A Little Bit of Table Talk From Paris

The restaurant business is a bit dim in the City of Light this season. I’ve written before in these pages about how it has been mostly American customers who have been keeping many of France’s best and priciest restaurants alive in recent years. Now, of course, with the weak dollar, even Americans aren’t bellying up to the banquette much anymore.

This winter, for instance, I was able to reserve a good table at Paris’ once-jammed Le Trou Gascon with only three or four hours’ notice on a Wednesday night; I even got a table at Taillevent for Friday lunch on Wednesday evening! The legendary brasserie La Coupole has been sold to Jean-Paul Bucher, who has made a career lately of buying and renovating historic brasseries and bistros. (His other properties include Brasserie Flo, Chez Julien and Le Vaudeville.) Another old-line establishment of some repute, Drouant (far more famous for some decades as the jury chambers for the Prix Goncourt literary prize than as a place to eat), is fast regaining its ancient gastronomic glory under the culinary direction of James Baron . . . . Arnaud Daguin, son of famed Gascon chef Andre Daguin of the Hotel de France in Auch, has taken over the kitchen at Prunier Madeleine in Paris’ first arrondissement. . . . Mark Singer, the American-born chef profiled by Ruth Reichl two years ago when he was working at Les Glenan in the 7th, has moved to La Petite Cour in the 6th. . . .

Another American chef in France, Avallon’s Hotel de la Poste chef, Bob Waggoner (whom I wrote about recently myself), earned a 15/20 rating in the 1988 edition of the Guide Gault-Millau. . . . And a little juice bar and sandwich shop in the Galerie de la Madeleine, called Fringale, is cocking its snoot at its next-door neighbor, the pricey and pretentious (albeit sometimes quite wonderful) Alain Senderens Lucas-Carton, with a signboard reading, “At Our Place You Can Find the Nouvelle Cuisine . . . in Sandwich Form, for 17 Francs.”

IF IT’S TASTY, THIS MUST BE BELGIUM: Belgium is to French fries what Italy is to pasta, Spain to bullfighting and Los Angeles to basketball--home of the best, period. The old story was that Belgian fries-- pommes frites-- owed their perfect texture and vague sweetness to the fact that they were fried in horse fat. I doubt that this is true anymore--if it ever was--but whatever the secret is, the frites you find in Belgium really are extraordinary. And now, the Belgian government has introduced legislation that forbids the sale of greasy or overcooked fries or those reheated in boiling water. The government action follows revelations by a Belgian consumer group that six out of 10 portions of frites purchased at random from local vendors were substandard. Officials now promise to spot-check frites sellers. Offenders risk being fined as much as $25,000!

SIDE ORDERS: One of Los Angeles’ great recent restaurant success stories, the California Pizza Kitchen mini-chain, is expanding yet again. With three locations open in this area and one each in Honolulu and Atlanta, the proprietors have announced that a sixth unit will open in July in Chicago. . . . Jesse Chavez, maitre d’hotel at Musso & Frank’s in Hollywood since about the time the wheel was invented, has retired. His longtime associate, Philip Cano, will assume his duties.