Maison dorée (Paris)
48°52′18.61″N 2°20′12.85″E / 48.8718361°N 2.3369028°E
The Maison Dorée (the "Gilded House") was a famous restaurant located at 20 Boulevard des Italiens, Paris.
Beginnings
The Maison Dorée story begins with the former
The story continues with the Café Hardy, famous during Napoleon's Empire, which was established at the junction of the Boulevard de Gand (now
It was the most expensive restaurant in Paris, heralded by contemporary newspapers: "You have to be rich to dine at Hardy and bold to dine at Riche" ("hardy" means "bold" in French; Café Riche was on the other side of the rue Laffitte).
The property was sold at a very high price in 1836 to the Hamel brothers, who already owned the café de Chartres, famous as Le Grand Véfour, at the Palais-Royal. The structure was largely rebuilt in 1839.[3]
Maison Dorée
The famous restaurant of "La Maison Dorée", the building built in 1839 by Victor Lemaire, architect-entrepreneur, opened in 1841 was based by Louis Verdier, then managed by his sons Ernest and Charles. Initially, the restaurant was called "Restaurant of the Cité," but because of its luxurious design, with paintings and mirrors, and gilding on the balconies and balustrades, the public named it "Maison Dorée, the "Gilded House"."[4]
The restaurant was divided into two sections: one section accessible from the boulevard, for ordinary people, and another section, accessible via rue Laffitte, for wealthy customers. This section had luxurious and discrete "Cabinets," or private rooms. The most desired was Cabinet 6, which was reserved for nobility as well as for very wealthy people. The restaurant's magnificent wine cellar, with 80,000 bottles of wine, attracted the rich revelers and party-goers of Paris.
People who dined there included the future
It has been claimed that the dish tournedos Rossini was created by the chef of the Maison Dorée, Casimir Moisson, who created the recipe for the composer Gioachino Rossini, a regular customer.
In the building above the restaurants, several newspapers opened editorial offices. In 1853, Alexandre Dumas moved the offices of his newspaper Le Mousquetaire to the building.
The same building was the site of the 8th and last
The end
The Maison Dorée finally closed in 1902. The building was divided into several offices and shops. In 1909, part of the building became a post office.
Banque Nationale de Paris, which was headquartered just across rue Laffitte, purchased the building in 1970 and had it renovated by architect Pierre Dufau. During the planning process, French Minister of Culture Maurice Druon, facing pressure from a neighborhood preservation committee, asked the company to maintain the building's historic facade. Dufau, "in one day of rage against the old timers," created a new project in which he proposed to integrate an entirely new interior into the historic facade. This marked the first transformation in what became a highly controversial movement called facadism. [5] [6]
Notes
- ^ Paris pittoresque: rue Laffitte.
- ^ Grimod de La Reynière, Almanach des Gourmands, 1804.
- ^ "...café Riche, dans un immeuble qui remplace, depuis 1839, l'ancien hôtel de Mme Laferrière... (Paris pittoresque).
- ^ a b Vassor, Bernard (21 November 2005). "La traversée du XIX° siècle. La Maison Dorée. Le nombril du monde" (in French). Terres d'écrivains. Retrieved 4 November 2017.
- ^ "9e". Parisbalades.com.
- ^ "PSS / Bureaux de la BNP". Paris-skyscrapers.fr.
Sources
- (in French) http://www.terresdecrivains.com/La-Maison-Doree