The New Paris Podcast

It’s the week of thanksgiving and that seems like an appropriate time to bring back an American friend. Amanda Bankert is a previous guest of this show (episode 8!) and the owner and pastry chef behind Boneshaker , the only donut shop in Paris worth your time, money, and sweet tooth. She’s also just released her first book in English called Voilà Vegan . We talk about how she got into baking, beco...

I have been waiting to talk about the new book by today’s guest for years. Actually, since I met him some 7 years ago when he was already hard at work researching it. Jon Bonné has worked as a journalist for three decades and currently serves as the managing editor at RESY. He is, particularly for wine lovers, best known for his wine reporting and two essential wine books : The New California Wine...

If you spend any amount of time on social media, chances are good you’ve come across the very viral videos of today’s guest. Cécilia Jourdan is a language teacher, content creator and entrepreneur who started Hello French in 2020 with an Instagram account that has since become a full blown business. She joins me today to talk about her trajectory from Paris to New York and in between, building a l...

In the previous episode, you heard from four incredibly smart people invested in both raising awareness and pushing for change when it comes to the fashion industry as a whole. But what practical steps are needed? In this episode, I'm joined again by Aja Barber, Khémäis Ben Lakhdar, and Esha Chhabra to talk about accountability, transparency, decolonization, brands that are doing things right,...

(Special two-part episode!) Every season, all eyes are on the Parisian runways as onlookers try to get a peak at what big and disruptive trends await for the following year. But few know about the history of how this industry came to be, the role of colonialism in its development, and how the industry upholds many of the same ideas and practices today. As you will discover, the legacy of coloniali...

It’s la rentrée! I’m back to my usual home studio and routine which means I’m ready to kick off the fall, and the end of season 7, with some fresh conversations. Let’s kick off September with a friend, entrepreneur and previous guest of this show, Jay Swanson. We’re going to talk about his new project, Paris in My Pocket , Paris news, and what you really need to know if you’re coming to the city t...

Of all the cuisines that have had a presence in Paris but always deserved to be more prominent, Lebanese cooking ranks high among them. France is home to the largest Lebanese diaspora in Europe so it’s no surprise that key dishes and ingredients are familiar to many diners. But most establishments hew to classics— that is until the opening of Kubri on the rue Amelot at the end of last year that ha...

We are quickly approaching three years since my second book The New Parisienne was released. The year 2020, as you may remember, was not an ideal time to release art into the world. Later that year, we would see that the best thing you could have offered people sheltering at home was food and cookbooks,  home decor books, or any kind of guide to DIY-ing your existence. A book about women, includin...

Aside from the last episode of last season, which was more about the President than the World Cup, I’ve almost never talked about sports on this show. And that’s strange given the role it plays  in local culture. When I learned about the work of today’s guest, I knew it was time to record a special episode. Lindsay Krasnoff is a historian and sports diplomacy expert who teaches at NYU and wrote a...

Of all the cooking essentials we buy and consume, few are as taken for granted or even misrepresented as extra virgin olive oil. Imagine you’re in France scanning the shelves in your local market for a new bottle. The labels might lead you to believe the oil is 100% French, Italian or Greek but inspect the fine print and a fuller picture emerges: Pressed in Italy, Produced Outside of the European...

If you like art or are even mildly interested in art, Paris has both an abundant and intimidating level of choice. The exact number of museums varies according to how you might define a museum but it’s been estimated that there are over 130 museums in Paris, including marquee destinations and smaller museums that showcase a wide range of art, history, science, and culture. And if you like or are c...

The work to live vs live to work ideology was among the earliest characteristics of French life that appealed to me as a student. I didn’t know the extent to which that would bear out until I had lived in Paris for a number of years and discovered it firsthand. For Ajiri Aki, the Nigerian-American founder of the online linens and antiques brand Madame de la Maison, her decade in Paris has similarl...

Much like fashion, Paris is a global reference for design. There are the iconic interiors one might imagine when thinking of Paris but then there are the more sceney or concepty places that seem to have big design firms and big investors behind them. In the last 8 or so years, it feels like every new spot has a resident interior designer or architect or a theme that they’re going for. In some ways...

