Three words made La Baguette Bistro’s Michel Buthion leave France for Oklahoma in 1979.
“A wild woman,” he said.
Buthion made life-changing connections when students from Oklahoma University visited France during a summer exchange program. Later, when he and a friend were traveling from Paris to Singapore, the pair decided to take a detour to visit the companionable co-eds. They never made it to Singapore.
“Since we met those OU women, we said, ‘We’re going to stop in Oklahoma,’ since they were very kind when we spent the summer with them,” he said. “It was a fantastic time in Norman. We stayed longer and longer.”
Eventually, his visa expired and immigration was on his trail.
“We had a wild chase in Norman, but they never caught us,” he said.
Family business
Buthion finally came clean, and when he tried to renew his visa, he was told he had two options: He could either be escorted home or go back on his own. He chose to go back to France, get a proper visa and then return to his wild woman in Norman.
From there, he began digging into the food and beverage scene in Norman while working at local bars, but he was not in small venues for long.
“I was the first and last sommelier at Legends,” Buthion said.
A role as the food and beverage director for the Skirvin Hotel followed until the hotel closed eight years later. Buthion then reached out to his friend and owner of La Baguette at the time to offer an amenable takeover. Buthion had a larger vision for the location and wanted to bring his brother, Chef Alain Buthion, in on the operation.
“I talked to my buddy at La Baguette and said, ‘I want to take you over as a restaurant,’” he said. “And my brother was at The Coach House, and I said, ‘Why don’t you come with me? We’ll open together.’”
Michel said the restaurant was well received with little changes needed to appease Oklahoma palates. With fewer restaurants to choose from at the time, La Baguette Bistro stood out for its traditional French cuisine created by a classically trained French chef.
“Alain is the chef, and he has his training background in French cuisine,” Michel said, “so everything was well received.”
Many members of the Buthion family can be seen at La Baguette Bistro. A photo of Michel and Alain’s father, Jean, from the late 1940s at his boucherie in France hangs in the bakery area. Alain can be found in the kitchen, recreating some of his father’s classic French recipes. Michel acts as the public face and business force behind La Baguette Bistro and Buthion Fine Food and Wine Shop, and two of Michel’s sons, Daniel and Pascal, help run the wine shop and bar.
One family member you will not see in la cuisine is Maman Buthion.
“My mother is 94 years old. She doesn’t cook a bit,” Michel said. “She said, ‘I have all you guys cooking. Why should I?’”
Pure luck
For 37 years, the Buthion brothers have owned and operated La Baguette Bistro at 7408 N. May Ave. — not to be confused with La Baguette Cafe & Bakery in Norman. The two are still “partners in buying power” according to Buthion, but the company officially split in 1995 after the Oklahoma City Bombing attack destroyed a third La Baguette location in downtown Oklahoma City. Luckily, no La Baguette employees were harmed in the attack, but the restaurant group ultimately decided to divide the company.
“Believe it or not, the two opening people were 10 minutes late, so otherwise they’d be…,” Michel said and trailed off for a moment. “Everything exploded inside.”
The restaurant was able to stay open during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 while many other bars and restaurants closed.
“We were lucky — well, kind of lucky,” Michel said. “We never shut down because we used our to-go market. We had three people only working at that time, but because we never shut down, we never got help from the government.”
Buthion said that many people have asked him about the difference in running a business in Oklahoma versus France. He said the main difference is the once-plentiful opportunity in Oklahoma.
“Now it’s a pain in the ass,” he said. “But back then, it was much easier to open a business with a bank.”
The remarkable staying power of La Baguette Bistro is not necessarily attributed to French business philosophy, but from being a present business owner.
“Stick to the business,” Michel said. “Be there and watch it.”
Happy opportunity
Michel said he’s been approached by corporations over the years, including Disney and a Japanese company that wanted to duplicate La Baguette Bistro overseas, but he declined any out-of-Oklahoma offers.
“I had many opportunities … but no corporation for me,” he said. “There’s always opportunity, but you have to be happy.”
After opening the restaurant, Buthion purchased adjoining shopping center spaces to open Buthion Fine Foods and, five years ago, added the wine shop. This small grocery store with fresh-cut steaks, caviar, pastries, grab-and-go meals, cigars, and wines ranging from $10 to $4,900 per bottle serves as the main entrance to La Baguette Bistro. After several requests from frequent customers, Michel added an oyster bar to the main dining room two years ago.
While he said he still has a couple more years of work left in him, Michel wants his sons, Daniel and Pascal, to take the helm of La Baguette Bistro and make it their own.
“They’ll take over, and hopefully they will do something else,” Michel said. “We teach them to don’t do like we did. You don’t just oversee it. You do other things.”
Michel Buthion never made it to Singapore, but his over-extended stay led to a lifetime of friendships and success in Oklahoma City. In the years La Baguette Bistro has been open, he said he has seen families grow, high schoolers turn into college students, partnerships turn into engagements and many other milestones celebrated with crepes and chocolate mousse cake.
“Oklahoma City has been very good to us,” Michel said. “We have a lot of great people.”
Visit labaguettebistro.com.