Last year on our first trip to Paris together Matt and I stayed in the spectacular Hotel Ritz on the Place Vêndome. Everything about the Ritz is incredible – from the spectacular suites named after the likes of Coco Chanel, Chopin, and Marcel Proust, to the Bar Hemingway where you can sip cocktails in the same room as James Joyce and Jean-Paul Sartre once did, to the perfectly rose-infued body lotion in the bathrooms (which I stole from the maid’s trolley), to the insignia emblazoned shoehorns and ashtrays (which Matt stole from our room.)
With more impressive footnotes and expensive chintz than you can poke a stick at, the Ritz is still NOT my favorite place in the world. In fact, I could not get out of there fast enough to make it over to 18 Rue Royale, where a simple mint green can become a lifelong obsession.
Ladurée, the legendary Parisian tea salon is more than a magnificent French pastry shop. Ladurée is to macaroons what what Philip Treacy is to hats, what Mary Quant was to color, what the Taj Majal is to mausoleums. I’m not exaggerating. For weeks I tried unsuccessfully to paint our bedroom the same color as Ladurée’s lovely little napkins, but I ruined Matt’s shorts and we ended up with a room better suited to Beth Israel’s ER ward. It’s white now. LADURÉE. Go there.
