La Coupole, memories of a famous brasserie of Montparnasse

The Coupole was an immediate success. It was the meeting place for anybody who was anyone in Paris. This trendy brasserie attracted the great artists and personalities of the literary and art worlds: Cocteau, Radiguet, Aragon, Dali, Picasso, Foujita, the photographer Man Ray with his model Kiki, Zadkine, Kisling, Sartre, Giacometti, Simone de Beauvoir, Artaud, Colette, and more. The enormous bar had welcomed furthermore people as famous as Kessel, Beckett and 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 over to conquer Paris.

Today the atmosphere of the most famous Parisian brasserie has changed. The ambiance is not the same. La Coupole was bought by several financial groups devoted to restaurants and big labels. The ambiance and the food is no longer their priority. Of course guests continue to come to savour the famous lamb curry in Paris or a seafood platter. They also come to admire the original Art Deco design, which was renovated in 1988. The original colours of the columns, notably the garnet red and the green that was all the rage in the 1920s, have been rediscovered. But in 2017, despite La Coupole celebrates its 90th anniversary and having found the original decoration it seems to have forgotten the true spirit of its founders…