A NIGHT AT DAVÉ

Polaroids from the legendary Parisian restaurant
A book conceived by Charles Morin and Boris Bergmann

The new IDEA book is A NIGHT AT DAVÉ. A book about the Chinese restaurant in Paris, opened and run by Tai “Davé” Cheung in 1982, which immediately became a favorite among the worlds of fashion, film, art, and music. Helmut Newton and his wife June were among the first to embrace it, followed by Grace Coddington, Bernardo Bertolucci, Allen Ginsberg, Yves Saint Laurent, and Francis Ford Coppola. And it didn’t stop there. Davé was the most fashionable restaurant in Paris for three whole decades... incredible! Davé’s clientele were both his customers and his friends. The restaurant was always open but, as the sign on the door said, always COMPLET. If you knew Davé, you were seated and served—no menu, no concern for price. It was an open secret that everyone was there, and yet privacy was absolutely respected. And all those secrets would have remained sealed, were it not for the fact that Davé took photos—Polaroids of everyone who was anyone, photos with him in a kind of primitive selfie style, of them together in endless and unexpected combinations, and alone, in disarmingly unposed portraits. These are the images that make up A NIGHT AT DAVÉ, a book of Polaroids of historic proportions.

There are three texts. Sofia Coppola has written the foreword. Her father has been a lifelong friend of Davé’s, and Sofia frequented the restaurant as a child. The celebrated French author Jean‑Jacques Schuhl contributes an epilogue of fitting literary delight—an excerpt from his 2010 novel Entrée des Fantômes, translated into English for the first time by Charles Morin. And there is an interview with Davé himself, in which he tells stories that, in some cases, reveal more about the photographs than the Polaroids do. Alongside the Polaroids are unique artworks—tokens of affection gifted to Davé by his artist friends, scribbled on menus, business cards, or even directly onto the tables. Unpublished drawings by Jean‑Paul Gaultier, Keith Haring, George Condo, and Martin Kippenberger, a note from Henri Cartier‑Bresson, postcards from Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin. A NIGHT AT DAVÉ is a story told with great vitality.

The book features a Polaroid of practically EVERYONE. A few IDEA favorites (and more unlikely contenders) drawn from the multitude of names: Iggy Pop, Rei Kawakubo, Sarah Moon, Lou Reed, Yoko Ono, Madonna, John Travolta, Tina Turner, Jeanne Moreau, Alexander McQueen, and Janet Jackson.