Paris Day 6: Thanksgiving
22 November 2007
It’s Thanksgiving Day in Paris. In addition to another day of exploration in the Marais district and a trip to Musee d’Orsay, we’re putting considerable thought in to what type of establishment would be serving up our not-so traditional Thanksgiving Dinner. Of course, Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday that gets much attention in Paris so we needed to do some research in order to find something special for the occasion.
There’s a restaurant actually called ‘Thanksgiving’ in the Marais district just south of the Place des Vosges that serves of all things, Cajun food! After reflection, I guess that makes some sense, since Cajun food originated with the Acadians, who were French colonists that settled in Acadia, Canada but were forcibly deported from Canada in the mid-1700’s by the British. Many of these French settlers re-established themselves in Louisiana and developed a cuisine that emphasized the local ingredients, such as crawfish, sugar cane, and rice, along with the traditional French mire poix ingredients of celery, onion, and carrots. Based on the name seeming a bit cheesy, and a zagat rating of well below 20, we passed on ‘Thanksgiving’ for Thanksgiving.
Our next candidate was Le Dindon en Laisse, which means “The Turkey on a Leash”. It turns out that this Le Dindon place is located next to Tete Ailleurs, a small bistro we visited a night or two ago. Coincidentally, we almost walked into Le Dindon when we were looking for Tete Ailleurs as the doors are not clearly marked. As we researched Le Dindon, we came up almost completely empty-handed looking for reviews. Except, we learned that the apartment directly across the alley from Le Dindon is where Jim Morrison, lead singer and founder of the Doors, lived for a short time until he died from a heroin overdose in the same apartment. It turns out the Le Dindon is more of a bar/neighborhood hangout with some food service. We scratched it from our list as a Thansgiving dinner target, but wished we had snapped a photo at ‘Jim’s’ old place.
I launched on a Zagat hunt for good, bistro-style restaurants not too far from our hotel, while Laura began web hunting for the same. Laura came across the Auberge Nicolas Flamel, a slightly upscale bistro located in the 3rd arrondissement, about 20 minutes from the Place des Vosges. The name Nicolas Flamel will sound familiar to Harry Potter and DaVinci Code fans. In Harry Potter Flamel is the alleged creator of the Philosopher’s Stone which can turn lead into gold. In the DaVinci Code he is a previous Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. Regardless of the legends surrounding Nicolas Flamel and immortalized in popular books and movies, Flamel was a real person, an alchemist, scrivener and manuscript dealer who lived in Paris in the mid- to late-1300’s. In 1407 he built a stone house that stands today and houses the restaurant that was to become the site of our Thanksgiving dinner exactly six-hundred years later in 2007!
And so, we had a quiet, enjoyable, romantic, calm Thanksgiving dinner in a six centuries old building once owned by a character in Harry Potter!
– Chris
Laura in front of Auberge Nicolas Flamel in Paris on Thanksgiving 2007, 600 years after the
building was constructed as Nicolas Flamel’s house!
