Take the inside track to the heart of Paris
Ithink I know Paris but what I’d like is someone who knows it better to show me around. So I was intrigued when Eurostar announced it was launching exclusive Interludes breaks.
The train company, which connects Belgium, Britain and France, has been experimenting on how it can give a city break the personal touch – based on that buzzy concept of ‘curated travel’ where things are tailored to individual wishes and interests. Along with a friend, I was invited on the inaugural trip earlier this year.
First we were asked a few questions… well, mostly what sort of restaurants we like. Classic French rather than foamy, I said, and left Eurostar to sort everything else out.
So we arrived at London’s St Pancras railway station with just our train tickets and no idea of where we were staying or what we’d be doing.
Two chefs, one from London’s cult Honey & Co, provided a special meal as we zipped under the Channel.
If our restaurant choices dictated the choice of our hotel, Eurostar got my taste spoton. The Providence, near St Denis, exuded full-on Gallic charm; the film Amelie by way of Vogue. The rooms (inset below) are all deep colours and velvet sofas. Ours featured its own cocktail bar. Overlooking a square, as I threw open the door to our balcony, a jazz trumpeter was busking in the street below.
And then Paris was ours to explore. We’d been given two-day Metro passes and queue-buster tickets to top exhibitions. We had tickets to a Rodin exhibition and, on the way, we stop for an aperitif near the Tuileries Palace. It couldn’t have been more Parisian if Catherine Deneuve had been behind the bar.
Things became even more insidery when we had dinner at the home of chef Ed Delling-Williams and his shoe-designer wife Zoe Lee near the Gare du Nord in the hip Barbes area. Ed is head chef at Le Grand Bain in chic Belleville and is famous for his noseto-tail, no-waste food. We are served a series of dishes, including abalone (marine snails) and salads, followed by a whole suckling pig.
Ed suggested we try the The Clown Bar, next to Oberkampf. ‘The clowns used to go before their shows and the food is fabulous.’
Zoe said the best chocolate mousse comes from the Royal Bar cafe next to her show shop in the trendy Marais.
With our inside information, we started planning for the next day… with chocolate mousse high on the agenda.