Let's start with a drink, always the best way to start IMO!
I always have lists going with places I want to check out in cities around the globe. I don't always know where I read about a place or who recommended it to me, as was the case when I suggested checking out the rooftop bar at Hotel Dame des Arts to my BFF Forest. But we thought it was odd that she wasn't familiar since she worked in the cocktail industry.
Off we went before dinner one night, and were told that the rooftop wasn't open since it was winter. We decided to stay anyway and have a drink in the cute restaurant/bar of the little hotel. As we sat there we both had the feeling that we had been here before. We started to search online for what the hotel had been before and found that it was the old Holiday Inn with incredible rooftop views of the Eiffel Tower where Forest had taken me years before!
The waiter invited us to take our cocktails up to the rooftop even though there wasn't anyone working up there, so we bundled up and enjoyed the entire terrace and views all to ourselves.
Next on my list was dinner of oysters at Huitrerie Regis. Again, I couldn't remember where I had read about it but Forest was game so we walked over to the 6th to find the address. When we came upon the TINY shop Forest laughed and told me that she had passed this place once and meant to come back to try it.
There are only about 6 tables and a small selection of the oysters they feel are the best at the time. We had a great dinner and great wine. The oysters here were served both with butter, as is pretty normal in France, and also Baume de Bouteville balsamic vinegar, made in French cognac barrels, standing in for the more typical mignonette. It was delicious!
After dinner, Forest took me to a little hotel, tucked back off the street and looking like it was from a Wes Anderson movie. Hotel de l'Abbaye had indeed been a home for nuns in the mid 17th century before being converted to a hotel in the 1990's.
We enjoyed a nightcap in the sweet little bar area, but be advised that normally this is only open to guests of the hotel. We just feigned innocence.
One afternoon we had lunch at a very traditional cafe near her place. There were no tourists at the L'Os à Moelle, and our meal started with lovely little amuse soups, served gratis, before my hearty main of duck. We finished with cheese bien sûr.
Late that afternoon, after some spa time at Hotel Crillon, Forest and I met our friend Matt at the hotel's uber ritzy Les Ambassadeurs Bar. This bar is such a stunner!
But it's not just for looks, the drinks are excellent. And spendy! The "Pear", their take on an Old Fashioned with Michter's bourbon, calvados, sauternes, and pear juice was delicious and €29!
That night we walked over to the restaurant Chez Rene in the 5th. I had first eaten here with my mom in 1999 while we were staying just blocks away. My mom liked it so much, and they treated us so well, that we went twice on our 10-day trip. Then a couple of years ago, my friend Albert posted about his dinner here! I was surprised as this isn't a trendy spot but he said it's on his semi-regular rotation. I really wanted to go back and Forest and our friend Cli said they would be up for it.
Well the girls thought it was great and that is high praise as they both live in the city and eat at MANY cafés. The restaurant was full and bustling and obviously very loved by its regulars. The food was still classic and wonderful and the service still kind. Cli's only complaint was that they brought the bill when we were done instead of asking if we wanted to order more wine. Which we did and then basically closed the place down! It was really a sweet trip down memory lane made even better by sharing it with friends.
Another afternoon I stopped into another neighborhood café, close by Forest's and a fave of another friend, A la Tour Eiffel. I enjoyed a simple lunch of duck confit and roast potatoes. What can I say? I love the classics!
Bar Nouveau had opened a few months before I was in town and was getting all the love so we went early one evening (there are only 8 seats upstairs so plan accordingly). The menu is also tiny with just 6 drinks listed. We had time for a couple of rounds and everything we had was wonderful. My favorite was their take on the Ramos Fizz made with vanilla yogurt and peated whiskey. They unapologetically use a milkshake machine to mix the cocktail for a full 3 minutes.
Dinner that evening was at Petrelle, my first time. The restaurant has been around for 20 years, and under its old chef was a favorite of celebs like Madonna and Mick Jagger. He sold it to sommelier Luca Danti and chef Lucie Boursier-Mougenot years ago and Forest and I were both excited to try it out.
