Early dinners betray French culture — Paris should hold firm

Maria Amorim and Claire Delignou dining together at Restaurant Lazar in Paris.

French people are dining earlier, changing the dining scene in Paris

ROBERTA VALERIO FOR THE TIMES

Mon Dieu! Are the Anglo-Saxons at the gates again? Is France threatened in the one field where Gallic superiority has set global standards for centuries? Are French cuisine, Parisian culture and the sommelier’s noble arrogance to be destroyed by the demands of anglophone tourists to start the evening repast at 6pm?

Lunch has barely finished. The bon mots of the Paris salons are in full flow. Gaston, barely donning his chef’s hat, has not begun to chastise the sous-chefs. Quelle horreur!

It is all the worse because it’s not just the Americans, brought up to eat at 5pm and drink weak coffee with their steak, who now want Maxim’s to start early: it’s also the cream of French youth, aspiring to a “healthy” lifestyle and sober to the point of betraying the nation’s viniculture, who now want to sit down early, eat frugally and give themselves time to digest their moules or escargots while checking their TikTok posts before bed.

• Dinner at 6pm? It’s just not French, say critics as Paris eats early

No gallant Frenchman dines before 8pm. Gigi would never make an eye-catching entrance before then. What has happened to the world of Maurice Chevalier, the fashion houses and the St Tropez rich? In a word: globalisation. French youth is challenged by the American work ethic, by the gym and body fascism, by today’s culture of abstinence. It is also becoming expensive to keep the waiters on till midnight and the kitchen staff until the wee hours. The early diner cuts the costs.

London has shut up early since the pandemic. Try dining today after the theatre, or finding an Italian restaurant ready to serve a late pasta given the job shortages in hospitality. Non-metropolitan dwellers have always thought that 6pm is a better time to eat their “tea”. Few other countries persist in midnight feasts, although even Spaniards are now often too sleepy to wait until 10pm for dinner. But Paris should hold out. Style and wit rarely dine early.