‘I tested out France’s British pubs – here’s everything they got wrong’
Everyone loves a good British pub and it's easy to miss that sweet taste of home when you're abroad.
After growing homesick during a two-day trip to Paris I decided a nice cool pint would be just the thing to take the edge off, so I decided to check out some of the French capital's UK-inspired boozers.
With three somewhat reluctant pals in tow I headed off to some of the local English watering holes to see if they had the same je-ne-sais-quoi as back home.
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First it was off to The Bowler which sits a stone's throw from the Arc de Triomphe and France's answer to Oxford Street, the Champs Elysées.
At a glance, it looks exactly how you'd expect an average UK bar to look, and the pub even shows the footie – so far so good.
There's even a wooden dart board and fireplace inside, and as we nestled in with an (albeit Belgian) beer we began to feel right at home. There was even a 'Brexit' beverage available.
Unfortunately in this boozer you can't buy a beer in pint form – instead punters have to choose between a 25cl or 50cl pour (0.44 and 0.88 of a pint respectively), and naturally we opted for the latter.
Later we would find an enormous jug of beer in lieu of the more traditional British measure.
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Next was the Bombardier, which perhaps wins the award for the most anglais-feeling of the French boozers we visited.
The pub advertises itself as a "true taste of England in the heart of Paris located amid the beautiful and historic Latin Quarter," and on these fronts it certainly delivered.
The Bombardier wouldn't be out of place on the streets of a quaint English town but it also boasts a party feel and has been known to host elaborate bashes for the Coronation and St Patrick's Day.
Hungry revellers can even enjoy a traditional fish and chips or an inkwell beef pie and you can even take part in a pub quiz on Sundays – although, I imagine, likely hosted in French.
British pubs appear to be all the rage across the Channel, but Irish pubs are also a big hit – and keen not to do our neighbours on the other side of the Irish sea a disservice, I stumbled my head into the Cork and Cavan on the trendy Canal Saint-Martin as my final stop.
By the time our epic journey around the city of love (and pubs) was approaching its end it was already past 11pm so inside seating appeared to have ended for the evening.
So we took a pew outside, but not before having a nosey through the window at the boozer's interior.
Maybe it was all the beer getting but if you really squinted this dimly-lit dive bar could have almost been a Wetherspoon's – or perhaps more fittingly an O'Neill's.
As our waiter – yes, there was table service at this not-so-Irish establishment – presented us with a menu, we couldn't help but notice a few discrepancies.
First of all we had to contend with the same measures of 0.44 and 0.88 pints, which by now we could only assume would be the norm.
The choice of tipple was also a little unusual for an Irish boozer, with a much more international selection on offer including a French blond as the "house beer".
The "pub food" menu left our group exclaiming "Zut alors!" as we realised the classic staples such as fish and chips and pies had been swapped out in favour for house fries with an "Irish sauce", a slice of pizza and chilli con carne.
Our bellies full of pan-European booze, we decided to call it a night, having felt we'd seen the best of what French British pub culture has to offer.
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