He’ll always have Paris

I fell in love with France -- and the French -- on my first trip to Paris in 1975. Over the next 26 years, I returned 22 times, and my fondness for all things French grew stronger each time, fueled largely by my zeal for French food and wine. In fact, France is largely responsible for the passion I feel for the entire dining experience.

But now I fear my love affair with France is over. It’s not because I think the French should have supported President Bush’s war in Iraq (I don’t), and it’s not because I’ve suddenly come to share some of my fellow Americans’ belief that the French are rude and anti-American (I’ve never found them to be either).

No, it’s the stunning, mind-numbing cost of most restaurant meals in France these days.

On my most recent trip, traveling with my wife and our 14-year-old son, we repeatedly found ourselves gasping at the prices when we opened our menus.

At the Michelin three-star Georges Blanc, in the small Burgundy town of Vonnas, the least expensive appetizer, frogs’ legs, cost $48. Desserts were more than $30 apiece. The three big, multicourse tasting menus ranged from $190 to $280 per person (plus wine).

I’d eaten at Blanc six times previously, dating back to 1979, without ever suffering such sticker shock.

Eating well is an expensive hobby -- my wife prefers the word “obsession” -- but as a working stiff, not a personal injury lawyer, Wall Street tycoon or cyberspace gazillionaire, it’s my only extravagance, both here and abroad. I drive a 10-year-old car and live in a house that’s fully paid for, and I’m no clotheshorse. I pay for my own meals -- no freebies and no Times subsidy (unless I’m interviewing someone in a restaurant for a column) -- so I’ve never really been able to afford to eat in the best two- and three-star restaurants in France. But I’ve done it anyway, many times, on every trip.

I’ve been able to justify those high-priced meals, at least in my own mind, by using frequent-flier miles to get free plane tickets, by finding modestly priced hotels and rental cars, and by being reasonably thrifty throughout the year.

But those economies, alas, no longer suffice.

The right side of the menu

Despite our best attempts to hold fine-dining costs down on our last trip -- only four high-end dinners in 17 days, looking carefully at the right side of the menu before ordering, skipping the multicourse tasting menus we’ve usually ordered, skipping luxury ingredients like lobster, truffles and foie gras, ordering the least expensive wines on the list -- our average cost for those meals was more than $600 per dinner.

That’s about 30% more than we paid three years ago, when we did enjoy tasting menus, foie gras and more expensive wines.

We also skipped the cheese course several times this year, an act I’ve always regarded as a crime against nature. Cheese is one of the great glories of French cuisine -- and French culture. Saying “Pas de fromage ce soir” (“No cheese tonight”) to a French waiter, especially in a high-end restaurant, is like taking a tour of Washington, D.C., and telling your guide you don’t want to visit the White House or the Washington Monument. But at prices ranging up to $37 per person for the nightly cheese tray -- well, we decided we’d risk being dismissed as ignorant Americans.

Thus, it wasn’t just what we spent this time that shocked us. It was what we would have spent if we’d ordered this year as we have in the past in France -- or as we routinely order in the best restaurants here.

If we’d dined as we normally do, we would have been hard-pressed to keep most of those bills under $1,000.

Equally depressing, the quality of most of these meals seems to have declined in recent years even as prices have skyrocketed. Of the four two- or three-star dinners this time, only one -- at Marc Meneau’s L’Esperance in the tiny Burgundy village of St.-Pere-sous-Vezelay -- was superb.

None of the other three was as good as any number of dinners I’ve had in the United States in the past year -- at Spago, Sona, Valentino and Patina in the L.A. area; at the French Laundry in the Napa Valley; at Per Se, Daniel and Le Bernardin in New York; and at Trio outside Chicago -- all for considerably less money.

And despite a few excellent individual dishes, most of the other dinners we had in France -- at restaurants with one or no Michelin stars -- were inferior to (and far more expensive than) most of the dinners I routinely have here in Los Angeles.

I can recall, in particular, two dinners at one-star restaurants in Provence -- one at Auberge La Feniere in Lourmarin, the other at Le Phebus in Joucas. Our tab topped $400 both nights -- about 35% more than we paid for better one-star meals (and lesser wines) three years ago.

Plumbing the depths

Phebus, with its slow service and several truly silly dishes, was particularly offensive. One amuse bouche was a tin cup filled with stale, tasteless popcorn. One dessert was -- I kid you not -- a swirl of cotton candy on a wooden stick. One course, called oeufs a la plat (eggs on a plate), was a scoop of beer sorbet (serving as the “yolk”) in a pool of coconut milk (the “white”).

Trust me -- it was even worse than it sounds.

The dollar has plunged in value versus the euro over the last year, and that certainly contributed significantly to my sense of impending impoverishment when I paid each check. Stiffer government regulations, increased operating costs and a decline in tourism, especially from the U.S., have also contributed to rising restaurant prices in France. And, to be fair, the greatly improved quality of food in the better restaurants in this country in recent years has raised both my standards and my expectations when I go to France.

But I still go there primarily to eat. Yes, I love the language and the people and the beautiful countryside, and I enjoy wandering from charming village to splendid Gothic cathedral to treasure-filled museum to breathtaking vista. But truth to tell, I’m always thinking about that night’s dinner. With only astronomical prices, rather than consistently superb food, to look forward to, France loses much of its appeal for me.

I hope this state of affairs is only temporary. But I’m not optimistic.

I think we’ll go to Italy or southern Spain next year. Or maybe we’ll just stay here.

David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com. To read previous “Matters of Taste” columns, please go to latimes.com/shaw-taste.