The music you’ve just been listening to was performed by today’s guest, Bonnie Brown, a concert pianist and piano instructor who works out of her home in Paris. She joins me to talk about her connection to France, working as a musician, and the places she loves most to listen to music in Paris.  PS. If you’re a fan of the show, please share it with a friend and leave a review on Spotify, Apple Pod...

If you were to walk the streets of Paris today, you’d see about 7,000 tons of garbage piling up on sidewalks. The stench after a week of no garbage collection is, you might say, ungodly. Some residents have seen an uptick in rat socialising. And according to reports, this could go on until at least next Monday March 20th. This trash assault is the result of strikes in response to the Macron govern...

If I think about some of the women that have defined Parisian and French history, I instantly think of Marie Antoinette. The long maligned figure of French royalty and one of many unfortunate symbols of the French Revolution, the former queen has rarely been painted in a positive light. But what if that is an incomplete story? What if new scholarship points to a more nuanced picture of Marie Antoi...

If you were to scan a Parisian city block, you’ll land on at least one caviste or wine seller. But while there are a lot of them, they’re not all created equal. Alison Eastaway , an Australian who has lived in Paris for 12 years and today’s guest, saw an opportunity to offer something different. She left her last career in tech to start Cavewoman Wines , a wine store and tasting room in the 11th a...

I wasn’t going to publish another episode this year but then the World Cup Final happened, and President Macron went cringe and inspired a whole new conversation I simply had to have before the new year. There’s no better person to discuss Macron with than Rym Momtaz , the former France Correspondent for Politico who spent years reporting on the Macron administration and currently a consulting res...

Of all the incredible foods in Paris, which do you think gets consumed the most? If your instincts led you to say pizza you’d be correct. By some estimates, the French as a whole are the world’s second biggest consumers of pizza after the United States . As the capital, Paris is understandably swarming with pizza joints, some enjoyable and well done, but most of them forgettable. That is, until Da...

It started with gâteau and continues with, well, more cake. And pastry, and Chocolate! For part two of my focus on sweets, I’m joined once again but an old friend of the show whose first book, Sweet Paris , was released earlier this year. My conversation with Frank Adrian Barron took place in my apartment so you’ll have to excuse any wood-floor echos and cat meows. Mentioned in this episode:  Cake...

t’s that time of year: gift giving, baking, holiday planning. Which means it couldn’t hurt to draw your attention to France for some inspiration. This will be a two-part episode all about sweets featuring two authors whose books you absolutely should be picking up for yourself or offering as gifts. To start, I’m joined today by Aleksandra Crapanzano a James Beard–winning writer and longtime desser...

Turn on the nightly news, listen to the radio, or speak with most Europeans these days and the topic on heavy rotation is the energy crisis. This is partly an outcome of the Russia-Ukraine war as Moscow has suspended natural gas supplies in response to economic sanctions imposed by the West. As reported by Fortune magazine recently, the invasion of Ukraine started just after European nations decid...

One of the incredible aspects of living in Europe is the access to rich bread and baking traditions. They may vary between France, Poland, Germany, and Portugal, let’s say, but what they share is the ongoing movement to protect them. It’s also the theme of the new cookbook by my fellow American friend based in Berlin, Laurel Krotochvila, owner of Fine Bagels . The book, New European Baking , was t...

2022 will be forever be etched in my mind as the year travel and tourism rebounded from the pandemic in a massive way. Essentially, since June 1 or whenever the remaining travel restrictions lifted,  visitors haven’t stopped trickling into the city. I also know this from experiencing a major uptick in requests for my own tour . Now that we’re into the fall and peak travel season is behind us,...

Since the last episode of this show, I can report two positive things: First, I did indeed spend less time doom scrolling and therefore alleviate much of the anxiety and stress I had been feeling for months. And second, I finished a number of excellent books, many of which you can find on my Bookshop.org page which I’ve listed in the show notes, and also returned to review a few other books I’ve e...