Montmartre en fête #1

All weekend the butte was alive with festivities celebrating the grape harvest.

Above: scenes from annual parade

Vendanges 2018

Montmartre, its slopes once green with vineyards, celebrates its 85th grape harvest festival.

Above: inside Paris' last vineyard

Montmartre Grape Harvest Festival 2018
[full program w/today's parade schedule]

- This year's featured guest wines are from Portugal -

Working girl

Settled in for the afternoon over a café crème.

The café next door

Small café set up for people-watching on the Left Bank.

Artitecture

Unbelievable architecture signed Frank Gehry at the Louis Vuitton Foundation.

Corner florist

Explosion of colors at a compact flower shop in the 11th arrondissement.

A pancake in Paris

Sometimes the best things in life arrive totally unplanned.

I've never been a great fan of pancakes, the fat American cousin of the French crêpe. In university I’d make batches of crêpes for family and friends, eventually playing with different flours and different batters - pumpkin, herbs, chocolate, seeds - and today, years later, I think I can make them with my eyes closed. Pancakes were too thick. Too stodgy. In restaurants I'd usually go for the French toast or waffles for breakfast.

So when I came across a place in Paris called Pancake Sisters on the internet and mentioned it to a friend, out of curiosity we found ourselves headed over to give it a try.

But here's what happened: In a dismissive, "I know we're supposed to be open but tant pis, you'll have to wait” the waiter, in fact, got us to turn our attention to the place next door - where people were streaming in and it seemed to be filling up fast.

Enter Holybelly, a brunch restaurant that's been on my should-try list for awhile. It was right there. But as its sister Hardware Socièté, another Melbourne Australian wonder is already in my neighborhood, it was never a priority. It is now.


A hearty merci to that lovely waiter at Pancake Sisters. BPJ

Holybelly

5 rue Lucien Sampaix 75010

October newsletter

Nouveautés