La Coupole

Bonjour à toutes et à tous!

One of my favorite cafés to visit is La Coupole…but, I’m sure, not for the reasons you’re thinking.

First of all, to be fair, while I only use La Coupole as a café, it’s actually a large, beautiful brasserie that specializes in fruits de mer (technically, seafood, but with more of a focus on shellfish).

It’s a large, gorgeous, Art Deco establishment with marbled columns and matching upholstery. Inside the restaurant portion, it’s all banquettes and booths, with a truly impressive seafood ‘bar’ along the side.

The café portion is an open-planned, glassed exterior along, now, with tables set well onto the sidewalk…which will change back to fewer tables on the sidewalk as the weather changes and Covid concerns become even more managed.

(My photos don’t do the place justice so I’m using a couple from their website.)

And with all of that being said, as I mentioned above, it’s not just for the food or the beautiful surroundings that I so enjoy going to La Coupole. It also includes watching the afternoon festivities in the café.

Allow me to explain…

When you’re reading tourist guides to Paris, you’ll see lots about Paris nightlife and where the best pick-up joints are and all the rest. What you don’t see is where people of certain age who live in Paris go for the same reasons.

Part of that is purely age. People of a certain age don’t go cruising in the late hours. At least, not I, nor the folks I know.

Part of it is expedience. After all, you don’t want to have to go from boîte to boîte (club to club) simply hoping for the best…again, at least, not I, nor the folks I know.

What I learned, quite by accident, is that the answer is afternoons at La Coupole.

I hadn’t been to La Coupole in the afternoons before I learned about the mating rituals that go on there, so it was quite the surprise.

Why hadn’t I been? Because I happen to love their breakfasts.

French people don’t eat ‘breakfast’ the way Americans and the British do. There isn’t an egg in sight.

And while croissants are available everywhere, even those aren’t necessarily the go-to breakfast food. (Cereal is a big supermarket seller over here, though…including lots of American cereals in French packaging with less sugar.)

However, when you’re going to take the time and are ready to go heavy on the carbs, there’s nothing like a French breakfast.

La Coupole offers an excellent French breakfast - a bit of baguette (or tartine, as it’s called in this case), viennoiseries (pastries), juice and a hot drink…either coffee, tea or their truly exceptional chocolat chaud (hot chocolate). (It’s made with Valhrona chocolate and is incredibly delicious.)

So when I’m in the mood and don’t want to go far from my apartment, La Coupole, as you can understand, is my first choice.

That’s why the afternoon was such a surprise to me.

I had arranged a get-together with a friend and she suggested we meet in the café portion of La Coupole at about 4pm for a quick verre du vin. I got there early (a still way-too American habit) and she got there late (a very French habit) so I had the chance to simply sit and watch the world…which presented me with a picture I seriously hadn’t expected to see.

It started at about 4.15, with a woman of a certain age coming into the glassed-in area and taking a table by herself. She ordered a glass of wine, pulled out a book which she put on the side of the table, and just sat.

The woman had that older French woman look that, to me, is a fascinating contradiction.

She was wearing an absolutely stunning dress with an exquisite cape covering it - which she dramatically took off before sitting down. Yet her hair was the improbable too-black-for-real-life puffed-up coiffure that French women of a certain age seem to love. (And when their hair isn’t too-black-for-real-life, it’s the auburn version.)

And, of course, red, red lipstick, comme d’habitude (as usual) - which is typical for pretty much every French woman of any age.

Not long after, another woman of a certain age came in, took a seat at a different table facing in the opposite direction, nodded to the first woman and ordered her own verre de vin.

Over the next half hour, another woman or two came in and followed the same pattern - including the book on the side of the table and the glass of wine.

I watched this with real curiosity. The women seemed to know each other but other than the nod at entry, they never acknowledged each other’s existence.

Which was all explained not long after when the first dapperly dressed man of a certain age came walking slowly by the front of the café, looked in, walked past the café, then a few moments later came back again - now looking at the women facing the other direction. He did one more round before nodding to the first woman who came in as he walked by, waiting for her nod in response and then came into the café and joined her.

This happened a few more times until each of the women either had a table partner or decided to leave.

It was great! I was watching the mating habits of French people of a certain age, up-close and personal!

Then I realized that I am those women! Now we’re talking.

The moment I decide that I want anything from a table companion to a quatre-à-sept (which translates directly to a ‘four-to-seven’…you get my drift) to une petite aventure (an affair), I know exactly where to go.

In the meantime - and for the foreseeable future - I’ll stick to breakfast at La Coupole and just smile as I enjoy my chocolat chaud, thinking about all the afternoon excitement yet to come for all those lovely people of a certain age.

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La Coupole, 102, Boulevard de Montparnasse, 75014 Paris