Like many Anglais, my image of French cuisine was partly formed by flâneur-like wanderings through the pages of Larousse – learning of, for instance, the exact lunch menu that André Malraux enjoyed in 1933 at Drouant, or of a long-gone brasserie in the 9th that was known for its beer laced with absinthe. And later, peering through the windows of ancién regime restaurants such as Lapérouse and Le Grand Véfour, into the latter’s golden mirage of Louis XVI-style garlands and Roman-inspired frescoes.
In AJ Liebling’s love letter to French food, Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris, he describes his tutelage in the 1920s under Yves Mirande – “one of the last great around-the-clock gastronomes of France” – a man who could put away a lunch of lamb larded with anchovies, artichokes on a pedestal of foie gras and more, then remind the chef that he’d been promised larks and ortolans as well as wild boar for dinner. It’s the sort of prose that can induce gout just by reading it.
Mirande would have found a soulmate in Robert Morley’s food critic in Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? – a 1970s satire surprisingly prescient in its critique of processed food. After a dire warning from his doctor, he exclaims: “Cut down?! I’m a work of art, created by the finest chefs in the world. Every fold is a brushstroke! Every crease a sonnet! Every chin a concerto!”
Chef Arnaud Faye of Le Bristol ParisMaki Manouk
The city’s grande cuisine has provided formative experiences for many diners. For Michel Roux, it was a lunch aged 14 at La Tour d’Argent with his parents. “Fine dining has evolved and gone in various molecular directions,” he says, “but La Tour – which has been around since 1582 – has kept steadfastly to the classics, though it never feels tired. Its speciality is the canard à la presse, with a rich sauce made from the duck’s juices, and I made sure to serve it at Le Gavroche: it brings theatre to the dining room but also shows the skill of the front of house staff in executing the dish.”
Dining and Cooking