Jean-François Piège at Le Grand Restaurant, Rue d’Aguesseau, Paris, early September. ABEL LLAVALL-UBACH / HANS LUCAS FOR M LE MAGAZINE DU MONDE
On the dark wood panels, hundreds of small brass plaques line the walls, each engraved with the name of someone who has dined here: Johnny Hallyday, Jacques Brel, Mick Jagger, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, and many more famous guests and loyal regulars.
At La Poule Au Pot, a bistro that opened in 1935 in a former butcher’s shop in the heart of Les Halles, the decor alone captures a slice of Parisian history, its wild nights, the feasts that lasted till dawn and the bustle of a neighborhood once known as the “belly of Paris.” Cracked mirrors, narrow alcoves, garnet velvet banquettes and the old zinc counter: Little has changed in more than 90 years.
“Every scar in a place defines it as belonging to a certain era,” insisted Jean-François Piège, who took over La Poule Au Pot in 2018. For the chef born in the southeast French city of Valence, it was a “childhood dream” inspired by the films of Michel Audiard and Julien Duvivier, where Jean Gabin leans on the counter or runs the stove of a Les Halles bistro. Having started cooking at 14 at the hospitality school in Tain-l’Hermitage, in southeast France, it was also a way to make up for a culinary regret – being born too late to roam the aisles of Les Halles, the fresh food market which was relocated outside of Paris to Rungis in 1969.
You have 80.3% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
Dining and Cooking