Culture

May 2012 online now!

may 2012 cover

Dreaming of a fabulous summer vacation drifting quietly along the canals of Burgundy on a delightful barge trip? So were we. Check out our latest issue of La Belle France to read more about this, and:
-Les Enfants Terribles
-Bread & Roses: the perfect shopping break
-Paris’s Ecole Ferrandi cooking school
-The Ritz & the Crillon: renovations coming soon (some have already started)
-The Provinces Museum Calendar Summer 2012 (don’t go to France this summer without our cultural calendar on-hand!)

Login to access the issue at www.labellefrance.com, or subscribe.

Versailles …not just for Royals anymore

April 10, 2012 | Culture, Hotel News, Restaurants
versaille-gardens1-796x530

The French had a hard time “getting into” Sofia Coppola’s rock’n’roll Marie Antoinette movie with Kirsten Dunst… but it’s true love with Les Adieux à la Reine, the new film based on French author Chantal Thomas’s (not to be confused with lingerie designer Chantal Thomass) award-winning novel that focuses on the Queen’s reader on the eve of the Revolution. (This time round, the ill fated Austrian is portrayed by German actress/model Diane Kruger.) French theaters are filled this spring.
While France abounds with prettier, more romantic castles, Versailles is the one that continually tugs at the heartstrings. For years, the prettiest hotel in Versailles has been the Trianon Palace, abutting the palace gardens, with its kitchen currently supervised by British bad boy Gordon Ramsay. Unfortunately, the Trianon Palace has been bought, re-sold and re-vamped so many times over the last 25 years that its original Belle Époque charm has been lost in the shuffle.

 

To read more of this article from our April issue of La Belle France, login or subscribe!

Garden Festival

March 28, 2012 | Chef News, Culture
garden

From April 25 to October 1st, the Gothic Renaissance Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire hosts the 21st annual International Garden Festival. Located 200 kilometers south of Paris (between Tours and Blois), it’s worth a detour on your castle tour. This year, there’s even a (slight) cuisine connection: Chef Alain Passard chairs the horticultural jury. www.domaine-chaumont.fr Corinne LaBalme

March 2012 online now!

March 2012 cover

Our March issue is online now… and if you’re a print subscriber, it’s in the mail! It features a cover article on Oscar Wilde’s final digs, L’Hôtel, as well as reviews of other favorite Paris hotels: Le San Régis and Le Saint James. In this same article we take a look at the new Paris “W” as well. Cast your vote on this one on our Facebook page. And there’s no time like springtime to take a look at what’s new (and gone) in Michelin.

As for Paris restaurants… L’Hédoniste quickly garnered much press as well as two toques from Gault-Millau. Do we agree? You’ll have to read it to find out.

Rounding out our March issue, we have a complete listing of the Paris Cultural Calendar for Spring 2012. Don’t go to Paris without checking it!

For all this and more, every month, make sure you are a current subscriber to La Belle France!

 

Hot Air

March 14, 2012 | Culture, Hotel News
st james hot air2

In our latest issue, we review the whimsical and so stylish Saint James hotel. We love the a la Jules Verne-esque outdoor dining and bar area, featuring fabulous and fanciful hot air balloons!

Saint James Paris. 43 avenue Bugeaud, 75116.  Tel: 01.44.05.81.81. www.saint-james-paris.com Forty-six rooms and two private pavilions from 310€ to 1,500€. Breakfast: 28€ or 35€.

Cartier Foundation

March 7, 2012 | Art, Culture, Museums
cartier

Time’s running out… if you haven’t yet seen “Mathématiques: Un dépaysement soudain” at the Fondation Cartier. This novel exhibit — pairing top scientists with artists like David Lynch and Patti Smith — proves that Algebra and Geometry can be beautiful mind-games. Through March 18. www.fondation.cartier.com Corinne LaBalme

 

Photo © Olivier Ouadah

Royalists to Romantics: Women Artists from the Louvre, Versailles, and Other French National Collections

March 6, 2012 | Art, Culture, Museums
Rose Adélaïde Ducreux

No time to get to France? From now through July 19th, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington is featuring 77 paintings, prints, and sculptures by women artists from 1750 to 1850. Many of these works have never been seen outside of France. The exhibit reveals how women artists weathered this tumultuous period which encompassed the court of Louis XVI, the French Revolution, and Napoleon.

35 artists are featured, including Marguerite Gérard, Antoine Cecile Haudebourt-Lescot, Adélaïde Labille-Guillard, Sophie Rude, Anne Vallayer-Coster, and Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun. This fascinating exhibit explores how the political and social dynamics of the time shaped the lives and works of these talented artists.

Through July 29th

Painting: Rose Adélaïde Ducreux
Portrait of the Artist, ca. 1799
Oil on canvas
69 3/8 × 50 7/8 in.
Musée des beaux-arts, Rouen

Félicitations, Jean!

