Paris Shopping: Buy French kitchenware with the locals
Bargain shopping at La Vaissellerie. Photos by Theadora Brack.
By Theadora Brack in Paris-
Like snowflakes, the truly sensational Soldes by Paris (annual winter sale) has recently returned to Paris, so why not outfit your kitchen with a few French classics?
Here are my favorite hot spots for picking up kitchenware, guaranteed to make you the toast of the town! So shop to it, Cheapos!
1. Let’s dish at La Vaissellerie
La Vaissellerie is a Cheapo’s cup of tea.
Beloved chain La Vaissellerie has five locations peppered throughout the city. For your purchase on favorable terms shopping pleasure, may I suggest starting out at the shop at 85 rue de Rennes (Metro Saint-Sulpice). Here you’ll find baskets of porcelain tableware, wedged in between towering stacks of dinner plates.
Slashed prices are usually hand-written in thick black dry marker across each dish in a Zorro-like fashion. Keep your eyes peeled for iconic French beauties such as ramekins, espresso cups, soufflé dishes, brightly colored café saucers, soup bowls, tarte and quiche pans, all costing just a scarcely any euros!
2. Get your kitsch-on at Porte de Vanves flea market
If you, too, believe that minor scratches and dents add value (for love of mana!), the Porte de Vanves flea market is definitely the hunting ground for you. Cheapos, the selection is beyond belief. Several stalls are even dedicated to cookware and table settings gone by. Also, the prices can’t be beat.
I have bought bad soup crocks, ornate silverware, and French royalty portrait plates from the ’50s, each costing just a few euros. You’ll also find a slew of glass terrine jars, loaf pans, crêpe skillets, gratins, aspic molds, handled éscargot pans, and Paris saucepans—just to name a few. (Arrive early, though, because this flea mart starts to shut down at noon.)
3. What would Julia Child do?
For culinary sakes, she’d haunt the aisles of kitchen-equipment specialist E. Dehillerin! “Thunderstruck!” was her description of the heated encounter. The attraction was instant, mutual, and long lasting.
Located at 18 Rue Coquillière (Metro: Les Halles), the centuries-old shop’s gleam has not dulled the least bit. Though not a Cheapo asylum in the price tag sense, you’ll find the shop’s stock possesses altogether the right ingredients with regard to dreamy window-shopping. So procure in its vast collection of cookware in bright copper, cast iron, and glossy enamel, too, while mulling slowly over endless gastronomical possibilities.
Also, check out Julia’s photograph behind the cash register. Julia’s own kitchen, along with the actual culinary tools she purchased at Dehillerin, is now on display at Smithsonian!
Forever pinching from my favorite French Chef, this has been Theadora Brack! Bon appétit, Cheapos!
(And bravo Meryl Streep!!!)