We order some French things better in London — often, admittedly, with French help. A grenouille friend recently took me to lunch at the Beaujolais Club just off Charing Cross Road. He said that it overwhelmed him with nostalgia. As a child, living in Paris, if the family were in town for the weekend, it was just the sort of brasserie in which they would have Sunday lunch (cook’s day off). Traditional dishes; proper bourgeois cooking; wine, no premiers crus, but solid, dependable bottles from solid, dependable growers — who were often friends or relatives of the owners. The children demonstrated their command of table manners and served an apprenticeship in gastronomy.
In Paris these days, such places are harder to find. Sometimes, the proprietors have been seduced by vaulting ambition and tried an Icarus-style ascent towards Michelin stardom. There is also the problem of the 35-hour week and women’s emancipation. Good old Gaston, le patron, can no longer conscript his daughters and daughters-in-law in the way that his wife and previous female generations took for granted that they would pride themselves on serving a nation which has always marched on its stomach.
Moreover, the Parisian customer has often succumbed to the lure of trendiness and become an Athenian. To paraphrase: they spend their time in nothing else, but to eat some new thing. The culinary apostolic succession from grand-mère and the generations before her is scorned. There are new customers, but some of them are Americans, suspicious of foreign cooking and inclined to regard a single glass of wine as enough for a family of four.
This all helps to explain why Jean-Yves, maître de Beaujolais, who hails from the Breton-Norman marches, is glad to be working in London.
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