They only serve a 4-course tasting menu, with an optional 5th choice, which is great for me, and the room is cozy and dim with lots of antiques and candles. When we were seated we were amongst the only one's in the room and I think we were both a little worried, but within an hour the restaurant was completely full.
We had such a fantastic meal and loved all our courses including a wonderful dish of amberjack in tigre de leche with Meyer lemon, pasta "candies" with roasted squash and bisque with saffron foam, a juicy cut of pork with candied leeks and a broth made of seaweed. A generous plate of cheese followed and then a small deconstructed apple tart. Everything was excellent. We also had a great conversation with Danti about a few of his wines and when we inquired about one he was pouring by the glass for another table he gifted us the remainder of the bottle. I really can't recommend Petrelle highly enough!
Without a doubt the highlight meal of this trip was lunch at the famed 1-Michelin star Tour d'Argent. Originally opened as an inn in 1582, during Henry III's reign, it evolved into a fine dining establishment late in the 16th century when Henry IV started using a fork to eat at the inn (forks having been used for serving only in France until then).
In the 1890s the restaurant was owned by Frédéric Delair who hosted the Wright Brothers for dinner! In 1911 the restaurant was purchased by André Terrail, and in 1947 he handed it over to his son Claude, and in 2006 after Claud's death, his son André took it over. The restaurant was closed in early 2022 for a huge renovation and had just reopened 6 months prior to our lunch. Part of the renovation included adding a lovely ground floor bar which is where we started.
Bar des Maillets d'Argent, named after Claude's polo team, welcomed us with complimentary mini cocktails and amuse bouche mini polo balls on a dish looking like polo turf. Then André came out and introduced himself to Forest and talked to her all about the bar and the concept. The bar area is also filled with cases holding all sorts of family and restaurant history. It's a great spot!
When it was time for our lunch we were led through a door disguised as a paneled wall, down a little hall, also with cases of memorabilia, and into an elevator waiting to take us to the 6th floor restaurant. The floor to ceiling windows have views of the Seine, Notre-Dame and the Ile Saint-Louis. It's fantastic!
Our table was set with a heavy glass duck paperweight, silver goblets and plate chargers. The entire restaurant seemed new and shiny! We started with perfectly poured rosé Champagne (by our possibly hungover young server) followed by some lovely amuse bouche.
At lunch they serve a wonderful 4-course menu so really the only thing we had to was pick a wine. Not so easy though with their famous cellar of nearly 300,000 bottles!!! Holy hell, the wine menu was the largest I have ever seen! We finally settled on a 2005 Saumur from Château de Villeneuve since we are both fans of Chenin Blanc from the Loire.
First course was a silky mushroom soup, poured directly into monogrammed china bowls. Second course was "Egg Mystery" a signature dish of sous vide egg, coated with breadcrumbs and then surrounded by sauce and shaved black truffles! Woah!
Third course was a perfectly cooked piece of bass with a foam sauce that was so airy! A sprinkling of various seeds lended great texture to contrast. And of course the fourth course was the dish the restaurant is most famous for, "Canard à la Presse".
The dish, created in 1890 by the owner at the time Frédéric Delair, uses a specific process for the pressed duck, and is served with sauces and garnishes based on the season. Delair also started getting the ducks from just one family farm, Maison Burgaud in Challans, on the west coast of France. And he started the tradition of numbering each duck served. Customers get a little card or certificate, mine was 1,182,459! That's a lot of ducks all still coming from the same family!
It was all fantastic; the food, the service, the people watching, the newly renovated room (google some photos of the old decor! Hello grandma!), and the million dollar views. We finished with a lovely selection of cheeses off of their cart, some more rosé Champagne, two dessert dishes (one a light sorbet and the other a chocolate & pear combo), then a small platter of chocolate mignardises.
