l’appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home

After working thirteen years as a pastry chef for Chez Panisse, a French restaurant in Berkeley, California, David Lebovitz decides it’s time to pack it in and move to Paris. As he soon found out, this was no easy task. In order to rent an Parisian apartment or l’appart, one must first have a bank account. No problem, one might think. But in order to open up a bank account in Paris, one must have a copy of an electric bill. However, if you’ve never rented in Paris, how do you obtain an electric bill? It’s like trying to find a job having no prior experience. And this is just the first of many problems Lebovitz encounters en route to becoming a true Parisian. However, on the plus side, he does find a partner while apartment hunting, who is a great help to him since Romain is a native of Paris and does not hesitate to show his displeasure when necessary, in flawless French,

of course. L’appart is a hilarious read, and you can’t help but root for Daveed to triumph over the unscrupulous contractor he hires to renovate said apartment, and commiserate when it looks like Claude has cost Lebovitz an absolute fortune with his outrageous shenanigans. It’s a glaring case of buyer beware…