First published on Tue 6 Apr 2021 01.30 EDT
Charles Baudelaire, whose 200th birthday on 9 April will be celebrated with stamp issues, new editions of his poetry and virtual events, is arguably more famous for his concept of the
flâneur â an aimless stroller or ambler â than for his writing. Thatâs partly because reading his volumes Les Fleurs du Mal
or Le Spleen de Paris
requires a degree of application, but also because the idea of an individual moving through the city streets and finding aesthetic pleasure in the teeming crowds, appeals to us and continues to chime. At least, it did until spring 2020, when the crowds were told to stay at home.
Modern Haitian cuisine is a marvelous mash-up of West African and French influences, with further inspiration coming across the border from the Dominican Republic on the shared island of Hispaniola. For the last decade, one has been well-advised to go to Brooklyn neighborhoods like East Flatbush, Canarsie, or Stuyvesant Heights to find the best Haitian food in town, though the city’s earliest Kreyol neighborhood was in Hell’s Kitchen, where a single restaurant remains, Le Soleil. But now the cuisine has enthusiastically reasserted itself in Manhattan on the Lower East Side at Rebel.
The bar at rebel is stocked with Haitian rums