Arden in Paris 🇫🇷🥖
Hi! Two weeks ago, I had school off for fall break and accompanied my mom to PARIS. Here’s a diary-ish recount of what I did and where I went. It truly is a magical city—you can feel it in the little alleys, the open bakery doors, and the warm yellow light through the windows.
DAY 1 (Tuesday): Red eye, perfume shopping, and a long lovely dinner at a French bistro.
I go straight from the Gracie Abrams concert in Radio City Music Hall to the JFK airport. My 1am red eye is boarding as soon as I pass through security. The plane is only one-third full, and I have a whole row to myself. I stretch out horizontally and sleep the whole time. I usually hate red eyes, but this one is easy.
I land at 2pm. By the time I go through customs and get to the hotel, it’s 4pm. I shower, change, and go on a walk before meeting my mom. I spray four different perfumes at L’Artisan Parfumeur after telling the lady who works there that I like fresh, green scents. My favorite is Premier Figuier, which has notes of fig and cedarwood. All of their fragrances have a depth and roundness that make them smell luxurious. I tell her that I’ll think about them and come back (I don’t).
My mom and I stop by a gallery opening in the Marais district before going to dinner at Restaurant Jeanine. We order oysters in a citrusy soy mignonette sauce, duck ravioli with a squid ink wrapping, rabbit beneath a bed of seared cabbage, and the catch of the day (cod). The oysters are perfectly plump. The standout of each dish is the sauce—rich, herby, balanced. The French really know how to do sauce. I think the fish is over-salted, but I am astonished by how good the beans are—plump, flavorful, fresh—swimming in this fragrant luxurious bouillabaisse. I’ve never had white beans taste like this before.
Dinner lasts nearly 3 hours, and I am so exhausted at the end of the day I don’t remember going to sleep.
DAY 2 (Wednesday): Luxembourg Gardens, Mary Jane induced blisters, and a solo evening on the sidewalk.
I wake up and get a croissant and a tonka bean flavored matcha latte from The Coffee. They call tonka “Amazonian Vanilla” but I think it tastes more like cinnamon and dates. I take my breakfast across the bridge to the Luxembourg Gardens. I sit on a park bench and write a few pages in my journal. It’s funny to be reporting from Paris. I’m wearing my favorite jeans from Slvrlake, the pointelle tank from Leset, and a Missoni cardigan I found at the 2nd Street that just opened in New Haven.
I meet my mom for lunch at La Grande Épicerie, a gourmet food hall and market attached to Le Bon Marché, one of the first department stores started in the 19th century. We pick up a jambon beurre and a salmon salad and take our food to the park across the street. Everyone has the same idea as us—not a single bench is unoccupied. I love a leisurely lunch in the middle of the work day. This summer, I ate my Corporate Bowls in my office’s cafeteria, or in crunch times, at my desk, but I treasured the times I could take an hour to eat outside, stretch my legs and get a little sun.
My mom leaves for a meeting and I walk back to the hotel to change into these red Mary Jane’s I got during a J. Crew online sale. I go back to the Marais and peek into a few vintage shops, but nothing is calling to me.
My feet are killing me by 5pm, and a blister is forming on my right heel. I sit down for a while in the Jardins des Archives Nationales. I am googling places to eat dinner when I realize I am very close to Briezh Café, where I got crepes with my family the first time I was in Paris. I request for table for one, and they seat me outside, on the corner of the street. I order a glass of white wine and they serve it to me in a plastic glass. I look at other tables, and they are all drinking out of real glasses. I don’t know if it’s because I am young, alone, not French, or a combination of all three, but it still bothers me. I eat my dinner and make good progress in my book, the Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.
The streets are much livelier than they are in New York at 6pm. Everyone is outside, drinking, smoking, eating. I kind of like that I cannot understand any of their conversations. They all sound dramatic and glamorous.
After dinner, I go to Amorino for gelato. They have a few locations in New York and my friends and I used to go because they form these cute roses out of the gelato. I get chocolate, vanilla, and basil-lime. It’s fine, I wish I had gone somewhere else. I walk back to the hotel, watch an episode of Emily in Paris, and drift off to sleep…
DAY 3 (Thursday): Lost my phone, fought for dumplings, and fell in love with silver jewelry.
I get another matcha from The Coffee, but this time with actual vanilla instead of tonka. I also buy a croissant and a slice of lemon pound cake.
