El Divan de Diana: Personalités Exceptionnelles

Almost one year exactly after being there for a couple of weeks trying to recover from what I like to call "The London Nap", opposed to what should have been "The London Dream", I went back to Paris, the place I now feel like a second home.

This time was bound to be even better as it was a Family Vacation -our first abroad! So many things happened in this trip, a few bad ones, many crazy ones and a bunch more great ones, all in all, an amazing trip and too many great memories to cherish for a long time. I will be telling you little stories about things and places done/visited during this time, sort of like I did last time.

Today, I wanna start by telling you about one of my new favorite places in Paris, which I actually found accidentally. I was out with a friend of mine and we were hanging out in the Ménilmontant neighborhood, we were heading to a bar where a Karaoke thing was going to take place, we walked by a gothic -and sorta creepy- church, which now I know is the Church of Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix and, suddenly, we saw a little place which looked like a nice boutique, which was kind of odd as it was past 11pm already. We looked at it and the top of the door held a sign saying "Personalités Exceptionnelles", so I looked at my friend and said "we HAVE to go in!", and so we did.

The place was, indeed, very small but what it lacked in size, it made up for in cuteness. It was like being at a private party in a (small) Parisian apartment. It took us no more than 2 minutes going around the whole place looking for a sit, only to find a couple of empty chairs right by the entrance. We had had enough beer for the night, so we ordered wine. The place was served by an old lady, all by herself she seemed to be very hard working. Later on, we spotted her husband, who was drunk to the bone! He was one of those funny drunks...up until the point he talked too much and he wasn't funny anymore.

Turns out, that interesting place is a Bistro-Boutique during the day time and turns into a sort of underground bar during the night, how cool is that? They have a lot of vintage stuff such as cool lamps, lightened globes, old telephones, all kinds of books, groovy chairs and whatnot, everything was for sale. Later on, I found out the place belongs to the lady serving the bar, her name is Eva Pritzky and she is a former philosophy and french teacher; she spent some years in New Caledony, and then in Ireland as a design decorator -hence the awesome décor stuff she has in her shop.

Another thing I totally loved about the place was the music, needless to say there isn't a DJ, however, there's always someone (not sure if they work there or are customers) sitting by the computer playing some great tunes that match perfectly with the whole ambiance of the bar.

All in all, the perfect bar to have a nice-chilled time with a friend -or two tops-. Going in group isn't recommended, not only because of the size of the place, but because of the whole vibe of it, it's really not for big parties. Anyway, if you go to Paris and wanna have a good time in the Parisian night scene, this is definitely a great place to go -it's always nice to get away a bit from the crowded scene such as Bastille, St. Martin, etc. Plus, there are some other interesting places to visit in that neighborhood, but I'll tell you about them on another post.

Eva Pritsky, bar-brocante.
5, rue d'Eupatoria, 75020 Paris, Métro Ménilmontant
Tel : 01 44 62 20 69
Open Tue-Sat, from 17hrs. to 2hrs.

Here's a little video as well: