Chanel’s Paris Tea Room by Jennifer Johnson
Angelina is known primarily for its hot chocolate and Mont Blanc super-cake – but also for being Chanel’s Paris tea room of choice – and where Vivienne Westwood launched herself.
There’s More to Angelina…
Before 2021, the most controversial thing that had ever happened at Angelina in Paris – was a Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren fashion show.
Refused by the French haute couture elite, the post-punk pair decided to turn up at Angelina instead and showed Westwood’s debut Paris collection among the tea cups.
Then, at the height of Woke in 2021, a couple of decades later, there was Chocolategate.
You may remember this was when a one-woman protest resulted in the signature thick, creamy hot chocolate changing from”L’ Africaine” on the menu to “chocolat chaud à l’ancienne” at the Paris flagship (though the drink kept its original name at its international locations).
The Instagram Storm In a Teacup
Instagram user Charlene Wang de Chen, took umbrage with the menu listing of the famous drink L’Africain (an apparent reference to the origin of its cocoa beans, which come from Niger, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire.)
Then Wang de Chen met Anthony Battaglia, chief operating officer for Angelina in the United States, who informed her that the name of the hot chocolate had been changed an hour after her Instagram post went up on December 30th.
Read more on this here
Table Ten or Table Eleven?
Just as controversial, at least with tourists, is Chanel’s favourite table.
Nobody is really sure if Chanel regularly sat at Table Ten or Table Eleven at the Angelina flagship, at 226 Rue de Rivoli. In any case – we do know – she sat among the mirrors.
The mirrored walls were the work of Folies Bergere and Moulin Rouge designer, Belle Epoque (or Beautiful Era) star Édouard-Jean Niermans.
It was Niermans who gave Angelina its permanent elegance. Today people queue far outside, waiting patiently for a table (perhaps even, 10 or 11 – or anything, really) to take photographs of each other.
Paris insiders suggest you try a branch of Angelina at the Louvre instead, or Versailles. Less fuss. Far less people.
Westwood, McLaren and Issey Miyake
Le salon de thé Angelina on the Rue de Rivoli, to give the tea room its correct name, hosted the first British designers in Paris since Mary Quant (1963) when in 1983, Westwood and McLaren took her Nostalgia of Mud collection (a translation of “Nostalgie de la boue” from Tom Wolf’s Radical Chic) to the French.
Just as famous as these two tearaways, today, is the Mont-Blanc aux marrons). This is a rich, thick dessert of sweetened chestnut puree topped with whipped cream. It looks like snow on a mountain, thus its name.
Years after the young Issey Miyake saw Vivienne Westwood show her sheepskin jackets on a makeshift catwalk, on 29th March 1982 at 9.30am, the Mont Blanc still rolls.
Everybody Loves Angelina
Some of the biggest names in fragrance as well as fashion, love Angelina. Take Jo Malone:
“The tearoom alone symbolises the grandeur and aristocratic nature of Paris,” she wrote in her autobiography. “As I people-watched from our window table, it felt like I was observing a scene pulled from a 1950’s movie. Mum would love it here, I thought – the energy, the unapologetic femininity, the chic style, and the confident but demure manner with which the ladies carried themselves, leaving behind a waft of the perfume they wore so boldly.” (Jo Malone: My Story).
Angelina Tips and Tricks
Go early to the flagship – and take cakes back to your hotel refrigerator or Air BnB kitchen from the shop. If you are going there at a peak time (for lunch) you may be in line for an hour, according to some reviewers.
If you are going to Versailles anyway, reserve a table at Restaurant Angelina.
No Chanel tables, but you won’t have to wait as long. Be there for 10.00am and have a late breakfast or early elevenses. Just remember it’s shut on Mondays.
In warmer weather there is an Angelina treat outside: the Petit Trianon. This is a terrace and food-stand with takeaway pastries, sandwiches and delicious quiches so you can enjoy the spectacular Versailles gardens in the fresh air. And yes, a takeaway hot chocolate.
