At the end of March, the managers of Café la nuit in Arles were unable to take advantage of the Easter fair. For a simple reason: the establishment has been closed for legal reasons since July 2023. Every day, tourists pose in front of the famous Arlesian restaurant, an identical reconstruction of a bistro painted in 1888 by Vincent Van Gogh. Café terrace in the evening is one of the Dutch artist’s best-known paintings. Exhibited in the Netherlands, at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, it was created during his stay in Arles. Yellow facade and large blind, wooden floor on the terrace, small round tables… In a second canvas, Night cafe, Van Gogh painted the interior of the establishment and its billiard room.
“The reconstruction of the place is a job well done, except that it is a scam”, smiles a neighboring shopkeeper. If it really existed, the café painted by Van Gogh was not located here, Place du Forum, in the heart of the historic center of Arles, facing the statue of the Provençal Nobel Prize winner for literature Frédéric Mistral (1830-1914). It sat at Place Lamartine, where the painter lived. But the place was destroyed during the Allied bombings of 1944. Where the fake Café la nuit is located was a porcelain store.
Even before that, there was the old Café Bœuf, which an unknown author from the end of the 19th centurye century, cited by Remi Venture, Arlesian historian, described in the book Arles. History, territories and cultures (Actes Sud, 2008): “A historic café, indeed! A café that will perhaps go down in the city’s annals! (…) It is frequented by all the most serious people in the city. (…) This is the little stock exchange of Arles…”
Association of three Arlesians
At the beginning of the 2000s, three Arlesians had the idea of resurrecting the place painted by Van Gogh and installing it on Place du Forum. It is called Café la nuit. The trio is made up of a real estate developer, a heritage curator and the journalist in charge of the local daily agency Provence, Jean-Pierre Zaoui. Having also become a journalist in the same editorial team, her daughter Julie Zaoui remembers: “My father was a man of ideas. He didn’t put any money into the project, but he was part of this group of friends who loved this city and wanted to do everything to revitalize it. »
The three get along with a Marseille businessman, Roland Zemmour, who will become the real boss of the establishment. The café has been reconstructed down to the last detail, especially the facade, repainted yellow. Its owners have made it one of the most emblematic places in the city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
You have 46.91% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.