My One-Man Mission to Save Paris Restaurants

Forced closures and dwindling resources threaten a vital element of the French way of life. This writer is taking it personally.

“They’re going to kill us, in any case,” says Pascal, his mask hanging like a bandage at his throat, as if it’s already been cut. “It was difficult to come back last time. This time, it may be impossible.”

Pascal and his wife own Le Jean Bart, the brasserie where I have a coffee most mornings — ah, that supercharging double hit of espresso — and eat lunch a couple of days a week. When lockdown struck (the French called it “confinement”) the loss of those familiar pleasures was one of the wounds that stung the most.

Over the past few days I feared restaurants might be shut down again — but the government opted for a curfew, so they will be closed between 9pm and 6am. Lunch, then, but no dinner. Or at least, not the languid French dinner that starts with an aperitif, ends with coffee and takes up most of the evening.

I have an outsized affection for cafés, restaurants and bistros of all stripes. Perhaps because I’m a Brit who swapped pub culture for café society, images of awning-shaded terraces, rattan seats, cluttered dining rooms and zinc bars are the first things that come to mind when I hear the word “Paris”. For me, there is barely any division between the two. Cafés and restaurants are Paris.

My wife has certainly noticed this. Reading my Covid-19 journal the other day, she remarked: “This is not about the pandemic at all. It’s about your relationship with restaurants.”

Or at the very least with food and drink. In my journal, “lunch” is no doubt one of the words that crops up the most. Possibly followed by “wine”. During the period when we had no choice but to eat lunch (there it is again!) at home, I’d meticulously note what was on our plates and the sensations it provoked.

It was lovely, eating together as a family every day. But still I missed my outings to restaurants. Part of the reassuring fabric of my life had been ripped away. In normal times, if you want to find me, I’m the bespectacled guy at the corner table, with a glass of wine and a book, happily waiting for his order to arrive.

Timeless destinations

Don’t get me wrong: I have no desire to be a food critic. I’m not that interested in Michelin-starred chefs and their exquisite, intricately prepared dishes. No, my addiction is to the typically Parisian places that have been around for years, serving more or less the same meals.

Brasseries a-gleam with brass and staffed by brusque waiters in black waistcoats and long aprons, swerving around one another in a choreography of balanced trays and wrangled flatware. There’s something swashbuckling about a garçon de café, as they were once called (they’re still mostly male, alas, but that’s changing). At peak hours their palatial yet democratic domains are packed to the gills and rattling with chatter.

Or how about the brasserie’s spatial inverse, the neighbourhood bistro? “Mom and pop” establishments, many of them. Square tables a bit too close together, the day’s specials chalked on a blackboard. Often you’re asked to keep your knife and fork after the starter. The carafe of wine is delivered before the water, along with a little basket of bread: a baguette chopped into unequal portions.

Talking of bread, one of the most French conversations I ever heard was between two businessmen, walking ahead of me on a sunny afternoon trottoir. Discussing their lunch destination, they were in disagreement. “No, we can’t go there,” said one, “the bread is really not good.”

And let’s not forget cafés, where you can down a quick coffee or linger over conversation. What’s the most French thing you can order? A citron pressé, I’d say: squeezed lemon juice in water, offered with a little tubular packet of sugar to temper the bitterness, should you require it.

In food as well as drink, my taste leans towards the classic. Timeless, no-nonsense dishes. Blanquette de veau. Boeuf Bourgignon. Fillet of sea bass with haricots verts. Magret de canard. Or my all-time favourite, steak-frites: unbeatable in its satisfying simplicity.

Wherever and whatever I eat, I tip well and return often. There are many places around town where they know my face. “Ah, welcome back, Monsieur. How is Madame? And your little boy?” I feel so at home that I’m often reluctant to leave. I linger over a second coffee, admiring the 19th century moulded ceiling or the lace half-curtains, conjuring scenarios about the other customers.

Gestures of support

These beloved places are in danger. They were in trouble before: menaced by fast food chains; gutted and transformed into sleek designer dens that could be anywhere. But the closures imposed on them have made them financially fragile — and some are close to extinction.

Which is why, in recent weeks, I’ve been trying to go to as many of them as possible. Le Village, a brief stroll from where I work in the 17th arrondissement, where the dish of the day seems to arrive five minutes after you order it, because people are on their lunch hour and need to get back. (Naturally, I’m among the last to leave.)

Le Syllon — named after a variety of wheat — on the corner of our street, where I’ll be heading for lunch in a moment. As well as the dishes mentioned above, it serves couscous, the princely North African staple that’s paradoxically one of the most Parisian meals there is. The owners are so friendly that I rarely manage to leave before a second glass of wine “offered by the house, m’sieur” has materialised at my elbow.

I could go on. My point is that these places must survive — they’re an integral part of French culture. The government has promised to support them with tax cuts and grants, but these may be slow to come through and too late when they kick in.

So in the meantime I’ll do my bit. Out of solidarity as well as pleasure, as long as my favourite restaurants remain open — and I’m still being paid, because nothing is certain right now — I’ll go to one of them for lunch. And I’ll always leave a big tip.