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There used to be a charming Catalonian restaurant at this address, and although I am sad that it is gone, I couldn’t be happier with what’s replaced it! Un Dimanche à Paris is a concept store concerning everything chocolate! Youpiiii! 4-6-8 cour du Commerce Saint André, at Métro Odéon in the 6th. I popped in hoping to get a chocolatey cocktail one recent Saturday afternoon with a fellow blogger, and sadly the lounge was closed but the salon de thé was open. So we contented ourselves with tea or hot chocolate (I had a chocolate vanilla infused tea, which really wet my appetite for more chocolate really). But I was allowed upstairs to the lounge and the kitchen to take some pictures.

So this concept store thing includes, a chocolate boutique, a salon de thé/restaurant, a lounge (that opens at 4pm) and a giant stainless-steel, pristine atelier where they hold cooking classes. I was impressed by all the pristine kitchen-aid machines.

The founders, Caroline Carron de la Carrière, Pierre Cluizel and Sylvie Valette, wanted to create a place where chocolate holds a sort of poetic status, and serves as a pretext for us to find the time, like we would on a Sunday, to sit around a table and taste delightful things, laugh, lick our fingers… se régaler quoi!

Decorated in deep chocolate colors with the contrasting cream color of the and stone wall, and white accents, this place makes your palette anticipate chocolate flavors just by looking at it. I am most certainly returning there soon to take advantage of the lounge which looks soft, cozy, intimate and so comfy, with plush velour arm chairs and love-seats in smoky purples, reds and browns, and low and inviting lighting.  The gentleman who mixes the drinks is referred to as a mixologist, and not a barman. I totally love it! Mikael, looks mostly like a mad scientist behind the bar mixing the drinks. Each one is entirely unique, made only for the person who orders it. You chose a liquor or a spirit, and some of the elements or just one item and a mood, an he creates an original concoction just for you!

Quite an impressive and talented person, he has spent the past ten years living a working abroad, in London, Spain, New York, etc. and knows exactly what it is like to be serving 200 crazed New York club-goers all sweating and gyrating in front o his bar. Now he is installed in a swanky lounge above a chocolate concept store. What else!?! A chameleon always searching for perfection, you can be sure he will invent something for you that you have never tasted before.

Can I also just say, how adorable and friendly the staff was in the salon de thé, and in the boutique. I have an extreme intolerance to anything made with a milk product, and they made a big effort to help me find something (and verify the ingredients) to purchase that I could eat without fear. I am not used to that kind of concern or service in Paris. They even seemed delighted that I wanted to take pictures…which was a welcome change from the usual snarl : “pas de photo madame!”.

I ♥ chocolate, and I ♥ Un Dimanche à Paris!