Big Groups

For the first time we have the pleasure of visiting here with family.  It's a pleasure, of course, having the opportunity to share everything we love here, but one new wrinkle has been visiting restaurants in groups of nine or ten.  Parisian restaurants aren't particularly set up for it, and the French formality about dining precludes the kind of "just pull a couple of tables together" attitude that we expect at home, except in very high end restaurants.  Plus we are inevitably a diverse group, from fifteen year olds on up, some of us speak French and others don't, there are varying levels of pickiness vs. try-anything attitudes, somewhat different budgets, the whole range.

I have found that for better or worse, showing up in a big group intensifies the inevitable tension between French and American attitudes.  At best, it has gone perfectly:  last night we ate at a favorite of ours called Josephine, "Chez Dumonet".  This place is at least medium sized, so it can accommodate a group, and it does quite a bit of tourist business, so people there are pretty accustomed to dealing with Americans.  The style is a little less formal than other places, in a way that reminds me of a fairly fancy steak place in New York.  They are serious about their food, but the waiters are jovial and jokey, making fun of our French, bringing the kids wine.  They do, though, have an edge:  the last time we were here with just the family, they were slow brining the water, so I kept asking, and apparently I was asking the wrong guy, who just under no circumstances was going to bring us water.  Finally, trying to joke, I said, s'il vous plait, monsieur, could you bring us some water and he bristled visibly.  Last night some Americans came into the restaurant, speaking near perfect French, but stood around their table socializing for a bit, getting in the way of the waiter, who eventually snapped at them.  In good French style they snapped right back and there was a little altercation, but it eventually settled down and they ate.  Anyway, the waiters were great with our group, hobnobbing about wine with our official wine-picker who speaks no French, figuring out some complicated portion sharing, joking with the kids and generally staying cheerful.  And the food as always was great, hearty and fun.  They have old-fashioned beef bourgignon, huge portions of foie gras.  Carol had veal liver, cut in an inch-thick slice and grilled crispy on the outside, still rare within.  Eden had chateaubriand, an inch and a half thick, cooked seignant (bloody) with what for right now I will call the best roast potatoes I have ever eaten.  They were sliced and roasted crispy in what I think was duck fat, so the good thing is that they were also healthy.  I had beef tartare, probably a half a pound of freshly ground filet mignon that the waiter brought out first and prepared next to the table, with a raw egg, white and green onion, tobasco and worcestishire, capers and mustard.  Then they brought out three Grand Marnier souffles with little glasses of Grand Marnier to pour over them, and three Napoleans (mille feuilles) that were the best mille feuilles I have ever eaten.  I am still full, some twenty hours later.

Things didn't go so well at another favorite of ours, L'Antre Amis.  This is a beautiful restaurant in the fifteenth, where Carol ate the last time we were here by ourselves.  One of the attractions is that they have a very reasonable prix fixe menu, for I think 32 euros.  But it comes with no choice for the first course, that night they were serving foie gras (surprise!) and one of the group doesn't like foie gras.  So, we asked, can he be brought something else, and our waitress said no, but we could be assured that other things come on the plate.  So, we asked, could they give him a few additional of the extra things, and once again, no.  She explained, dead serious, that the chef wouldn't think that the plat looked "correct" if it didn't have the goie gras on it.  Now I understand that a set menu is a set menu, and they are not in the business of making a lot of substitutions that would undermine the whole concept.  But all the waitress had to do was say, sure, we will give you a little extra whatever, put a freaking wedge of cheese on the plate, and everyone is happy.  But no, so we wind up with a PO'd family member and generally bad vibes.  To me, what it made clear is that they had the foie plates premade in the kitchen, and didn't have anyone to screw around with a custom plate.  And magic-wise, once something like that happens it is hard for the evening to recover.

So the message is, if you are traveling in France with family or colleagues, be aware that big groups heighten the difficulties of negotiating the two cultures.  When things go well it's a party, a happy convivial evening.  But the French don't understand our manners when we are in a big group, and without meaning to we stretch them to the limits of their physical and cultural resources.