Haunt · 1908
Le Dôme
Address · 108, boulevard du Montparnasse, 75014 Paris
Metro · Vavin (4)
Today · Still open. Restaurant, still open.
The story
Le Dôme opened in 1898 at the corner of boulevard du Montparnasse and rue Delambre. Its founder, Paul Chambon, from the Auvergne, first ran it as a small neighbourhood bar-tabac. From around 1905, Scandinavian, German and American artists made it their headquarters, to the point that it was nicknamed the Anglo-American café; before 1914 it was considered the smartest café in Montparnasse, while still allowing a penniless artist to eat there for next to nothing. Its regulars, the “Dômiers”, would form an illustrious list: Picasso, Kandinsky, Pascin, Soutine, Man Ray, Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Walter Benjamin and Samuel Beckett.
Crowley himself was one of the Dômiers. On 1 October 1908 he began in Paris a magical retreat of about ten days, whose diary would be published under the title John St. John: he wanted to test whether a precise spiritual result, communion with his Holy Guardian Angel, could be attained without leaving city life, by disciplining his thoughts and cutting down on food and sleep. On the first morning, after buying the notebook intended for this diary, he went to the Dôme for coffee and a brioche and wrote the opening of his account there; he returned in the afternoon for a citron pressé. In the evening, Nina Olivier introduced him to Mary Waska, with whom he dined and spent the night. According to the timeline, he dined with her again at the Dôme on 2 October.
The retreat continued until 13 October. During it Crowley illuminated Liber Pyramidos from the 5th and sat from the 7th to the 12th for the sculptor Michael Brenner. The diary also mentions oysters and a beefsteak ordered at noon on the first day, without naming the restaurant.
Le Dôme still exists at 108 boulevard du Montparnasse. Now an upmarket seafood restaurant, once awarded a Michelin star, it retains an Art Deco interior of wood panelling and stained glass, a few steps from the carrefour Vavin.