An American Revolution in Paris, again

New York Times editorial

by Ian Kelly, June 2005

I spent Last Bastille Day at a wedding in France. This is something of a Gallic tradition, getting hitched on the national holiday, not so much out of Love for Liberty or Equality as for the free fireworks. And this being a Franco-American marriage, there turned out to be fireworks a-plenty - not of the celebratory variety – but about the food.

A French Euro-bond dealer marries a Park Avenue princess in the setting of a chateau. Not bad as fairytales go: Beauty and the Big Swinging French Cheese. But if the marriage were as controversial as the food that day, it would now be over.

In the style made infamous at Daniel Boulud’s Bistrot Moderne here in New York, the guests were served burgers with foie gras. This turned out to be a perfect way to offend both the French and American guests: abusing two national dishes at once, and giving the impression to the Americans that their French hosts thought them only satiable with Big Macs.

I was reminded, as one cannot help but be on Bastille Day, that these two nations, born of almost contemporary revolutions, have a familial history of sibling quarrels – and like siblings, the conflicts are often as not about food.

Benjamin Franklin boasted that his All-American childhood meals – equal portions of hominy and homilies - had taught him an indifference to French food that allowed him to focus on higher things. Quite what he made of the catering at the Treaty of Paris is unrecorded – though Thomas Jefferson seems to have been as much in thrall to Sally Hemming’s brother, a French-trained chef, as to the sister. What is clear is that by the time James Fenimore Cooper was living in France in the 1830’s, gastronomy had become a national cult in France, and an American could only look on and wonder. By comparison, the Leatherstocking Saga writer opined, Americans seemed ‘the grossest feeders of any civilized nation known.’ Shortly afterwards, when Rossini was asked if he would tour America, the only rider he wanted on his contract was that ‘Carême comes with me.’ Antonin Carême, the first celebrity chef and founder of French haute cuisine had little good to say about American food, and grandly declined to come.

In the truest sense of revolution the world has turned full circle and now it is the French who look to America – in particular New York - for inspiration in all things culinary. Even, best whisper it, when it comes to French cooking. Such was the shocking thesis at the wedding last year from a French chef working in New York, but it turns out to be true.

When New York’s La Caravelle restaurant closed last month, the latest in a line of casualties in a war of attrition against the French old-guard, Mme Jammet lamented that ‘The notion of classic has come to mean outdated.’ Don’t think for a moment this could not have been said by any number of top French chefs and restaurant owners in Paris. In France too, the world of French cooking is changing, the ancien regime of grand old restaurants is coming to an end, and once again the revolution is in part inspired by the Americans.

French cooking has become international and Paris chefs now will have worked in New York, Sao Paulo, San Francisco, London. They pick up on what’s going on. And one thing that is going on in New York is the ascendancy of bistros and brasseries over starchier French restaurants. Balthazars, Pastis and Nice-Matin have all created menus and styles based on a dressed-down concept of Paris eating – and this in turn is being mirrored in Paris.  There seems to be little repining about this in France. Even grandmothers in Paris want to be à la mode - and the bistro food – regionally-inspired, seasonal, authentic - has remained top quality. Indeed many in France see it as a return to classical simplicity. What could be more in keeping with the higher ideals of the revolution? If anything the bistrofication of French restaurant culture has revivified France’s cultural gift to the world: its food.

In Paris there is still really no such thing as the ‘hot’ restaurant – this showbiz element of New York food culture is still viewed with suspicion. But many people seek less formal dining: real, beautifully cooked French food, but without the pressure to eat an entire five course meal. At the Plaza Athenée – one of the most Parisian Paris hotels (as featured in the last episode of Sex and the City) one can watch both the modern American in Paris – and the modern, American-influenced French chef. American visitors are clearly as passionate about food as the French – its part of what they are in Paris to do - and Parisians have rediscovered a different part of their culinary patrimony: lighter, simpler food and more relaxed restaurants.

Although classical elegance and formal dining is maintained at the old palaces of gastronomy like Taillevent, La Tour d’Argent, Le Grand Véfours or Les Ambassadeurs at the Crillon, their chefs have all worked in bistrots and brasseries as well, and the menus and restaurant interiors reflect their provenance. The Paris must-eat list nowadays is as likely to include Jean-Georges’ Market, Bofingers, Ducasse’s Aux Lyonnais or Voltaires and well established chalk-board eateries like Benoits and the Grand Colbert. And behind this is not just the dress-down revolution but a very American realisation that the highest standards are best maintained  through profitability. Alain Ducasse and Daniel Boulud, in France and New York respectively, have bistrot dining to counterpoint their more formal establishments. You simply can’t compete with the increased profitability of bistrot French catering: the menus are simpler, more gets sold and the staffing is simpler.

It has taken an American revolution in informal dining to revive an interest in classic, back-to-basics – we might even say ‘peasant’ French food. Vive la Revolution! The first wedding anniversary, by the way, will be spent at Payard’s bistrot on Lexington. I could recommend the foie gras, but the bride no longer eats it. Only, she tells me, because she is pregnant.

Ian Kelly’s book Cooking for Kings, the Life of Antonin Carême, 1783-1833, the First Celebrity Chef, is published by Walker and Co.

The stage adaptation, Cooking for Kings, A Restauration Comedy, returns to New York later this year after a sell out season during last month’s Brits Off Broadway Festival.

The CBS documentary on Cooking for Kings airs as part of Sunday Morning later this year.