Lansing’s Dr. John Wycoff, in a turnabout, asked his travel-writer patient, to prescribe something for him.
“Any advice for me during my upcoming four days in Paris?” the good doctor queried me.
“Lapin Agile,” I immediately answered. “The ‘Agile Rabbit.’”
I knew Wycoff and his wife Cindy would find all the obvious attractions of the City of Light, including the Eiffel Tower; Champs Elysees; Louvre Museum; Arc de Triomphe; Tuileries Gardens and what remains of the Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris along the River Seine. Therefore, I prescribed an experience likely not on their list: Paris’s oldest bar, the Cabaret Au Lapin Agile – an historic, cultural landmark since 1860.
During my first visit to Paris, in 1994, I learned the Lapin Agile was an “academy of French song.”
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Riding a train back into town after an afternoon at Disneyland Paris, my then-wife Vera and I asked a local passenger to recommend a more authentic Parisian experience. We were directed to sip sherry from small glasses in the quaint, tiny cottage that is Lapin Agile, where we sat amidst its’ continuous performance, singing along to the traditional French drinking ditties, stirring musical homages to French singer Edith Piaf, dramatic poetry readings, and bon vivant humor decorated by paintings of famous murderers.
Historically, the dark cabaret was favored by luminaries, anarchists, assassins, artists, thieves, and writers including Pablo Picasso and Charlie Chaplin. Faithfully, I returned each time I visited Paris, including, 15 years later, when I took our teenage son Harrison to Lapin Agile, who, in turn, five years later during his subsequent foreign study, guided his college chums to the cabaret where they were warmly welcomed by the merry band of performers.
Lapin Agile is in Paris’s panoramic, Bohemian, scenic, artist’s 18th arrondissement of Montmartre, where it is hidden behind a picturesque picket fence on the corner of a sidewalk stairway in both the blessed shadow of the Basilica of Sacre-Coeur and yet still in the glow of the infamous “Red Light District.”
While the topless can-can dancers on stage at the brassy Moulin Rouge are iconic in a carnival kind of way, the little Lapin Agile is intimate in a different manner, more like an enchanting secret affair. Shows start in a delightfully surprising manner at 9 p.m., but I tell patrons, such as the Wycoffs, they can drop in and out as you please throughout the evening.
“Before arriving at Lapin Agile, Cindy and I randomly stopped for a bite in a gypsy-chic bistro called Rita’s,” Wycoff, upon his return to Lansing, told me. “While we sipped our amazing French onion soup, a slender, tall, elderly Frenchman came in dressed in bright red velvet slacks, a white shirt with a frilly collar, and a black vest. He walked with a cane and a slight limp. We greeted him with a friendly, ‘Bon jour,’ as he sat down but then left him to enjoy his own soup.
Wycoff recounted then seeing the frail Frenchman being assisted by a waiter when he slipped and nearly fell making his way out the door.
Later, seated at the cozy tables of Lapin Agile – mon dieu! – Wycoff recognized the show’s star singer.
“The baritone was the elderly gentleman from Rita’s and turned out to be the current owner of the Lapin Agile! He winked at us and we smiled back and toasted him! It was an evening we will not forget.”
Ironically, the aforementioned Vera Ambrose, that same week, was also taking some of my travel advice during her trip to Bellagio, on Como di Lago, in Italy. An alum of MSU’s School of Hospitality and chef/owner of West Bloomfield’s Ambrosia Gourmet Catering, I knew she would revel in a culinary experience at the intimate Ristorante Bilacus, where I arranged for her to meet the vibrant, entertaining chef and owner Aurelio “Gancio” Gandola. He and his mother Margherita operate the wildly popular Bilacus and Trattoria San Giacomo on Bellagio’s scenic Serbelloni steps overlooking the lake.
“Bilacus was soon bustling after we arrived at the noon opening and I loved every moment. The food was incredible and everything was amazing,” she told Gandola when she sent both he and I artistic follow-up photos of her beef tartare with burnt oil and mustard mayonnaise first course; Sardinian gnocchi with lamb ragout “secondi;” and the fish that followed.
To complete the coincidental circle, Harrison, my son with Vera who accompanied me to Lapin Agile years after I’d been there with her, lunched with me at Bilacus years before his mother did. We “discovered” Bilacus and scored a table, and met Gandola thanks to the expertise of the itinerary designers and guest ambassadors of the acclaimed IC Bellagio, a bespoke, international Italian tour company, which happens to be based in Bellagio.
The bottom line is be careful when giving travel advice – not every experience is for everyone. And truly curate the travel tips you take from experts and connected friends who understand that.
Contact Michael Patrick Shiels at MShiels@aol.com His new book: Travel Tattler – Not So Torrid Tales, may be purchased via Amazon.com Hear his radio talk show on WJIM AM 1240 in Lansing weekdays from 9 am – noon.
