The Bistrot Louboutin, a London touch in Molière square

Longtemps défigurée par un parking automobile, puis envahie par le chantier du tramway, la place Molière a maintenant retrouvé un visage attrayant. L'arrivée du Bistrot Louboutin en est le symbole. Antoine Louboutin y a recréé l'atmosphère intime des bars d'hôtels qu'il a connus lors de son expatriation à Londres. Les Angevins reviennent vers cette place qui, quelle soit l'issue des élections, jouera un rôle plus important dans les années à venir. Cela ouvre des perspectives, pas seulement visuelles.

A few years ago, the Molière square was only an ugly parking lot and a noisy crossroads of cars and buses. It was even worse during the works of the first tramway line when the square hosted dozens of mobile worksite huts. Because of the tramway works are now part of the past, because the asphalted area gave way to a sandy stretch with trees, plants, statue, and above all, because a Bistrot Louboutin has settled there on mid-January, the Molière square looks to get a new lease of life.


"I was immediately attracted by that esplanade and the appeal of the place", remembers Antoine Louboutin who, with his wife, tried hard to keep intact the character of the ground floor of the building where, formerly, was settled an automobile equipement seller. "Having worked in London for several years, our idea was to create the atmosphere of the hotel bars of that city where you may have a drink in a cosy and elegant setting". People look to be receptive to the untreated walls of the Bistro where nevertheless intimacy and comfort are preserved  : the Bistrot Louboutin welcomes customers coming from the immediate surroundings and downtown. Antoine Louboutin hopes that tourists will come next summer.

That surely be the case in the years to come because the Molière square will be more attractive whoever be the future mayor. The square would benefit from the New Banks of Maine scheme, planned by Frédéric Béatse, current Angers mayor but also with the unification of the Molière and Poissonière squares that his challenger, Christophe Béchu, promises as well as the junction of the two tramway lines very close to the Bistrot.

So Antoine Louboutin may devise projects. "I have always projects in mind" he says. One of them consists in a transposition of his Molière Bistrot in... Los Angeles "by five to seven years". Yes, the Molière square is indeed an interesting viewpoint.