HISTORICAL CAFES
La Coupole

20th December 1927, the inauguration of La Coupole, on the boulevard du Montparnasse is a grand premier in Paris during the mad years. The 1500 bottles prepared for the 2500 carefully chosen guests won't be enough. Anecdotes pass around Paris and a legend is born.

It must be said that the establishment is in the hands of an Aveyronnais like Boubal (Le Flore) or Marcelin Cazes (Lipp). He is called Ernest Fraux.

The great idea? Buy an old wood and coal warehouse of about 1000m² on the boulevard Montparnasse and create one of the best brasseries in the capital. Thus rivals with the Dôme situated on the corner of the boulevards Montparnasse and Raspail and the Select just opposite.

For that, Ernest Fraux gathered some of the best architects and decorators of the period. He had to make the place as pleasant as possible and a bit special... In fact he arranged and decorated an enormous single room, as big as a railway station, supported by 33 symetrical pillars. With a restaurant and terrace on the first floor.

Fortunately just nearby there is a whole group of painters, the Montparnos, who had left Montmartre and taken over Montparnasse. So Marie Vassilieff, Matisse, Léger, and Kisling are approached to do a fresco on each column.

The Coupole was an instant success. It was the meeting place for the whole of Paris. This trendy place attracted the great artists and personalities of the literary world : Cocteau, Radiguet, Aragon, Dali, Picasso, Foujita, the photographer Man Ray with his model Kiki, Zadkine, Kisling, Sartre, Giacometti, Simone de Beauvoir, Artaud, Colette .... The enormous bar had welcomed people as famous as Kessel, Beckett or Hemingway. The underground dance floor at the Coupole also became a mythical place. It hosted Josephine Baker and all the great names of blues and jazz who came to conquer Paris.

Today the atmosphere "parisian brasserie" is still intact. You come to eat the the most famous lamb curry in Paris or a seafood platter. You can also come to admire the Art Deco renovated in 1988. The original colours of the columns, notably the garnet red and the green that was all the rage in the 20's have been rediscovered.

In 2007, The Coupole has celebrated it's 80th anniversary.