February 29, 2012 | Art, Culture
jean

We are all so excited about all involved in “The Artist” and their tremendous year!  A big congratulations to Jean Dujardin, friend of La Belle France, for becoming the first ever Frenchman to win an Academy Award for Best Actor!   Félicitations, Jean!

Learn to make Pommes Dauphinois in minutes

February 8, 2012 | Culture

Watch our new series on French cooking! La Belle France takes you to the hotels and restaurants of France every month, now we’re bringing French cooking to you as well. Here, we make the classic Pommes Dauphinois. Everyone loves this dish in restaurants throughout France, now you can make it quickly and simply in your own home!

Left your heart in San Francisco…

February 6, 2012 | Culture
2 Gelenter

Left your heart in San Francisco? Find it at the Duke’s Bar in the Westminster Hotel (13 rue de la Paix) on Feb 2, 9, 16 and 23 when NY/SF crooner Terrance Gelenter brings a little Tony Bennet/Bobby Short to the Place Vendôme at 9 pm.

Dance at the Musée Bourdelle

January 27, 2012 | Culture
dance

On January 29th, the pictures on the wall come to life as a troupe of dancers interpret “les muses” of artist Antoine Bourdelle at the Bourdelle Museum in Montparnasse. Free preformances at 2, 3 and 4 pm. Through March 12th, there’s “Que du Dessin” (drawings by Bourdelle) in the galleries. For more information: www.bourdelle.paris.com Corinne LaBalme

Nice Carnival…

January 15, 2012 | Culture
Nice - Credit Corinne LaBalme2 web

We’re coming up on Carnaval in Nice. Here’s a repost from our time at Carnaval last year…

The Nice Carnival has two major components: the fairy tale Batailles de Fleurs (which take place along the Promenade des Anglais in the daytime) and the rambunctious Corso Carnavalesque (in the Place Masséna both in the afternoons and at night). Every event doesn’t take place every day so it’s vital to check the schedules for the three-week party.

The Bataille de Fleurs, a tradition dating from 1876, is pure charm. Regional florists compete to make the prettiest and most impressive floats. Carnival “princesses” ride atop these floral creations, tossing bouquets of lilies and mimosas to the crowds and to the dancers and majorettes who round out the parade. At the end of the afternoon, tourists and locals head back to their homes and hotels, covered with confetti, and holding armfuls of fresh flowers.

Carnival experts in Nice evoke the modern event’s 127-year-old history but the key to enjoying the party requires more historical distance. A 13th century letter mentions Nice’s Mardi Gras party as a “must” and the rowdy,  medieval origins come through loud and clear at a Corso Carnavalesque paradeespecially on Saturday night – which can look like something dreamed up by the Phi Delta frat house and the Girls Gone Wild cast. Loudspeakers blast dance music which the brass bands and folk orchestras on the parade grounds try their best to drown out.

This year’s theme was “Mediterranean” and the “Dolce Vita” float consisted of Pinocchio on a pizza cart with a buxom balloon girlfriend, Cupid with an arrow, a giant duck, a suggestively thrusting Tower of Pisa, a (live) caveman dragging a (blow-up) balloon woman by her hair, a group of bemused schoolchildren tossing confetti, canned samba music, and a dozen men in drag (with watermelon breasts and blonde wigs) flashing their garter belts at the crowd.

According to Nice Matin newspaper the next day: “Finally a float that really captures the spirit of Carnival!”

Not to be missed!

Cross the Rhine at the Plaza!

December 19, 2011 | Culture, Hotel News, Restaurant News
rhine

Get a side-trip to Bavaria via metro on March 15, 16, and 17 when German-born Werner Küchler, director of the Relais Plaza, hosts home-town chef Walter Leufen for a menu that includes Geräuchentes Forellenfilet von Tegernsee, mit Gurken in Meerrettichcreme (Tegernsee Lake smoked trout with cucumber/horse-radish cream), Schweinshaxe mit Bierjus und Speckwirsing (pork knuckle cooked in beer with cabbage and bacon) or apple streudl with vanilla sauce. The wait-staff will wear dirndls and lederhosen (but you don’t) and live bavarian folk music is promised as well. www.plaza-athenee-paris.comCorinne LaBalme

Up, Up and Away…!

October 4, 2011 | Culture
balloon

Up, Up and Away…! Get a bird’s eye-view of Paris (with a helium assist) from the Ballon Air de Paris that rises above the modernist Parc André Citroen in southwest edge of town. Available daily (weather permitting) from 9am to the park’s closing hour, this delightful montgolfière ride costs only 10-12€ for adults. www.ballondeparis.com Corinne LaBalme

An American in Paris

September 20, 2011 | Art, Culture

An American in Paris. From September 28 to November 12, Paris’s Gagosian Gallery (4 rue de Ponthieu, 75008) presents sculpture and paintings by Robert Rauschenberg. Corinne LaBalme