Originally published on The GuardianÂ
Simenon published his 75 Maigret novels and 28 Maigret short stories between 1931 and 1972; last month ITV broadcast the first of two made-for-TV Maigret movies starring Rowan Atkinson as the chief inspector. And so The Guardian set off to do a little detective work, to discover whether Maigret’s Paris, full of squalid, storied hotels with communal bathrooms, apartment buildings with nosy concierges and, most importantly, characterful regional bistros and hyper-provincial bars, could still be found.
Tom Downey made a list of Maigret’s haunts: 32 Quai des Orfèvres, where he worked; 132 Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, where he lived with Madame Maigret; the Brasserie Dauphine, where he ordered trayfuls of beer and sandwiches when he was working late and which, according to some, was based on the Restaurant aux Trois Marches on the Rue de Harlay.
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