Brazilian Favela Chic is one of the funniest dancing spots in Paris right now and especially nice if you’ve started with a dinner in the restaurant and felt the spontaneous atmosphere grow.

At 10 pm the place is packed. You are benched by long tables, thrown in amidst a bunch of happy people. The last time we were there, we had an Arabian film maker and his date, a German-Bolivian girl, next to us on one side, and on our other side sat an archetypical Parisian girl and a handsome black guy wearing Armani and flip flops.

Photo by Alexdecarvalho

It’s extremely hip, but very bohemian and refreshingly uncomplicated. The interior is retro, almost old school: Orange and polka dotted wallpaper, a large open kitchen with a Virgin Mary figurine by the stove and a dancing corner painted grass-green, where people have to make room between the DJ’s table and a white leather couch from the 80s.

The music is cheerful and with a distinct inspiration from black music: soul, funk and jazz. After the last service close to midnight, it seems people just can’t sit still anymore and in a somewhat improvised manner, the thirtysomethings, the student, a couple of famous actors and a few foreigners start mixing on the dance floor.

If you are dining there, try the Feijoada, a Brazilian stew with black beans, smoked pork and bayberry that has simmered a whole day and is served with rice, kale and manioc.

Favela Chic, 18, rue de Faubourg-du-Temple, 11. arr. Metro: République

By Louise Sandager, extract from the travel guide PARIS mon amour!, published by Gyldendal.
 

Call us cheesy, but momondo has gone crazy for coagulated milk. We've given our writers the mission of uncovering 'le meilleur fromage' in Paris, 'il migliore formaggio' in Rome, the stinkiest cheeses in New York and the hands-down best cheeses in London, Brussels and Madrid. So grab yourself some bread and wine and join us on this tour of the best cheese shops in Europe.

Madrid

Some women are shopaholics, others just alcoholics. Karin in London calls herself a hotelaholic, because she has an exaggerated penchant for luxury accommodation. I’m a cheesaholic. One of those people who always has at least three and not seldom six different cheeses in my cheese safe among which you will always find minimum one goat and one sheep.

I like all kind of cheese except from at certain Danish one called Old Ole’s old father, a perversion, which has matured for several years before it’s served with jelly, lard and rum!

But apart from this one, I am ready to travel quite far to get a good cheese, so in Madrid, of course, I took a taxi to get west of the centre, searching for ‘Cuenllas’, a delicatessen in Calle de Ferraz, famous for its cheeses.

The taxi driver thought I was nuts, as the trip was more expensive than the cheese I was going to buy. An even more nuts, when we found the shop closed and he had to bring me all the way back again. Without Le Queso Manchego I was so much longing for.

Living in France I am spoiled with cheeses and used to boutiques so specialised that people in there would kill you, if you asked for anything else but products related to milk.

In Spain, however, cheese is often sold in the same shop as ham and meat. So I found my black skinned Manchego in Museo del Jamon, side by side with Mortadella, Chorizo and olive sausages.

Museo del Jamon is not a ham museum, but a blend of delicatessen and café. Big dried hams are suspended on hooks from the ceiling, and Spanish housewives negotiate about the best Ibérico, while workmen in overalls and oily fingers are snacking at the zinc desk.

I had an assortment of olives, anchovies and cuttlefish while waiting for the shop assistant to finish with a black dressed Spanish widow who apparently wanted to be sure she had the best quality of Bellota (Ham from a pig eating only acorn).

The guy next to me tried to entertain me about the greatness of Real Madrid. Unfortunately my Spanish was not good enough to understand the details, but at least for the cheese I understood I had to try the Queso Picos de Europa. It’s a blue cheese, which has been wrapped in chestnut leaves and matured in caves in Picos de Europa. It was good, I admit, but almost too blue. Then I liked the Pedroches much better, a sheep cheese from near Cordoba. Not to talk about the Idiazabel, also a sheep cheese, but from the Basque country, with a smoky taste and perfumed aroma.

I liked it – not only the cheese, but the whole atmosphere – so much that I tried several of the Museo’s branches in the city. Coming from Paris where cheese-buying is a serious affair; it was so much funnier here. When the old lady, without a tooth in her mouth, stuffed herself with soft, fresh goat cheese while filling in her lotto coupons. And the local plumber took a pause from his work, drinking draught beer and eating salami at the bar, discussing soccer with the waiter.

Try the shop in Carrera de San Jeronimo 6, just next to the famous restaurant Lhardy.  And don’t forget to taste the Gran Casar. It looks like callous skin at the outside, but it’s soft and delicate inside; slightly salt and a little bitter. 25 euros the kilo.

Many people hate them. Find them too anonymous, too cold, too much transit. I love them; hotel bars. I can sit there for hours, observing people, who are meeting, coming, kissing, and leaving.

I always imagine who they are, the other guests. The one over there, for instance. The guy with the blue suit and the girlfriend, is he happy? Or the woman in the corner, who obviously hides something. But what?

In Madrid I have found the perfect hotel bar. At Hotel de Las Letras, they have a sensationally good rooftop terrace with teak all over, plants, flowers and deep white sofas. Like a deck of a luxury yacht on the 7th floor.

In the summertime the bar opens in the early evening and is full within an hour. Which it deserves, of course, but what is not at all obvious, as it doesn’t make much noise of itself.

You have to know it’s there. I had read about it in a small newspaper article praising the Madrilène summer night, and when I arrived for the first time, I had to find the way on my own as nobody seemed to bother about the barguests.

I passed the empty reception, which was remarkable small and unimpressive for a four-star design hotel, found an elevator somewhere inside and ascended while passing several poems and fragments of literature, printed all over the walls.

Finally I found a small door and dived into the sky, where a handsome young waiter nursed the guests and served well shaken cocktails on the roof.

I once saw an art installation at the Cartier foundation for modern art in Paris. An artist had installed a video camera in an airport and then filmed passengers saying goodbye, coming back, people crying, embracing, laughing. By joy or despair. The video was part of an exhibition on love and it made a big impact on me. Because it was a concentrate of so many human feelings in one little spot.

Hotel bars have the same atmosphere. As most guests are far away from home, somehow detached from their daily life and identity. They are in transit, act differently and I like watching them. The writer’s privilege, you could say.

In general, Hotel de las Letras is a good place for a writer. Or for any poem-lover og literature-snob. Not only because the rooms are decorated with quotes from the book and arts world, but mostly because the hotel has a library with a good selection of modern authors and a soft corner sofa to enjoy it in.

The only thing I like less, is the one everybody else praises, namely the fact that Hotel de las Letras is situated on Calle Gran Via, one of the biggest and – in my eyes – more boring streets in Madrid. But okay, that’s a minor fault to a good hotel. And counterbalanced by the fact that the wild and avant-garde Chueca-district is just in the backyard.

HOTEL DE LAS LETRAS; Calle Grand Via 11; Madrid

Go further: Find more hotels in Madrid here.