Flûte l'Etoile: Champagne!!
Ten years after the opening of Flûte Midtown and Flûte Gramercy on the New York scene, the Champagne bar of Frenchman Hervé Rousseau has finally come to France. Things have come full circle.
Return to its roots
A Champagne bar in New York, but not in France! We had to make it through ten very long years-- we, the original land of sparkling nectar-- with this feeling of humiliation. Just the very thought of our neighbors across the Atlantic getting intoxicated, every day, from 'our national pride' in a chic and cozy pub, was simply too much... Thank goodness, Hervé Rousseau, the mastermind of this very ingenious concept, is finally repairing this insult. Direction: the 17th district of Paris. Here, in a sensual and warm atmosphere, flutes clink in complete legitimacy. And there's a good reason for that, here we finally have a place dedicated to them. Champagne!
A VIP space
No drinks by the pint nor oily tapas at Flûte L'Etoile; delicate glasses of Champagne associated with fancy "finger food" are a must here. Caviar and Petrossian salmon, Ladurée macaroons and chocolates from La Maison du Chocolat, nothing is too good for a clientele systematically regarded as VIPs. You don't like the music? Then plug in your iPod! The atmosphere could use a bit of dimming? No problem, just dim the lights yourself! Of course, you would imagine that there would be some slip-ups with such freedom of maneuver. But nothing like that ever happens, we are, after all, in civilized company.
A Champagne bar in New York, but not in France! We had to make it through ten very long years-- we, the original land of sparkling nectar-- with this feeling of humiliation. Just the very thought of our neighbors across the Atlantic getting intoxicated, every day, from 'our national pride' in a chic and cozy pub, was simply too much... Thank goodness, Hervé Rousseau, the mastermind of this very ingenious concept, is finally repairing this insult. Direction: the 17th district of Paris. Here, in a sensual and warm atmosphere, flutes clink in complete legitimacy. And there's a good reason for that, here we finally have a place dedicated to them. Champagne!
A VIP space
No drinks by the pint nor oily tapas at Flûte L'Etoile; delicate glasses of Champagne associated with fancy "finger food" are a must here. Caviar and Petrossian salmon, Ladurée macaroons and chocolates from La Maison du Chocolat, nothing is too good for a clientele systematically regarded as VIPs. You don't like the music? Then plug in your iPod! The atmosphere could use a bit of dimming? No problem, just dim the lights yourself! Of course, you would imagine that there would be some slip-ups with such freedom of maneuver. But nothing like that ever happens, we are, after all, in civilized company.
Mars 2008
