Lights, camera, Lumiere!

A little Hollywood anecdote: Gwyneth Paltrow’s first visit to Paris at eight years of age was with her daddy, Bruce Paltrow, and it was just the two of them, staying at the Ritz and eating at fancy French bistros. When she asked why he didn’t take her mom and brother along, he answered, "Because Gwynnie, I would like you to see Paris for the first time with a man who will always love you."

 A little backpacker anecdote: My first visit to Paris was on the eve of the millennium – yup, partying like it was 1999 – when I was an impoverished grad student in Europe, and I was not with a man who would always love me but a bunch of crazy classmates who wanted to spend New Year’s on the Champs Elysees. We stayed at a dodgy student hostel and our first meal was at McDonald’s and we waited for four hours sitting on a hill in the winter chill for the fireworks display at the Eiffel Tower. But when the fireworks went off and the champagne corks started to fly and the Tower began to twinkle, then pulsate, then actually dance before our very eyes, I couldn’t speak for minutes, then I wept, and I thought to myself, "I saw Paris for the first time, and it was just pure magic, and I forgot to bring my camera."

 Well, Bruce Paltrow has since died and Gwynnie’s going to have a baby of her own, while I’m back in Manila four years later and each time I want to get that feeling of being in Paris for the first time again I go to a little French bistro called Lumiere, where I don’t need to bring a camera because it’s a photo gallery as well, and there I can relive the pure magic of je ne se quois, that emotion of not finding the right words to say so your eye just takes over and takes a snapshot, and the picture just stays in your mind forever.

 The name Lumiere, which means "light" in French, couldn’t have been more apt, since Lumiere used to be the legendary Luz Gallery, "luz" meaning ‘light’ in Spanish. In the daytime the place is flooded with light through the translucent ceiling, and in the evenings it sparkles with well-placed pin bulbs. On the walls are photograph exhibits that change from time to time, "photo" meaning "light" in Latin, and all around are bright and radiant diners and drinkers beaming in the afterglow of the bistro’s excellent dishes and wines.

 I gush about this place because there’s no other one like it in Manila. Owned and operated by two couples, photographer Neil Oshima and his wife Susan Roxas, and graphic designers extraordinaire Coco and Baby Anne, the mission-vision for Lumiere is pure and simple: to bring to public attention the work of photographers and emerging new media artists, committed to exhibiting work that reflects the phenomena of contemporary life and tracking the trends that shape it, aims to challenge the traditional notion of what art is and how art is exhibited, all the while serving yummy home-cooked style French bistro food. Susan and Baby concocted all the recipes themselves, after years of honing their culinary skills when they lived in Paris a decade ago.

 Baby first invited me to come over for their traditional Sunday brunch November of last year, and it was love at first sight while I wolfed down my Oeufs Phillipe with a glass of mimosa and stared at a picture of a Manhattan night scene. If it weren’t for Lumiere, the Luz Gallery would be no more, and too many lights would have gone out just like that in our local art scene.

 For me, a place like Lumiere captures the multi-sensory experience that I think is so Parisian, so stylish, so voluptuous, so rich: your pupils dilate from the visions and the lights, your mouth waters from the cuisine, your mind expands from all the ideas, and your heart swells with realizing how stimulating life can be, all at once.

 As I’ve already been to Lumiere several times, I can no longer go there and see it for the first time with a man who will always love me. But perhaps someday I’ll go and find a photograph of Paris in 1999 with the Eiffel Tower dancing, and I’ll take it right then and there and keep it with me forever.

 Lumiere is located at the LV Locsin Building on Ayala corner Makati Avenues. Call 812-2976 for reservations.