Joe Ray
Food & Travel / Words & Photos
EATING
THE
MOTHERLAND
Food writer and photographer Joe Ray's gastronomic visits in Europe - the home of his ancestors - and beyond.
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Saturday, January 31, 2009
La Coupole
In nearly a decade living in Paris, I had never been to the Montparnasse brasserie La Coupole - it’s the Bostonian’s equivalent of never having been to Legal Sea Foods.
Part of the reason for not going was that I snobbishly avoid chains on principle and La Coupole is owned by the Flo group, which owns or bought up more a dozen brasseries in Paris and across Europe including Bofinger, Brasserie Flo and Julien.
I’d also be justified in staying away for nothing more than wanting to boycott those cheap-looking sandwich board that each Flo brasserie has out on the sidewalk advertising something like a 19-euro prix fixe menu. It looks like they pimped them from the semi-ubiquitous French steakhouse chain called Hippopotamus. I imagine the original owner of each brasserie groaning every time they walk past those things.
But the other afternoon, it was cold and we needed a coffee, went inside and I immediately wondered aloud why I had stayed away so long. Like brasserie Wepler, it’s got that great, big-town feeling that envelops you as soon as you walk through the door. Everything from the big, beautiful cupola that floats over the room to the waiters in their black and whites swooping around with big plates of shellfish to the sense of space the mammoth room affords – it all gives a sort of city comfort.
What I’d really like to applaud is the price of La Coupole’s coffee and hot chocolate. Though 4,10€ for cappuccino makes me groan, particularly considering the poor quality of most French coffee, I’d pay a similar price at my neighborhood café. La Coupole’s hot chocolate, made with high-end Valrhona chocolate, costs about the same and it beats the pants off the powdered junk with the pony on the label that most cafes use.
La Coupole MAP
102, bd du Montparnasse
75014 Paris
+33 1 43 20 14 20
http://www.flobrasseries.com/coupoleparis/
