With the Latin Quarter long abandoned to the coach parties and caricaturists, and the Marais all boutiqued over, where have the bohemians gone now? Where next in Paris will feel the hot breath of gentrification? May I introduce Canal St-Martin, opened in 1825, once the main artery for the transport of goods and materials to the north of Paris, and now, supposedly, where the displaced mass of Bohos, Bobos (Bourgeois bohemians) and NoHo (No Hope) artists has decamped to.
The section of canal in question runs from just to the west of Place de la République up to Parc de la Villette, now the City of Science, but once Paris’s main abattoir (known as the City of Blood).
A few years back, when barges, as opposed to pleasure cruisers, still plied these waters and the blood still flowed at the slaughterhouses, I walked these very banks, plotting a section of a novel set in wartime France. Then, it was like a forgotten part of the city, a mix of industrial dereliction and run-down cafes populated by men who looked as if they still skinned carcasses for a living. My, how it’s changed.
The most recent restorative activity is concentrated on the section between Rue Dieu and Jardin Villemin, the part of the canal with the greatest concentration of picturesque bridges, locks and quais full of plane trees.
Probably the most important recent opening has been the Hôtel du Nord (102 Quai de Jemmapes; 00 33-1 40 40 78 78), a once shabby inn that is immortalised in a 1938 movie about a couple of lovers shacking up in this undesirable part of town. The ground floor has now been opened up into a bar, with a raised dining room at the rear.
Money is rumoured to have come from the bar/restaurant/nightclub Mandala Ray (formerly Man Ray, which in turn had cash injections from Johnny Depp, John Malkovich and Sean Penn), but it is not the flash fashion parade such a pedigree suggests. The decor is nicely understated, as is the food — solid brasserie classics with the smallest of twists. It is open until two in the morning, and the average age drops, waistlines shrink, bar tabs balloon and the volume escalates as the night progresses.
However, Hôtel du Nord is an arriviste compared with Chez Prune (71 Quai de Valmy; 01 42 41 30 47), which was one of the first to fly a tattered flag for refugees from the Marais to gather round. It’s not slick like the Nord: service is patchy for non-regulars; the atmosphere is toxic with cigarette smoke, the art questionable, the food decent and the music loud. I loved it.
Just along the quai is another long-term resident. From the outside, Le Verre Volé (67 Rue de Lancry; 01 48 03 17 34) looks more like a bric-a-brac emporium than a bar. Inside is a room with just four tables, a couple of huge stacks of tottering CDs that threaten to poleaxe the barman, and shelves lined with wine bottles, each one with the price scribbled on the glass in silver magic marker. The food is authentically “terroir”: hearty black puddings, andouillette sausages and pâtés, all at reasonable prices.
So, does all this add up to a little piece of canalside heaven? Sadly, not quite. As in the paeans penned to the early days of the one-way system also known as Hoxton and Shoreditch, there is one elephant in the living room. Traffic.
It roars up and down either side of the canal, so if you’re sitting outside, say, Canal 69, on Quai de Jemmapes, you tend to be chewing fumes with your chicken sandwich. The good news is that on Sundays, the quais are closed to traffic between 10am and 6pm, or 8pm during the summer — which is when the in-line skaters, skateboarders and cyclists take over. No less hazardous to the unwary pedestrian in some ways, they are certainly less noisy.
There are also those who see the area already tipping over from shabby chic to expensive chic. Once the canal banks were home to thrift-style stores; now Agnès B is set to join the colourful Stella Cadente and Antoine et Lilli selling upmarket clothes and trinkets.
Armani or Benetton can’t be far behind. Further north, money is about to be poured into the Bassin de La Villette — already, a couple of identical cinemas/bookshop/cafes stare longingly across the waters at each other, like twins separated at birth, while Point Ephémère (200 Quai de Valmy; 01 40 34 02 48), a grungy concrete-and-graffiti arts centre, is at the vanguard of development around Place de la Bataille de Stalingrad. Even in these work-in-progress areas, apartments along the canal are no longer the bargain they were three years ago. In the vicinity of Hôtel du Nord, they have hit St-Germain prices.
Such changes are doubtless inevitable, following the usual arc of once-neglected but now hip neighbourhoods. Whatever happens, for the moment the real plus of the Canal St-Martin, for British travellers, is its proximity to Gare du Nord — this is real Paris on your doorstep. If you’re in a hurry to get to lunch or dinner, you can skip that pesky Gare du Nord taxi or Métro queue. I timed it: from leaving the Eurostar platform to sitting down at Le Sporting (3 Rue des Récollets; 01 46 07 02 00) with a glass of Côtes du Rhône, mulling over the £9 lunches, took a whisker under 15 minutes. Santé.
