Eating British in Paris

‘On va manger anglais ce soir?’ — ‘Shall we eat English tonight?’ — is not the sort of thing you’d expect to hear a Frenchman say, especially a chef. But my friend was quite clear on the phone. ‘Le restaurant, c’est anglais, comme toi.’ My initial disbelief gave way to suspicion. I remembered that he once led us to a Franco-Italian-Japanese hole-in-the-wall whose signature dish was spaghetti with sea urchins and fermented soya, on the grounds that it was ‘different’. It was. 

‘I’m not in the mood for fish and chips,’ I told my pal. ‘How about Chinese?’ He sighed. ‘It’s not that kind of English restaurant — it’s good. It’s got a great review in Le Figaro.’ And he was right. The paper had not only praised this particular place but devoted a full page to praising the new battery of British chefs in Paris. Don’t count on them for lamb with mint sauce or an English pudding, it cautioned, and don’t imagine that all they do is imitate French cooking.