We were almost the last ones in the dining room and when the bill finally arrived were were surprised and thrilled to see the hand written note from André letting us know it was on him! Incredibly generous! He was very excited that Forest was there and really valued her opinion.
One of the servers then took us on a tour of the rooftop, which has little tables and chairs, and looks like the perfect spot for a sunset cocktail. And on our way down in the elevator they also told us that there is an apartment for rent. So basically you don't ever have to leave the Tower! We chose to extend our stay with a few cognacs back in the bar (which they also comped).
Early the next morning I was in an Uber to CDG in A LOT of traffic (1 full hour on the road) but once at the airport I was checked into my biz class flight on Air France and thru security in 15 minutes total. The lounge in T2 is really basic, especially in the morning with not even Champagne on offer, so I did a bit of duty free shopping and then had a short flight to Heathrow. Even on this short hop, AF biz breakfast was a poached egg in tomato sauce, a wedge of Cantel, fromage blanc, croissants, and jam!
One thing about using points to fly is that a lot of time there isn't a direct flight available. And since I really try to only fly business when going international that makes picking slimmer. I would be having a 6-hour layover in LHR. Some might cringe but Heathrow is such a madhouse that as my friend Albert said, "I hope that gives you enough time to transfer!" ha!
I spent most of my time in the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse Lounge, which is easily in my top 5 fave lounges in the world. I sat in the restaurant and enjoyed a full service lunch of a cute sausage roll and champagne.
After lunch I went to the bar area and relaxed with more champagne for a bit before also hitting the duty free shops on my way to my boarding gate. I flew Delta One back to Seattle on their A330-900. The Suite was very nice and had lots of room and lots of privacy with the door completely closed.
The service, food, and wine was all very good but they don't give you pajamas or put mattresses on the layflats like many other airlines do! So it was very good for me but not excellent. Bonus points for serving high tea before landing though!
When I saw that the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris was putting on a retrospective of Mark Rothko I really wanted to go- I had never been to that venue and Rothko is one of my favorite American artists. The exhibit only went from the end of 2023 until April 2024 and I already had multiple trips booked during that time and the budget was drained. But then Air France had a sale on flights booked with mileage and then Chase had a 25% transfer bonus to Air France! I found a flight from Seattle to Paris in Business class for just 41,250 miles. So I transfered 33,000 points from Chase & was awarded 8,250 more and paid $202 in taxes and fees and viola! Booked to go see Rothko and the BFF!
The day of my trip I had a text saying my flight would be delayed 6 hours!! Luckily I use TripIt for all my travels and it alerted me that I should be qualified for compensation on any delays on a European carrier of more than 3 hours. While I hung out in the Amex Centurion Lounge and then the Delta Lounge at SeaTac I filed my claims online and included my Lyft cost since originally a friend was going to drive me to the airport. $717 ($67 for Lyft and $650 for the delay) was deposited in my bank account about 2 weeks after I got home.
As I had taken advantage of the same sale for my return and found a 30% transfer bonus with Amex, I booked Delta One (thru Air France) for 75,000 but only had to transfer 58,000 & pay $288 for taxes and fees. So with the flight delay compensation I actually made $160! Gotta love that!
Also if you are at SeaTac and have to choose between the Amex Centurion Lounge or the Delta Lounge I will tell you that Amex has much better drinks and bartenders while Delta has better food quality. IMO.
My Air France flight was on an older Boeing 787-9 but biz class still had a semi-private "pod", especially as I had a window seat which is a solo seat. Pro tip, when choosing a window seat pay attention to if the seat is angled the aisle or the window, facing the window gives you the max privacy, in this case it was the odd numbered rows.
Compared to other business class, this was pretty basic. No mattress, pj's or even slippers!! There was a small amenity kit handed out after we took off and of course it was a lie-flat seat. The best part of Air France is that the Champagne flows freely (real Champagne) and the food is always great! My meal consisted of scallop ceviche, lobster salad, prime rib with demi-glace and roasted mushrooms, and a lovely Opera cake for dessert. Oh and ABK6 VSOP Single Estate Cognac. Of course!
