\nDav\u00e9 with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and author Jean-Jacques Schuhl. – Tai \u201cDav\u00e9\u201d Cheung<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Conceived with writers Charles Morin and Boris Bergmann and released by the London publisher IDEA, the book boasts 115 pages of photographs and selfies, as well as doodles and postcards from several guests. Sofia Coppola, whose father Francis Ford Coppola once booked the entire restaurant for New Year\u2019s Eve, wrote the foreword. \u201cI was fourteen and the place was filled with the fashion and show business of that era, people table-hopping and hanging out, platters of Dav\u00e9\u2019s mom\u2019s Chinese food and Dav\u00e9 taking Polaroids,\u201d she recalled, characterizing the mood that night. \u201cSomehow I ended up cozied up with Yves Saint Laurent\u201d \u2014 one of the 20th century\u2019s foremost designers.<\/p>\n
\u201cA party always felt like a kind of family gathering, something intimate,\u201d Dav\u00e9, as he is habitually referred, said over email. \u201cEverything was closed, it created a very private, familial atmosphere.\u201d Even outside the parameters of a private party, the discreet milieu of the restaurant \u2014 largely down to Dav\u00e9\u2019s considered seating arrangements and further encouraged by the scarce lighting (the glow of a tropical fish tank in the center of the space helped somewhat) \u2014 meant famous people, who would otherwise typically be bothered by strangers, felt comfortable and relaxed enough that most would return multiple times, making Dav\u00e9 the place to be.<\/p>\n\n\nThe infamous restaurant’s interior. – Tai \u201cDav\u00e9\u201d Cheung<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n“Queen of pop” Madonna and film director Alek Keshishian. – Tai \u201cDav\u00e9\u201d Cheung<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nModel Naomi Campbell. – Tai \u201cDav\u00e9\u201d Cheung<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Writing in The New York Times in August 1998, Dana Thomas observed, \u201cYou can gauge who\u2019s in and who\u2019s out simply by what happens when he or she walks into Dav\u00e9,\u201d alluding to the owner\u2019s guarded system. That it was close to Jardin des Tuileries, where much of Paris Fashion Week played out, further enamored it to editors, stylists, and models. Indeed, in January 2005, The Guardian ran a profile of the restaurant with the headline, \u201cWelcome to the fashion canteen\u201d (by this point Dav\u00e9 had moved to new premises, about ten minutes away on Rue de Richelieu, but still within the vicinity of fashion week footfall).<\/p>\n
With its distinctive swirling logo above the front door and, famously, always with a \u201ccomplet\u201d (meaning \u201cfull\u201d) sign in the window, a practice that meant Dav\u00e9 was able to ensure space was kept available for his celebrity regulars, the Polaroid was a frequent feature of any night at the restaurant. \u201cIt was very instinctive (taking photographs). I wanted to preserve the beauty and joy of those moments, I didn\u2019t know it would become a thing,\u201d said Dav\u00e9, who was taught how to focus the camera by the photographer and director, Jean-Baptiste Mondino. \u201cAt the beginning, the Polaroids just piled up. One day someone stole one \u2014 that\u2019s when I understood they had value, that they were objects of desire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\nModel Christy Turlington shooting for US Vogue. – Tai \u201cDav\u00e9\u201d Cheung<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nThe Wachowski siblings and actor Keanu Reeves, with Dav\u00e9 in the center. – Tai \u201cDav\u00e9\u201d Cheung<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nDav\u00e9 with the designer Miuccia Prada and photographer David Sims. – Tai \u201cDav\u00e9\u201d Cheung<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The images that appear in the new book were safely stored away for years (most of those on the walls of the restaurant were copies, a preemptive measure to secure the memories had a future), but Dav\u00e9 estimates he produced a few thousand over the years. \u201cI\u2019ve lost some, given some away, but most are still with me. I particularly love the photos I took of people on the phone, like Aurore Cl\u00e9ment, Keith Haring, and Mick Jagger. It\u2019s rare to see them photographed like that,\u201d he noted, recalling pictures of people using the landline. \u201cThey (the wider clientele) were very happy because they could see the result immediately. There\u2019s no surprise with the Polaroid \u2014 you can\u2019t take bad pictures of people without them knowing.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than four decades after the restaurant opened, and seven years since it closed its doors for the last time, working on \u201cA Night at Dav\u00e9\u201d has been a thoroughly positive experience for Dav\u00e9. \u201cI thought that Polaroids no longer had a place \u2014 that the phone has replaced them \u2014 but I loved diving back into my archives,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel sadness, nostalgia, or regret (putting the book together). I loved learning from people, diving into their worlds, their universes, so I was happy to see all the good moments I\u2019d lived.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more celebrity.land news and newsletters create an account at celebrity.land.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not uncommon for a bar or caf\u00e9 to remind patrons that someone famous once ate there by having a physical photograph of said VIP on display. For 36 years however, at Dav\u00e9, a Chinese restaurant on Rue Saint-Roch in Paris\u2019s 1st Arrondissement, Polaroids of beloved guests were less a marketing tactic than a key […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2158517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[364344,405178,31122,379424,350528],"class_list":["post-2158516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-dave","tag-grace-coddington","tag-melania-trump","tag-serge-gainsbourg","tag-yves-saint-laurent"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/How-Dave-became-the-ultimate-celebrity-hotspot.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2158516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2158518,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158516\/revisions\/2158518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2158517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2158516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2158516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2158516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}