I did not take long to become "caféd-out". Soon after moving to Paris I began missing the modernity of lunchtime places. I had found it in London, Amsterdam, and even Portland. The Parisian café is unbeatable if you want a place where to think and discuss; but it quickly becomes too predictable for lunch. So I was ecstatic when 'modern lunch places' started to appear across Paris. Spending one lunchtime jumping from one to the other, made me think of how modernity skindeep can quicly become a stereotype.
French cafés are more about context than content. My theory is that they were designed for conversations and intellectual arguments and not as places to eat - there's restaurants and bistros for that. As a result, whilst the best cafés are hard to beat, the offer of the vast majority is very dull. The Italian bar is the opposite - often dull places but - generally - offer an incredible range of stuff.....but I digress.
Sadly modernity in these places seems to be packaged a bit too homogeneously for my liking.There seems to be three main signs of modernity: names, information and promotions.
Modernity sounds exotic
The new lunchtime places that are appearing in Paris can be spotted for their names - like Cojean, (Paris' pioneer), Sandwich Market, Fin's Herb, Delicabar and even Ching'ling - all which could easily be chains - and design. Usually relatively minimalist, clean cut with a sharp use of colour which feels either purposedly too loud or too sedate.
Modernity comes with hyper-information
I found the most noticeable - and annoying - trait of modernity to be their need to aggressively deliver me information. They tell me they have lots of choice. They tell me they serve quality product - it's fresh, it's natural. The one I found funniest is where they give me instructions on how to use them - just in case I had walked in with a 'café mindset'.
This is France; it's supposed to be about seduction, not rationality.
Modernity allows you to play with innovation
Luckily it seems that modernity does not need to be superficial and some of them are doing more than offering packaged sandwiches and smoothies. Delicabar - the snack bar inside the Le Bon Marché department store - for example, makes food beautifully complex as only the french and possibly the Japanese can where.
Whilst cafés' marketing limits itself to the menu du jour, the new places go a bit further and are introducing 'themed promotions'. My favourite is Cojean's summer promotion which offers: a summer of "muesli paradise".
With the exception of places like the delicabar, most of these new modern lunchtime places have applied the internationally bland model of modernity to Paris. Just as I was getting pessimistic believing true change had arrived too brutally, I noticed that Frenchness remained. Most of the new places are closed for the whole month of August.
