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“i think, therefore I drink," quipped my studious-looking neighbor
at the Café des Phares, the so-called Philosophy Cafe whose terrace spills
invitingly onto the Place de la Bastille. "One petite crème for the petit Descartes," chuckled a nearby jokester as the waiter turned to me.

 "Monsieur?"

I wrung my memory for a clever mot -- from Plato perhaps -- with which
to order my late-Sunday-morning ration of coffee. "An express to raise me out
of the Cave of Illusions," quoth I, blushing. Off moved the waiter without
batting an eye. As always, the small, round tables were packed elbow-to-elbow in a blue fog of cigarette smoke. Newspapers hung from sticks. Mirrors quivered
with humanity. The archetypal Paris cafe interior. A beehive formation of
latecomers thronged the sidewalk.

The Café des Phares' name means "lighthouse" and no one seems to miss the symbolism of its Bastille location. It is the fashionable mothership that, over the last five years, has spawned dozens of philocafes in Paris, the provinces and abroad (in other European countries, Japan, New York and even New Jersey). You can, if so inclined, spend Monday evening philosophizing at Le Buci; Wednesday at Le
Cluny near the Sorbonne; Thursday at Le Select Montparnasse; Friday at Le
Relais Jussieu, Le Pont 9 or Le Rond Point; Saturday at Le Relais des
Arts, Le Tarazoute, Le Royal Jussieu or the Paris-Rome; and Sunday morning at either Le Bastille or Le Café des Phares, facing each other across the famous
square.






N E X T [NEXT]


A manifestation of "collective despair"












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