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Les Halles Review

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Les Halles

Address: For plaza/garden, entrance on Rue Berger or Rue du Jour. For mall, main entrance on Rue Pierre Lescot, Beaubourg/Les Halles, Paris
www.forum-des-halles.com

Category: Historic Districts/Sites
Location: The Faubourg St-Honoré and Les Halles

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Fodor's Review:

For 801 years, this is the district that fed Paris, with acres of food halls overflowing with meats, fish, and vegetables. Sensuously described in Émile Zola's novel The Belly of Paris, Les Halles was teeming with life—though not all of it good: hucksters and homeless shared these streets with prostitutes (who still ply their trade on nearby Rue St-Denis). And the plague of cat-size rats didn't cease until the market moved to the suburbs in 1969. Today, you can still see stuffed pests hanging by their tails in the windows of the circa-1872 shop Julien Aurouze (8 rue des Halles) whose sign, Destruction des Animaux Nuisibles (in other words, vermin extermination), says it all.

All that remains of the 19th century steel-and-glass markets is a portion of the superstructure in the Jardins des Halles, an ill-conceived plaza and garden with a magnificent backdrop: the church of St-Eustache, a Gothic gem. Below ground is a sprawling, much-maligned mall, the Forum des Halles, worth a stop only if you're looking for easy access to a plethora of chain stores. Also here, at the entrance called Porte St-Eustache, is the Forum des Images, which offers some 6,500 films available for viewing on individual screens. The mayor's office has promised a renovation by 2012, though work is yet to begin.

The streets surrounding Les Halles have become some of the city's trendiest with boutiques, bars, and restaurants galore that have sent rents skyrocketing. The street that once supplied Paris with its oysters, Rue Montorgueil (which translates to Mount Pride), is lined with small shops selling everything from meat to cheese to bread. Running parallel, Rue Montmartre is a good place to buy foie gras at one of the small specialty shops clustered near St-Eustache, although you may prefer a skirt or handbag at one of the hip shops that have replaced the butchers and bakers. Still, Les Halles has not totally outlived its seedy reputation and the plaza is best avoided late at night.

Open: Mall, Mon.-Sat. 10-8
Metro: Les Halles; RER: Châtelet Les Halles

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