Le Dôme Café

Café du Dôme in 2006

Le Dôme Café (French pronunciation: ​[lə dom]) or Café du Dôme is a restaurant in Montparnasse, Paris. From the beginning of the 1900s, it was renowned as an intellectual gathering place. It was widely known as "the Anglo-American café."

Opening in 1898, it was the first such café in Montparnasse. It "created and disseminated gossip, and provided message exchanges and an 'over the table' market that dealt in artistic and literary futures."^[1] It was frequented by the famous (and soon to be famous) painters, sculptors, writers, poets, models, art connoisseurs and dealers. Le Dôme later became the gathering place of the American literary colony and became a focal point for artists residing in Paris's Left Bank.

A poor artist used to be able to get a Saucisse de Toulouse (sausage) and a plate of mashed potatoes for $1. Today, it is a top fish restaurant (the Michelin Guide gives it one star), with a comfortably old-fashioned decor.^[2] The food writer Patricia Wells said, "I could dine at Le Dôme once a week, feasting on platters of briny oysters and their incomparable sole meunière."^[3]

Address

108 bd. Montparnasse, Paris, 75014
Closest Métro: Vavin

Dômiers

The term Dômiers was coined to refer to the international group of visual, and literary artists who gathered at the Café du Dôme, including:

Robert Capa (1913–1954) Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) Max Ernst (1891–1976) Tsuguharu Foujita (1886–1968) Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) Ida Gerhardi (1865-1927) Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) Youssef Howayek (1883–1962) Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Moïse Kisling (1891–1953) Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951)[4] Henry Miller (1891–1980)

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920)[5] Jules Pascin (1885–1930) Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Ezra Pound (1885–1972) Man Ray (1890–1976) Chaim Soutine (1893–1943) Méret Oppenheim Leonor Fini Leonora Carrington Gerda Taro (1910–1937) Ernesto Sábato (1911-2010) Sándor Márai (1900-1989) Elmyr de Hory (1906-1976)

Literature

• Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (1934)
• Elliot Paul, The Mysterious Mickey Finn: or Murder at the Cafe Du Dome (1939)
• Ernest Hemingway: With Pascin at the Dôme, in A Moveable Feast (1964); and The Sun Also Rises (1926)
• "Paris", lyrics by Édith Piaf
• Aleister Crowley's magical retirement frequenting Du Dome^[6]
• Simone de Beauvoir, She Came to Stay (1943)
• Jean-Paul Sartre, The Age of Reason (1947)
• Ernesto Sábato, Abaddon el Exterminador (1976)
• Anaïs Nin, Delta of Venus (1977)
• W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge (1944)

References

1. Mark King, "Memories of Paris", Artist Mark King Website
2. Friedrich, Otto, Time (May 21, 1990). "The Great Cafes of Paris".
3. "At Home with Patricia Wells", Patricia Wells website
4. washburn.edu Day Seven
5. Royal Academy of Arts Summer 2006: Naked ambition, Modigliani
6. sacred-texts.com John St. John, The Record of the Magical Retirement of G. H. Frater, O.'. M.'.

External links

Media related to Le Dôme at Wikimedia Commons

Coordinates: 48°50′31″N 2°19′45″E / 48.8419°N 2.3291°E