Nancy in Northeast France has a wonderful art-nouveau brasserie called Excelsior.
It is a monument historique and sufficient reason alone to visit Nancy. Near the station, built in 1910, it is a perfect example of an authentic French brasserie, complete with its original murals and lighting as well as bustling waiters and waitresses in proper waiters’ garb.
If you have an image of Nancy as a 19th Century coal-mining town, forget it. It's a little gem.
The Grand Rue in the pedestrianised ‘Vieille Ville’ has shops to die for, especially the fruit and veg ones. The town is full of baroque/art nouveau/art deco.
Its focal point is the 18th-Century Place Stanislas, a UNESCO World Heritage site, with a statue in the middle of Stanislav who was King of Poland and Duc of Lorraine back in the 1760s.
Decorated with gilded wrought-iron gates and rococo fountains at each corner, its fine 18th Century buildings include the opera house and Musee des Beaux-Arts which displays some fine art (Caravaggio, Bonnard, Vuillard) as well as an unusual and magnificent vase by Georges Rouault.
Best of all is a hugely impressive display of some of the world’s most beautiful and exquisite masterpieces of glassware. Nine hundred pieces of decorative Daum glassware are exhibited below ground in the depths of Nancy’s ancient fortifications.
Auguste Daum was one of France’s greatest crystal glass makers, indeed one of the most famous in the world. He founded the business in 1892, and it is still thriving today.
Alongside the Stanislav Square is the huge Place de la Carrière, every bit as grand as the Grand Palais in Paris.
The Excelsior ‘Menu Brasserie’ at €29,90 includes huitres Fines de Claire and a hampe de bœuf – similar to onglet or bavette but more tender and tasty. It’s what we call a skirt of beef. The Excelsior’s was big, tender, full of flavour, cooked to perfection. Altogether, a rare experience.
Do go to Nancy, stay in the delightful Hotel Guise in a quiet pedestrianised street within easy walk of everything.
Casting aspersions
In the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, there is a painting that pays tribute to the most marvellous of vegetables. It is very small, by Monet, of a single stick of white asparagus.
Edouard Manet's L'Asperge, Musee d'Orsay/Wikimedia public domain
One can’t help thinking that he painted it out of sheer admiration, in the same way that he might have painted Olympia.
Asparagus, like Marmite, is divisive. Half the world adores the green ones, and half the white ones. Whether you like them hot with melted butter, or as is fashionable nowadays with grated Parmesan, or cold or ‘tiède’ (lukewarm) with vinaigrette, or with a sauce mousseline (eggs, butter, whipped cream), there really is only one way to eat them. Abandon the knife and fork.
Use your fingers and eat them as you would a Grissini. One of the great joys of spring.
It is usual to discard the tougher bottom ends. There being no word for them, we invented one: ‘aspersions’. Bon appétit.
