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The great American novelist and journalist, Ernest Hemingway, moved to Paris in 1921. At the time, he was five years away from the publication of his debut novel, The Sun Also Rises, and working as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star. One of the author's favourite haunts during this period was an unassuming restaurant named Closerie des Lilas, located at 171 Boulevard du Montparnasse.
It was there, in the relative peace and quiet, that he penned much of The Sun Also Rises, writing diligently in pencil in blue-colored French notebooks. In the evenings, Hemingway walked home past a brass statue of Marshal Ney, which marked the spot where the famed French military commander was executed in 1815. This is one of the little details Hemingway included in his newspaper reports. Today, a small brass plaque in the still open restaurant marks the place where Hemingway regularly sat and worked.
Closerie des Lilas, which translates as "lilac enclosure," was first opened in 1847 by François Bullier as a modest roadside establishment serving one of the main thoroughfares out of the city. At the time, it was named La Closerie des Genets after a popular play, but the name changed to reflect Bullier's passion for lilac flowers, which he used to decorate the property.
Nearly two hundred years later, you can still visit the brasserie, which now operates as a gourmet restaurant, offering a range of such mouth-watering delights as Brittany oysters, Dublin Bay prawns and a tartlet of field-grown tomatoes. You can even order a pan-fried fillet of beef "Hemingway-style."
Hemingway was far from the only notable figure to have frequented Closerie des Lilas. From 1905, the restaurant began hosting poetry nights every Tuesday, and the place quickly became a hub for the extended literary scene.
Poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) and poet/critic Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) were both regulars. Author, playwright, and poet Oscar Wilde was a customer, as were the great modernist writer James Joyce, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, Hemingway's friend, the great American author F. Scott Fitzgerald (it was here that Hemingway read a draft of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby), legendary French writer Émile Zola, author, poet, and novelist Gertrude Stein, and modernist poet Ezra Pound.
The restaurant's famous clientele extended into the art world, with no less a figure than one of the twentieth century's most influential creatives, Pablo Picasso, a regular from 1905 onwards, as was Vincent Van Gogh's contemporary and rival Paul Cézanne. For fans of art and literature, Paris provides a banquet of inspiration, and a visit to Closerie des Lilas should certainly be on any book-lover's itinerary.
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