Skip to main content

Refuge des Fondus


Red or white? Meat or cheese? We'll always have Paris, 1991, and we'll always have Refuge des Fondus. We being me, my mother, and a fellow American, unknown to us at the time, who has since become a most amazing friend. (Actually, this is the same friend who hooked me up with the most amazing Keith Jarrett tickets; I'll call him B.) At this point, I just have to clarify that everything about this memory has to do with the Parisian restaurant in Montmartre, and not with its poor relation, La Cave des Fondus, a NYC knockoff that opened not long ago in Nolita (and that I am not advocating). Refuge des Fondus is a tiny space in the 18th arrondissement, dwarfed further by the majesty of Sacré-Coeur, in whose shadow it has operated for at least thirty years. I had been there once with my study-abroad group, and had resolved to bring my mom along for some fun when she visited me later on in the term. B. was directed to the notorious eatery by a friend of his, who suggested that it was not to be missed during the single-day layover that B. had in Paris, on the way to I-forget-where. He, adventurous soul, came alone. When my mom and I arrived, we were greeted in a brusque manner that is typical of the place, but that is also part of its . . . well, not charm exactly . . . its outrageousness, certainly. The cramped space allows for a long series of tables, pushed together so completely that there is no gap between them; together they form a single long feeding post. I—being the younger, more agile, and shorter-skirted one—was made to climb onto the outer chair and step on the table itself, in order to seat myself on the banquette side. No harm done. At this early stage, my mom might or might not have been catching on to the fact that in coming to this restaurant, we were making ourselves the willing targets of some crass but harmless fun. The game was definitely up, however, when we placed our order and got our drinks. Ordering at Refuge takes the form of two single-word answers to the following questions: "Red or white?" (wine) "Meat or cheese?" (fondue). You might squeeze in some extra syllables if you add a polite "s'il vous plaît," but by then you are talking to the waiter's back. When your wine arrives, it is contained in a "glass" not of the Riedel type but something rather like Avent—yes, that's right: in a baby bottle, complete with sterilized nipple. This is your litmus test. Probably because I was in my twenties, I shrugged and started sucking. My mom drew the line at the nipple, preferring to pry that off and drink from the neck of the bottle. It was around this time that B. walked in and asked for a table for one. I suspect he was seated next to my mom because it was clear that we were all Americans, and therefore we ought to benefit from each other's company. I don't think they were trying to do us any favors by this gesture, but in fact they did—the favor of a lifetime, since B. is the only happenstance travel acquaintance who's become a lasting friend. B. looked a bit bewildered. I assume he noticed the baby bottles and wondered if they were obligatory (they are, unless you empty a water glass and pour your wine in there . . . come to think of it, maybe that's what my mom did with her wine). We started talking, laughed a lot, ate wonderful fondue, got a bit tipsy on the wine, laughed some more, and went out into the chilly night. It would have been an impossible shame to part ways there, especially since we were just one short (steep) climb away from the most beautiful spot in Paris—and especially since B. was leaving the next day, and we were all in Paris to profit from the City of Lights, in whatever time we had allotted. So after dinner, the three of us hiked up to Sacré-Coeur, walked through the basilica, and looked out from its terrace over the famous rooftops of the city. It was a clear night, beautiful. The lights twinkling and the basilica sublime. It took the ridiculous for all of us to get to this moment, there together at the same time, but isn't that what life is? Deeply ridiculous, and marvelously sublime?

Note: If you're ever in Paris and are game for good fondue in an absurd yet jovial atmosphere, Refuge des Fondus is located at: 17, rue des Trois Frères 75018; tel: 01-42-55-22-65. Métro: Abbesses.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tap Root Manuscript

Here is an early music memory: I am very young. If not still a toddler, then not much older. I am running around the living room, squealing with unrestrained delight, while my dad chases me to the tune of "I Am the Lion" by Neil Diamond (Ba-pa-la ding-ga!). He's reached deep down and pulled out his big baritone voice—the one he also used for "Old Man River" on occasion; the one that always awed me. It's the early 1970s, and although hopelessly pop and showy, there is no shame in liking Neil Diamond. Not at this time. Later, I'd go through nearly two decades of keeping this (admittedly) often schmaltzy artist at more than arm's length. When I bothered to remember Neil Diamond, which generally I didn't, I thought of him more like a skeleton in my musical closet; a dirty little secret that, if exposed, would set me up for some heavy razzing from friends. I don't remember when it was that I recovered my dad's Tap Root Manuscript album. It wa...
7 comments
Read more

Black Kids Read, Too

The worst kind of prejudice is the kind that slips under the radar. It's too subtle to cause a stir (and if you point it out, you'll usually get a sideways look: you're the one making too much of nothing), but its corrosive message nevertheless seeps in—subliminally, insidiously—beating down the spirit of the group it belittles or excludes. I am blessed to have been raised by two parents who were sensitive to prejudicial undercurrents; they fought against them in their own distinct ways through the tumultuous 1960s, and into the 70s and 80s as I was growing up. And it seems, thinking about it now, that they never missed a good learning moment with me: we often discussed issues of bias, prejudice, stereotype, and their harmful effects. This week, images in some of my kindergartener's reading books gave me pause. And in wrestling with how to handle these, I remembered something I hadn't thought of in many years: the library at the Brentwood Science Magnet School in ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Touch Typing

Between seventh and eighth grades (or between eighth and ninth?) the deal was this: if I wanted to take an art class in summer school, I had to take typing. So said Mom. Although I didn't mind being in an art studio soldering bits of stained glass together, the thought of staying inside, seated in front of a typewriter when I could see the sun in its beautiful blue sky out the window, was torture. Still, I sat there. Such is the suffering one will endure for art! I typed the home keys in order, hundreds of times: a-s-d-f-g-h-j-k-l-;. I stretched my fingers up for T and Y and down for B. I did pages of the prototype sentence, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs." Yes, it has every letter of the alphabet in it at least once. I learned to automatically put two spaces after each period. (I have had a hard time undoing this habit, but a copy editor's job these days is often to make sure there is only one space following a complete sentence!) It's fair to say...
3 comments
Read more