  A great pit stop if you are planning one of those lovely walks in Paris!  Excellent food and free wifi also. 

KB Cafe, Pigalle

Behind these two is a long list of good cafes, serving good coffee, that I have tried from lists created by others.  So here I share my 'go to guides' for my future trips, from others whose judgement I have found to be excellent.  My advice here is to print them off or save them to your phone, so that you can find something on the go.

David Lebovitz

(I love working my way through David Lebowitz's recommendations on anything food related!) 

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2008/07/where-to-find-a-good-cup-of-coff/

** my starting point and have worked my way through most of this list

HiP Paris Blog
http://hipparis.com/2011/04/15/coffee-in-paris-finally-coffee-you-can-drink-in-the-city-of-lights/

Good Coffee in Paris

http://goodcoffeeinparis.blogspot.fr/

*latest ones to check out while you're there

Hope you have as much fun exploring these as I did!

Jennifer

x

Merci ... Thankyou

On one of my many wanders whilst in Paris, I stumbled across a great concept store Merci (thank you) that I have been wanting to check out for awhile (111 boulevard Beaumarchais, 75003).

Concept stores abound in the Marais and the difference with this one is they aim to make a difference.  First of its kind in France, 100% of the profits of the store go to a humanitarian association working for the children of Madagascar, a country where every five minutes a child dies from malnutrition.

Created by the founders of the beautiful children's brand Bonpoint, Marie-France and Bernard Cohen, this inspiring store stocks items from interior design to a perfumier, from stationary, furniture and flowers to fashion, has two cafés and one restaurant, and a used book library.....all within a great exhibition-style space. Whatever you are looking for, the most 'design conscious' example of it, is the one to be found here.

The store offers exclusive designs by Yves Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney, Isabel Marant, Paul Smith and many other brands at prices significantly below their own label stores.  The pair have leveraged their goodwill, and have convinced numerous brands to join the project by also giving to the charity their profits generated in-store.

I ended up wandering around from space to space with an almost visual overload! Everywhere I turn there's a well designed or beautiful object to catch my eye!  I bought some great industrial lighting that I will show you once it arrives home and is installed ... also so many gifts here that I couldn't resist.  And they are the gifts that will keep on giving...

Translated from their website: Luxury and humanitarian reconciled ... it's already a dream of a better world ...

Have a great weekend!
Jennifer.
x

Back home again

Isn't wonderful to travel ... to anywhere ... for any amount of time.

A country stay for the weekend, ... the beach for a day, ... or a work trip to country France and Paris for a couple of weeks.  Your heart soars, your mind clears and the ideas flow so fast!  And you are so determined to cling on to this 'new state' of mind on your return....

Eiffel Tower in Rain, David Lebovitz

But once the unpacking is done and you're back into your normal routine, whatever that entails, the 'envigorated mind' starts to settle and it begins to feel that you never went anywhere!

I've been back home to Brisbane for a couple of weeks, and have made lots of notes of ideas and creative influences - I am hoping that my buying trip will stay fresh for a little while longer.  I met so many creative people with many different ideas for me that they were perfectly willing to share - I truly hope to just capture one or two of these!

That is what I love most about what I do, it is the wonderful people I meet and that cross my path in this new venture!  My customers are such wonderful souls, from all over, and I love hearing their stories of their ideas and what they are looking for and sharing the history (as much as I can) on the pieces I find.

Normandy

And the dealers, shippers and other contacts I have met are some fabulous like-minded and extremely creative individuals both here in Australia and overseas - it's such a treat to be able to catch up and see some of them each time I return to France.  And it's so wonderful to have the opportunity to reinvigorate friendships from when I lived in London many (many) years ago.

9.00pm: Last night in Paris ... out to dinner with friends.

Isn't it amazing how our furniture and interiors, around the world, can start conversations of our hopes and dreams for our lives...

Thankyou, merci, for your comments and requests and suggestions!  All the best for the start of your week!  I hope you can retain a little magic from your own last 'escape'.

Jennifer.
x

Jardin du Luxembourg

Walking in Saint-Germain-des-Prés

One of my favourite mid-week walks in Paris is through the 'left bank' quarter Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Au nom de la rose, rue Tournon

There are so many of the places I like to stroll past; galleries, cafes, boutique de fleurs (flower shops), french interior stores, fantastic luxury boutique window displays, the famous Ste-Sulpice and the oldest church in Paris, St-Germain-des-Prés.

Past the stunning Musée d’Orsay building; once a Belle Époque train station (with its glass roofing and cast-iron pillars) scheduled for demolition in the 1970s, now transformed into one of the world's most beautiful museums.

Intellectual tourism abounds with Café Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore (made famous by the patronage of Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Hemingway and Picasso) clustered around the intersection of St-Germain des Prés and rue Bonaparte.

There is so many interesting and varied window displays and so many lanes to explore!

Cotelac

Camper

Hermès

Hermès Store, rue de Sèvres

Chocolate hippopotamii, Patrick Roger

Patrick Roger, chocolate artist, 91 rue de Rennes

Librairie (bookstore) Chantelivre, rue de Sèvres

Catherine B Les 3 Marches, rue Guisarde, specialising in vintage Chanel and  Hermès

Le Bon Marché, rue de Sèvres

Prada and Yves Saint Laurent

Have a great weekend!
Jennifer.

Rainy morning ... café morning ...