My mom and I take an Uber to the Foundation Louis Vuitton to see a show on pop art. It’s pouring rain, but neither of us brought an umbrella. We are getting wet and debating whether we should abandon ship when a nice couple behind us in line lends us one of theirs. We comment on the kindness of strangers until I realize my phone is not in my hand or my bag. I call the Uber driver from my mom’s phone, and he picks up on the second try. We have a conversation in English and French where I am trying to confirm that he has my phone and he is trying to confirm that I will pay him to bring it back. We eventually understand each other, and I am miraculously reunited with my iPhone for ten extra euros.
The pop art show is fine. A bit cheesy.
We go to the Asia Now art fair where I am enticed by the promise of free food. We get a Vietnamese noodle bowl with beef and a chicken salad with a fishy, salty dressing. It tastes so good because I am so hungry. Then I wait at the stand where three people in chefs hats are steaming frozen dumplings in bamboo baskets. It seems to be a free for all—once they place a tray of dumplings on the counter and drizzle soy sauce with a squeeze bottle, arms and chopsticks are reaching over me to load shrimp, pork, and vegetable dumplings onto their plates. I eventually get three dumplings and then I give up. They taste alright, better because they are piping hot.
Next we visit Mara Paris, which my mom was getting Instagram ads for back when we were in New York. Apparently a lot of the jewelry worn on Emily in Paris is from there. The designer is a former architect, which is apparent in the geometric, artful simplicity of her pieces.
Before dinner, we return to La Grande Épicerie and buy this pastry for dessert.
Dinner is at Baillote, a French restaurant that my parents have been to before. We get tempura scallop, beef tartare, duck, and cod. It is all delicious. My mom and I head back and eat the dessert from earlier on the hotel bed, out of the container with wooden spoons. The cream is airy and not too sweet, with flecks of vanilla bean. The puffs have a crackly sugar crust and a soft, almost custardy interior. The base is flaky yet structurally sound. It’s a flawless pastry!
DAY 4 (Friday): An exquisite ham and butter sandwich, Musée de l'Orangerie, and the journey home.
After two mediocre matchas, I try somewhere new called Moonlight Café. All of the cafes in Paris use Minor Figures barista oat milk, which is funny because I thought it was a niche Gen Z brand, and it also froths terribly. The flavor is nice though—smooth and subtly sweet.
I walk to Caractère de Cochon for another jambon beurre. I am the first patron when they open at 10am. They have like 20 kinds of ham to choose from, which is awesome and overwhelming. I know I want cooked over cured, and I end up choosing the smoked ham because I am nervous that the regular one is made with a pine needle (whatever that means) and I am very allergic to pine nuts. The sandwich is incredible. I have always loved walking and eating, so chomping on my baguette walking on the cobblestone streets is a top tier experience.
I cross the bridge to go to Shakespeare and Company, a very famous bookstore where James Baldwin used to hang out. It is now a tourist hotspot. I go to the second floor and finish my book, which takes me so long to read that I forget what happens at the very beginning. The nice thing is that Kundera keeps returning to the same events, adding a detail or telling it from another person’s point of view, or offering a philosophical reading of it. It is a beautiful story about love and loyalty and physicality and fate.
I walk back across the Seine to make my 1:30pm time slot at the Musée L’Orangerie. I have been wanting to see Monet’s water lilies forever, and I missed them the first time I was in Paris. Monet dedicated the last three decades of his life to the Nymphéas (water lilies) cycle, and gifted the set of paintings to the nation as monuments to peace. The gallery rooms are oval shaped, and you are surrounded by the curved paintings. I think it would be more meditative if there weren’t dozens of people twirling around posing for pictures in front of the eight compositions. A more generous person might say they are dancing in the water.
I like this side by side of blue window paintings by Matisse and Picasso.
We get to the airport very early. I have a very weird salad with green beans, edamame, imitation crab, smoked salmon, boiled egg, tomatoes, and parmesan for dinner. On the plane, I watch Hit Man (a Fun movie) and Auction (a French movie) Seven hours later, I am back in New York City. Two hours after that, I am in my bed, ready to dream about French butter and the sunlight skidding along the river.
Thank you for reading. Hopefully I will be back in Paris soon.
This letter was partially inspired by
’s gorgeous reflections on her time in California.xx
This made me book a trip to Paris
the food looks so good!