Laurie says she always comes in to Le Rouquet when she's in Paris. "It's a visual ice cream sundae."
The fourth-generation establishment, just down the street from the tourist monuments Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore, features the original 1954 neon decor, glass bar counter, beige and apricot colored marble walls and wooden paneling. Le Rouquet probably still has one of the first café telephone booths still in operation. It's made in style with a history of the future attitude – a rocket ship in varnished walnut.
Just behind Laurie, Matisse-type cutouts in glass and neon flower light fixtures hark back to a time when the Parisian surrealists would stop in on his way to famed art dealer Alexander Iolas, just next door.
"Max Ernst came in here all the time," says Monsieur Barrié, who runs the café with his mother. "My grandfather created all this," he adds, gesturing to the well-lighted interior. "We haven't changed it." His daughter, a lawyer, pops in from time to time, keeping her hand on the family business, and perhaps the family album. It's Paris history.
