ALEX GREEN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE
On Monday morning I woke up after an evening with friends at the Russian banya, eating the customary pierogi and pickled herring, then went to the Turkish bakery next door to my flat for breakfast. All very exciting and cosmopolitan, but sometimes it’s important to get back to the original and best. So off I went to meet my friend Scarlett for lunch at a French restaurant.
I say “original” because the French are broadly held to have invented restaurants — before the Revolution (make of that what you will). Since then we’ve all become accustomed to their wares. A pile of meat and melted cheese can feel uncouth when there are a thousand pristine nigiri and delicate laksas to be eaten. But this is changing — the bistro is back in fashion.
French food was the first “foreign muck” to wash up on British shores. Or at least the first that became celebrated, something more than a means of getting enough calories to fend off those bastards from the next village. Even during the Napoleonic Wars, the British royal household was eating French dishes at home — the type of civilisational victory all the muskets in the world can’t win you.
Such is our shared cultural memory of the French bistro that we all have an idea of the perfect one: candles on the table, red banquettes, walls lined with wine bottles, a grumpy old gent sitting outside chain-smoking. Such expectations can lead only to disappointment. Apart from here. Joséphine Bouchon (“bouchon” being a traditional restaurant in Lyons, though this is in Fulham) — our choice for lunch — delivers on the fantasy.
I’ve found the same fulfilment at Paulette in Maida Vale and at La Poule au Pot down the road in Belgravia, which last month got its own celebratory article in the trendy American newsletter Air Mail, despite having been around since 1964. Proof that fashion is shifting in favour of these classic French joints. As is the fact that Bouchon Racine and Camille (both excellent) have been two of the hottest openings of recent years.
At La Poule au Pot they serve your wine out of a fat magnum, marking in chalk where you started and ended, then eyeing the bottle to come up with a seemingly random sum of cash of which to relieve you. The wine tastes better that way — just as you can drink any old vinegar out of those metal jugs in a Greek taverna and it still tastes delightful.
At Josephine they use a ruler with the glasses marked off. I watched as a man at the table next to us who resembled Piers Morgan grinned delightedly at his wine ruler — and felt his enthusiasm vicariously.
I, unfortunately, was on the Diet Cokes (there’s a lot of vodka at a banya). Pas chic at all. But we made up for it with a majestic rotisserie chicken for two, served in a rich gravy. Included with the bird: a frilly green leaf salad in a classic vinaigrette, and a pot of crushed roast potatoes daubed in a sauce so garlicky you’ll be glad you’re sharing.
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Is this not, when it comes down to it, what every meal should be? Pure and simple. The French got it right centuries ago and we’ve been fiddling in the margins ever since. Except, let’s have some green beans too. But only because you’ll put so much butter on them they can barely be considered a vegetable.
Poulet rôti with salad and potatoes
After all that, we didn’t need dessert. In fact, we took home a good third of the chicken for Scarlett’s dog, Merlin, who spent lunch dozing under our table and charming the man next to us.
Nonetheless, so enthused was I by my novel discovery of France that the next day I went tout de suite to Maison François, a central London classic, where I gorged on celeriac remoulade, cheese ravioli, a pint of prawns, two steak tartares (made to our specifications at the table, bliss), champagne, white, red and a sauternes with dessert. Nobody is doing it like the French.
As I was leaving Joséphine, by the way, I turned to Scarlett. “Didn’t that man next to us look just like Piers Morgan?” I asked. She looked at me in horror. “Charlotte, that was Piers Morgan” — a man we have both met but had completely failed to acknowledge. Quel dommage. Sorry Piers. I left feeling very rude and very full of garlic. How delightfully French.
★★★★☆
josephinebouchon.com
