From the Saturday, July 12, editions of The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …
By Dave Wischnowsky
The WISCH LIST
It isn’t July’s most popular revolutionary holiday – I’m pretty sure you know what that is – but come Monday evening, the celebration of Bastille Day will very much be a thing at Daley Plaza in Chicago’s Loop.
One during which le clou du spectacle – the show stopper – will feature waiters from Chicago’s finest French restaurants running a 200-meter footrace while balancing a tray filled with plastic glasses of Grand Cru wine.
The event, called “La Course de Garçons & Filles de Café,” begins at 5:30 p.m. with the championship sprint scheduled for 7. It’s preceded by the French national anthem and likely followed by mops.
For Francophiles far and wide, Bastille Day – which marks the moment 225 years ago when a pack of fed-up Parisians stormed a prison and sparked the French Revolution – is an opportunity to indulge France’s famed cuisine, wine and music without crossing the Atlantic.
It’s also an opportunity for me to fill you in on some things you might not know about Chicago’s French connections, both historic and contemporary.
Our French roots
In a Chicago Tribune story about Parisians who had relocated to the Windy City, French-born interior designer Nicole Borione once said, “Don’t forget, Illinois was French before it was English.”
And it was. Beginning in the 1670s, famed French explorers such as Father Jacques Marquette, Louis Jolliet, Robert Cavelier de La Salle and Henri de Tonti were among the first to venture west of the Great Lakes region into the land now known as Lincoln’s. The territory became part of New France (Canada) until 1717 when it was transferred to Louisiana, which controlled Illinois up through the 1763 Treaty of Paris.
By the early 1840s, French cultural presence in the Midwest had all but disappeared. But in the 1870s, French Canadians migrating in the face of economic pressure at home founded Bourbonnais and settled in Brighton Park, now part of Chicago’s Southwest Side.
Taste of Paris
Today, Chicago is best known for its Irish and Polish communities and neighborhoods such as “Little Italy” and “Chinatown.”
However, you can’t find an enclave considered predominantly “French,” unless of course you count the downtown neighborhoods of River North and Streeterville, home to trendy restaurants such as Café des Architectes, Henri, and Paris Club.
But, really, wouldn’t you expect the “French” to live in style?
Speaking of which, Paris Club was ranked by the Chicago Tribune as the city’s No. 1 celeb hangout for 2013 having attracted the likes of Mick Jagger, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and Drake.
Paris on the Prairie
In his famed 1909 Plan for Chicago, legendary architect Daniel Burnham used some of his south lakefront plans for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition as a base to envision a new Chicago as a “Paris on the Prairie” complete with French-inspired public works constructions, fountains and boulevards that would radiate from a central, domed municipal palace.
Making French impressions
A domed palace never happened, but you can still find French inspiration in town thanks to members of Chicago society who, during the 1890s, began traveling extensively to France where they purchased art that would eventually enable the creation of the Art Institute’s impressionist collection. Their travels also led to the 1897 founding of the Alliance Francaise, which promotes French language and culture in the city.
Seine and be seen
Along the Chicago Riverwalk sits Cyrano’s Café & Wine Bar, which offers outdoor seating and homemade French dishes such as quiche Lorraine, pate and crepes.
But what really sets Cyrano’s apart is how chef-owner Didier Durand designed its landscape to resemble artist Claude Monet’s home in Giverny, France, replete with flowers beneath a canopy of trees.
It makes the Chicago River almost feel like the Seine.