Thus, after a typical Parisian meal, and a typical Parisian flea, it was now time for a typical Parisian bar and accentuated libation. La Guingette de la Chope des Puces is where Django Rhinehart started off his career and where one might find live gypsy jazz most nights. Tourist trail this is not. This was where we met one of our hosts for the weekend- the one and only Albert de Paname – who, Paris incarnate, does Saturday nights there where he plays classic French music and cha cha while his customers look as if they stepped out of movies such as Rafifi, The Golden Age and Lift to The Scaffold, whose attention to sartorial detail is above exemplary
particularly the ladies who certainly have an edge right down to the last earing. Albert is the man who resurrected Paris night life - first as DJ at Les Bains Douche in the late seventies’ and later promoted such amazing one nighters at Les Balajo, le Nouvelle Eve and Maxims and more recently at Pachamama. He was also the man behind the famed Wednesday night at the Cafe de Paris in London’s Leicester Square.
But as it was Saturday night in Gay Paree and the game was on with more red wine and a snifter of the odd spirit and, even though ye olde wallet was now some £400 lighter so, in order to anaesthetise myself from the shock of unloading such an amount on drink and grub and chattels, the decision was made at 1am to drink a Hell of a lot more so, off we trotted in a Southerly direction to Pigalle, the legendary red light area that, home to gangsters, street walkers, drug addicts, sex shops, brothels, gambling dens and ne-er do wells pulls me in like a bit fat moth to an even bigger fatter and infinitely more exciting flame.
“Pigalle as a neighbourhood had the worst reputation of anywhere in Paris and was controlled by The Corsican Mafia for almost all of the 20th Century,” chuckled Clive Hadley who met us near Les Puce. It’s still not that safe at 4 am but now, youngsters have started going there while many of the streetwalkers [who up until quite recently coveted every single corner] and gambling has disappeared and gone online. It’s become a bit like Soho in London was in the nineties.”
And, even though the area still manages to hang on to its rather sleazy façade beneath lies an underbelly of excellent, groovy bars, such as the tiny Pigalle Country Club, that, full of extremely stylish cats - a good few dandies, some fifties and forties incarnate, others sixties styled- but all grooving to a DJ playing classic funk, blues soul and Latin vinyl on couple of decks and more of the same at Le Picoti. While up the road. Just up the street is the amazing jazz/cocktail bar Lulu White Drinking Club, where we caught an amazing rhythm n blues act while just around the corner lies the Rock’n’Roll Circus that delivers insanely cheap booze and a classic rock and soul soundtrack to a hep cat crowd. Pigalle sure is funky.
“There are plenty of these little bars all over Paris,” explains Hadley. “They are not expensive and so the customers are always young, interesting and interested. My favourite bar is Aux Folies in Belleville and I go to a bar called Le Saint Sauver in Menlimontant, not because its cheap, but because its still got that real Parisian bohemian feel that you don’t get elsewhere. ”
Indeed, Menlimontant, is another little area worth perusing. La Feline is a little bar with a stage that features burlesque acts such as Lulu La Vamp and Lalaloo Du Bois with DJ’s playing pure 50s and 60’s rock n’ soul with a bit of vintage US garage thrown in while Café La Laverie is a superb bistro bar run by a couple who care which I certainly didn’t by the time I hit the sack at 6 am!
On waking just a few hours later at nine am, I found myself under attack from H.M.S. Hangover but after Mama Shelters outstanding breakfast and four cups of coffee on stepping into the harsh sunlight the battle was mine, the buzz of Paris firing a hefty broadside into the affray, leaving me feeling footloose and fancy free, and lo and behold - good to be alive- in marked contrast to an hour before.
Aux Folies