Saw this photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson (1) and remembered one of my favourite Parisian eateries, or rather brasseries: Lipp, on the Boulevard Saint-Germain
Léonard Lipp opened it after the Franco-Prussian War, when he left occupied Alsace and came to Paris. He brought his recipes with him: sauerkraut, sausages, cold beer. This was Alsatian cooking in its most direct form, hearty, unpretentious and at a reasonable price.
The Saint-Germain quarter of that time was not a tourist postcard but a living district of inexpensive cafés and newspaper offices. Lipp hit the mark.
Proust, Gide, Picasso and Saint-Exupéry came here. Hemingway wrote part of «A Farewell to Arms» at a Lipp table and in 1928 recommended that his sister look in and have a beer with potato salad and choucroute, that is, Alsatian sauerkraut. Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir sometimes preferred Lipp to the neighbouring Café de Flore. Mitterrand chose it as one of his regular haunts. In the end this small, venerable establishment became something like an unofficial club of the Fifth Republic.
The interior, as it took shape after the refurbishment of 1926, has not been touched since. Yellow tiles, floral ceramics in the Belle Époque style, large mirrors, leather banquettes, globe chandeliers. All of it is entered in the register of historic monuments, where Lipp rightfully has its place. The menu has not changed either: choucroute, calf's head with sauce ravigote, sole meunière, and île flottante for dessert, egg white whipped into a tall foam and served in a little pot with liquid crème anglaise.
A table here is still hard to book, so there is most often a rather impressive queue at the entrance. But I always recommend the place to friends who are interested in where to go in Paris.
