Belleville, Paris
The Neighbourhood That Felt Like Home
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Reminder: I’m doing a live with Marte Marie Forsberg on Thursday 4th June at 6pm BST/7pm CEST you can join for free here.
‘It’s perfect,’ I said without even looking at it.
A friend of Noémie’s had a small studio flat in Belleville and was moving abroad. She wanted to sublet it. I jumped at the chance to finally have a place.
‘I warn you, it’s tiny.’
‘No matter, I want it.’
‘And Belleville is a little rough.’
‘Please…’
Page 230 from The Smallest Restaurant in Paris, A memoir by Rachel Khoo.
I thought I’d talk about my old neighbourhood, the one where my little Paris kitchen was, and the place where I finally started to feel at home.
Looking back, I can see why Belleville suited me so well. I was just another foreigner amongst countless others who had been drawn to the City of Light. The neighbourhood is a hotchpotch of East Asian, African and Jewish communities, layered together over generations.
I remember moving into my tiny bedsit, unpacking my suitcase, and later heading out for a stroll down Rue de Belleville. Almost immediately, I felt at home amongst the glistening red lacquered ducks hanging in the windows of Chinese restaurants and the bustle of daily life unfolding on the pavements.
Despite it only being half of my heritage, and not speaking Cantonese or Hokkien (the dialects spoken by my father’s family in Malaysia), I’ve always felt a connection to that side of myself. Mostly through food, if I’m honest. Put a pair of chopsticks in my hand and a bowl of noodle soup in front of me and something instantly settles.
Sitting atop of one of Paris’s hills. You can walk your way up from République, past the canal where Amélie skipped stones, through the bargain shops and crammed storefronts around Goncourt. If you keep climbing, you’ll even catch glimpses of the Eiffel Tower from the Rue de Belleville and Rue des Pyrénées crossroads.
Belleville translates as “beautiful town”. It has always been a little rough around the edges. The roots of this working-class neighbourhood are still present. When I returned in March, not much had changed. People were still leaving unwanted furniture on the pavement, crossing roads with the customary right, left and look down (because of the dog poo), and cigarette butts still decorated the streets like confetti. It has undoubtedly become more bourgeois over the years. That transformation had already begun when I lived there in the late noughties, but Belleville still feels refreshingly unpolished compared with many corners of Paris.
Upgrade to paid and I'll take you around the Belleville I knew and loved, from market stalls and hidden parks to dumplings worth crossing the city for and the bistro that taught me to love offal. You also get access to all my previous travel guides plus a plethora of my recipes which include a recipe video.
