If you find yourself in Paris and enjoy cooking, a visit to the nearly 200 year old kitchen supply store Eugene DeHillerin is well worth it.
The history of the shop is very much tied to old Paris. The DeHillerin family, descendants of a noble family from Vendee whose fortune declined after the French Revolution, turned to trade and hardware in the city. Their first store opened near Les Halles, once known as “the belly of Paris”, the city’s famous central food market. Later, the business moved to Rue Coquilliere where it still stands today delightfully untouched by time.
Stepping inside feels less like entering a store and more like wandering into a culinary treasure cave. Shelves overflow with copper pots, gleaming pans, whisks, tart tins, ladles, moulds, and every kind of kitchen utensil imaginable. The place is crowded, slightly chaotic and completely charming.
What immediately captured my heart was an enormous copper rooster perched proudly among the cookware, so beautiful I briefly considered how I might smuggle it home in my suitcase.
As a former student of the Cordon Bleu cooking school I was in my element. Two wonderful gentlemen helped guide me through the narrow aisles and overflowing shelves with great warmth and knowledge. They were true to the store motto “Modest assistance in the promotion of French cuisine”.
But what stayed with me most was not any single object. It was the thrill of discovery itself, navigating all those narrow aisles and a basement packed from floor to ceiling with everything a cook could ever want. I felt like Julia Child visiting and uncovering one of Paris’s great culinary secrets. For a one glorious hour, R. DeHillerin became my own little Aladdin’s cave.
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