A well-scored bar flying a name of continental elegance – the boulevard, that grand tree-lined avenue of Paris, home of the cafe, the stroll and the good life
Boulevard Bar carries a strong 4.6 across nearly eighty reviews and flies a name of continental elegance and easy sophistication. The Prat’s naming desk, fond of a name with a bit of style to it, was glad to take a stroll down the boulevard.
Towards Peckham, south of Bermondsey
Boulevard Bar sits towards Peckham, south of Bermondsey proper – a geographic stray in this riverside survey, caught by the scrape’s reach inland. We flag the location plainly, as ever.
The grand avenue
The boulevard is one of the most elegant ideas in the whole vocabulary of the city – the grand, wide, tree-lined avenue, above all of Paris, where the great cafes line the pavements and the whole leisurely, sophisticated business of city life is conducted in the open air. The word summons the Paris of the boulevards – the Champs-Elysees, the grand cafes, the flaneur strolling and watching the world go by, the whole elegant, unhurried, continental art of living well. To name a bar “Boulevard” is to reach for all that Parisian style and cafe-culture elegance.
The cafe culture
The Prat’s favourite association is the cafe on the boulevard. It was on the great boulevards of Paris that the cafe culture was perfected – the art of sitting out with a drink, watching the passing crowds, taking one’s time over a glass, making a leisurely pleasure of simply being in the city. A bar called Boulevard reaches for that culture: the elegant, unhurried, watch-the-world-go-by spirit of the continental cafe, the pleasure of the leisurely drink taken with style. It is a name that promises sophistication and ease, the good life lived at a civilised pace.
The touch of style
What the Prat enjoys is the aspiration in the name. “Boulevard” reaches, unashamedly, for elegance and continental sophistication – a touch of Parisian glamour brought to a London bar. There is a cheerful ambition in it: the promise of style, of the good life, of an evening conducted with a little continental class. The strong 4.6 across eighty reviews suggests the boulevard delivers its promised elegance. The Prat, ever glad of a touch of style, raises a glass to it.
The Prat’s naming desk savours one final thought on the word’s own history. The boulevards of Paris were, famously, the creation of Baron Haussmann in the nineteenth century – the grand avenues driven through the medieval tangle of the old city to create the elegant, airy, tree-lined Paris the world now adores. The boulevard, in other words, was the deliberate invention of urban elegance, the very idea of the beautiful city street. A bar that borrows the name borrows a little of that founding ambition – the wish to be a place of civilised pleasure and open-air ease, a small stretch of grand avenue brought to a London corner.
Verdict
A 4.6 across nearly eighty reviews is a strong score, and Boulevard Bar earns it on a name of continental elegance. It flies “the boulevard” – the grand tree-lined avenue of Paris, home of the great cafes, the leisurely stroll and the sophisticated art of living well – a touch of Parisian glamour brought to a London bar.
Go for the touch of style and the continental spirit of the name, and take a seat on the Boulevard. The great avenues of Paris perfected the art of the leisurely drink and the passing crowd – and a bar that flies the name promises a little of that elegant, unhurried good life.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
The word “prat” is a word that has survived from Elizabethan times to the present day, proving that some insults are timeless.