In Paris, Forest and I had timed tickets for the Mark Rothko exhibit and arrived out in the Bois du Boulogne just a bit before our entry. From what I understand, the show was completely sold out. It was the first dedicated exhibit in France since 1999. There were 115 works from the National Gallery of Art and the Phillips Collection, both in WA DC, the Tate in London, and from private collections, including Rothko's private family collection.
First off this building, instantly recognizable as a design by Frank Gehry, is stunning!
The exhibit was spread throughout the LV building and was organized in chronological order, starting with paintings from the 1930's including a self-portrait and other portraits. I had never seen any of his very early art so it was surprising!
In the early 40's he decided to move to abstraction and surrealism because he thought he wasn't good at figures.
By the mid to late 40's he was fully into the multi-forms of color he is known for.
Over the course of the 11 galleries you could really see his progression through shapes and colors. I was excited to see the entire Tate Gallery collection from its dedicated "Rothko room". I've seen these in London multiple times and the deep reds are just so striking!
But I hadn't seen the Phillips Collection's pieces so to see that collection was awesome, especially as you could really compare the works with different years, etc.
One of the last rooms had a selection of his very dark paintings paired with sculpturist Giacometti’s tall figures. Such a fantastic combination!
I find his work very powerful; the color always feels like it is saturating my eyes & filling my head. Rothko felt that color could communicate emotions like fear, joy, and depression and I'd add wonder to that list. That is what I felt the first time I saw one of his pieces and it's what I still generally feel. I was very happy to have made it to this.
We also had a wonderful visit to the YSL museum one morning. From 1974 to 2002 this mansion was the fashion house of Yves Saint Laurent. In 2017 the haute couture HQ was reopened as a museum to give the public an opportunity to explore the designer's history and creations.
Entering the mansion, we were invited up the beautiful staircase and into the designer's reception room where once clients were met; now filled with lots of his small sketches, photos, and paintings. From here we followed the progression into the special exhibit called Sheer: The diaphanous creations of Yves Saint Laurent which was a multi-space collection of his work exploring different ideas and examples of the theme.
The first gallery held the obvious; creations with lace, tuile, organza, and other sheer fabrics. Stunning and intricate work, also daring and revealing silhouettes including the first "see-through" blouse he created in 1968.
We continued upstairs to another gallery filled with beautiful dresses made of soft flowy fabrics. And into the dressmaking rooms where patterns were traced and transparency is showcased by the detailed stitching of these works of art.
Pieces by other artists, such as Anne Bourse, Man Ray, and Picabia were also on exhibit throughout the mansion echoing the "sheer" theme. The final examples were some incredible wedding dresses.
The museum, with it's collection of 5,000 garments and 15,000 accessories, most chosen personally by YSL for the museum, is meant to be mostly a rotating stage for special themed exhibits, which is great as you will always have something new to explore. There are some rooms in the mansion that seem to be permanent like the reception, a small room with a film about his life, and his studio, which was just amazing to walk through.
The whole experience was highly enjoyable!
After all of that art, we needed culture of a different kind one afternoon. You might think that spending a day at the Hôtel de Crillon spa can't be compared to going to a museum, but this 18th-century palace, right across from the Place de la Concorde, has so much history that I beg to differ.
While swimming in the beautiful indoor lap pool with its gold-tiled bottom you can think about how King Louis XV commissioned the building in 1758. And while relaxing is a cozy robe while sipping champagne you can image the finished palace being purchased by the Crillon family 1788.
And while enjoying a decadent massage you can think about when the home was confiscated in 1791 during the French Revolution and was lived in by King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette!
By the way if you are looking to treat yourself I highly recommend the spa at the Crillon, a stunning Rosewood property.
