A Visit to La Closerie des Lilas

The streets are tiny and quiet, lined by stately white buildings that resist time. Although the horses have been replaced by squat little Smarts and Fiats, these streets must look must the same as they did then, with flowers arranged neatly on tiny iron balconies beneath open white shutters.

It’s dinnertime when we pass by, and the street fills with the sound of silverware and French music playing on a distant stereo. It’s magic, and it’s magic because of the way it is today, not four generations ago.

Cristina and I make our way to La Cloiserie des Lilas, perhaps the most Hemingway of all Hemingway haunts. We thread our way through well-heeled, well-dressed patrons into the dark wood bar.

“Where’s Hemingway’s favorite barstool?” I ask.

The bartender smiles and points at the brass plaque in front of the corner chair.

“How often have you been asked that question?”

Diplomatically, he just smiles.

“I did the same thing,” the man to my left tells me, two stools away from Hemingway’s.

“Hemingway was my favorite writer,” he says. “When I came to Paris, I followed his footsteps, as you do.”

Dule Kovac is 64, a retired engineer from Bosnia who came to Paris in 1966 and never left. Sitting underneath a portrait of a middle-aged Hemingway in a suit and tie, Kovac sips Perrier and pops green olives into his mouth.

Kovac says he ends his day at the Lilas at least twice a week. He points to where he’s spotted Johnny Depp and Matt Damon.

“I could live at the Lilas,” he says.

This entry was posted on August 3, 2010 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Drink, Food, France, Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.