This is the Axis of Brunch

The beating heart of brunch is in the 10th arrondissement

It was here in the 10th arrondisse­ment of Paris that morn­ing food-porn was born after the online pan­cakes-peek­ing site, Only­Brunch, failed to sat­is­fy the hunger for some­thing syrupy IRL. 

A tor­rent of recipes for ama­teur eggs bene­dict flashed them­selves gaudi­ly online, some even on the dark­net, fuel­ing the ascen­dance of the vir­tu­osi of the break­fast world. Those that mas­tered pan­cakes fluffy and light com­mand­ed crowds of tourists, then lat­er, the Parisians showed up to see what the hell the line was all about. 

A move­ment was ignited—if you dare call it as such against the back­drop of con­tin­u­al polit­i­cal upheavals—and an hour-long line ensued (a decid­ed­ly un-Parisian thing to occur before noon, or ever). Parisian jog­gers, unac­cus­tomed to wait­ing in line for break­fast (as break­fast here is nor­mal­ly the ubiq­ui­tous, but deli­cious crois­sant and espres­so), ran by exclaim­ing, “C’est dingue!” [this is crazy].

Just as nature abhors a vac­u­um, in rushed oth­ers with pots and pans; will­ing con­scripts in the war on hang­overs in the hopes of appeal­ing to the newest parisien trend—the sense of need­ing more than 1,000 calo­ries to shake off a hangover.

That’s how the cross streets of Rue Lucien Sam­paix and Rue Chateau d’Eau became the spot where the side­walks groan with crowds, espe­cial­ly on the week­ends. We crown it the ‘Axis of Brunch.’ Almost resem­bling a Banksy gallery open­ing, there’s so much norm­core and Eng­lish. But the French aren’t con­tent to copy, non, they’ve def­i­nite­ly Frenchi­fied things. 

The next stage: tourists and foreigners imposing le brunch on a weekday morning (it’s always Saturday when you’re on vacation).

Insta­gram brought us avo­ca­do toast, clean­ing up the raunchy rep­u­ta­tion of the a.m. bacon bacchanal—because glis­ten­ing pic­tures of pork prod­ucts are ‘moche’ (#alsodetox). Rinse and repeat.

Per­haps its pop­u­lar­i­ty here is because brunch is unlike any­thing we enjoy in Paris. Five-week vaca­tions, a good bak­ery every two blocks (max­i­mum), reg­u­lar strikes to clear any eco­nom­ic block­ages, beau­coup but­ter and cig­a­rettes and world-class health care to mop it all up are things that were con­struct­ed on an under­lay of tra­di­tion that goes back decades, if not hun­dreds of years (or, in the case of strikes, over a thou­sand years when the French invent­ed la grève [the strike] on the banks of the Seine at Île Saint-Louis). 

The French sim­ply don’t go all ham-gas­mic in the morn­ing, hence flat stom­achs being the norm and not the hard-won exception.

In fact, it was the Aussies (and Aussie-influ­enced Frenchies) who import­ed the orgias­tic, ear­ly-after­noon, 1,000-plus calo­rie pan­cake rit­u­al: Le brunch. 

Hes­i­tant French peo­ple, refus­ing to be out­ma­neu­vered on their home courts—food and Paris—are, how­ev­er, adapt­ing. Instead of pan­cakes and waf­fles, there’s a slight­ly less calo­rie-obscene ver­sion française; heap­ing tables of all-you-can-eat-and-still-fit-into Celine cakes, vien­nois­erie, and orange juice, and dou­ble the remarks about how crazy the whole episode was. Also added, on occa­sion, is seafood—oysters instead of smoked salmon—so you real­ly aren’t in Kansas any­more. Non, c’est dingue. 

Now, the list…

P.S.: This one weird trick — people behind you in line hate it.

We high­ly rec­om­mend you down­load the French app Skeep­it. It’s a back­door way to ‘get in line’ while not phys­i­cal­ly being in line. 

I’m one of those anx­ious brunch types, just think­ing about the lines makes me need a side of Xanax. Skeep­it, how­ev­er, (still new-ish at the time I’m writ­ing this) is the new host­ess. All the places that com­mand hours-long lines now require you to get a vir­tu­al spot online, instead of hav­ing you glow­er at them into their windows. 

It’s a bril­liant way of tak­ing reser­va­tions while main­tain­ing the pre­tense of not tak­ing reser­va­tions. Log in while you brush your teeth and see what the wait is like before you ven­ture out, and then ‘get in line’ while you’re still get­ting your boots on. 

So, go ahead and grab an espres­so down the street to avoid get­ting the twitch­es. Like some futur­is­tic hocus pocus, you’ll still be ‘in line’ for those pan­cakes in spir­it, if not IRL. Which is the best type of line to be in…

For more Parisian Brunch intel, you know what to do