The Closerie des Lilas is a famous Parisian restaurant (or "brasserie") located on the boulevard du Montparnasse in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was opened in 1847 by Francois Bullier and was a simple brasserie at the beginning.[1] Initially, it was called after a theater piece called « La Closerie des Genets » of Frédéric Soulié. It progressively evolved into the "Closerie des Lilas" because its owner, Bullier, used to plant Lilac flowers.
![La Closerie des Lilas in the mid-19th Century](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/60/Closerie_des_Lilas.jpg/275px-Closerie_des_Lilas.jpg)
![La Closerie des Lilas's bar.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/P1330723_Paris_VI_closerie_des_Lilas_bar_rwk.jpg/275px-P1330723_Paris_VI_closerie_des_Lilas_bar_rwk.jpg)
Closerie des Lilas | |
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Restaurant information | |
Established | 1847 |
Street address | 171, boulevard du Montparnasse |
City | Paris |
Country | France |
Coordinates | 48°50′24″N 2°20′10″E / 48.84000°N 2.33611°E |
Website | http://www.closeriedeslilas.fr/ |
Many artists and intellectuals adopted the habit to spend time there, including Émile Zola, Paul Cézanne, Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, James Joyce, Paul Verlaine, André Gide, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas and Ernest Hemingway. Closerie des Lilas owes much of its artistic popularity to Hemingway, who would write short stories and articles for the Toronto Star there, but Picasso was introduced to Closerie des Lilas much earlier by Guillaume Apollinaire in 1905.
Between the two World wars, the restaurant modernized, adopted a style Art-Deco, and became more expensive.[2]
The literary tradition of the café is upheld by the Prix de la Closerie des Lilas, an annual prize (since 2007) awarded to contemporary women writers who write in the French language.
See also
editExternal links
editReferences
edit- ^ "La Closerie des Lilas, lieu mythique de Montparnasse". Les Maçons Parisiens (in French). 2017-02-27. Retrieved 2023-02-07.
- ^ "La Closerie des Lilas, ex-QG des Années Folles". Paris ZigZag | Insolite & Secret (in French). Retrieved 2023-02-07.