New French Restaurant Re-Creates the Look, Feel and Food of Nazi-Occupied Paris

Are you nostalgic for slipping through the blackout to the alley door, savoring haute rutabaga and other joys of dining out in Nazi-occupied Paris? Drop in at The Curfew.

Le Couvre-Feu ( The Curfew), as the “living theater” restaurant is known in French, is near Montmartre and does not let diners in through the blackened street door on Rue Philippe de Girard.

A young man in knickers and visored cap whispers: “Go around to the back alley.”

Inside, the ambience changes to what might be the set of a Jean Renoir film--zinc bar, photos of 1940s movie idols such as Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart, red banquettes, old black telephones.

Proprietors Lulu and Maurice, played by actors, rush forward to ask if you’ve had any trouble getting there. A kir, or white-wine cassis, appears on the bar.

Lulu is Catherine de Ville, who wears a flowery period dress but was born after the war. Edouard Bouzy, who plays Maurice, was born in 1938 and remembers little of the war years, except that “we rarely had good food to eat.”

They do a lively job of re-creating the Resistance atmosphere. They take orders, shout at their “children”--also actors--and occasionally break into song.

Their renditions of “A la Bastille” and “Rue Saint-Vincent” bring smiles or tears to customers old enough to remember the war. Many younger diners know the words well enough to join the singing.

Bouzy learned the prewar skill of rolling cigarettes, so a burned-out butt hangs from the corner of his mouth.

The restaurant, opened four months ago, is the idea of Roland Petitprez, who developed similar restaurants in Madrid.

“Every period has its own form of joie de vivre ,” said Petitprez, who was a little boy during the war. He remembers going to a restaurant much like the one he has made.

“We went after dark, when the curtains were closed, and we were able to eat treats like chicken and fried potatoes--the produce smuggled in by farmers,” Petitprez said.

An antique radio blared the music that signaled wartime news broadcasts of the British Broadcasting Corp. Hidden radios were turned on across France to hear how the Allies were doing.

Guests of Le Couvre-Feu chose more or less authentic food from the menu.

“Herring and potatoes are a period dish that I loved,” said a patron, Carla Acquanegra, who remembered growing up during the German occupation.

She pronounced the rabbit dish “delicious and quite true to tradition,” but noted that such food “really was scarce for people like my family. We didn’t have any relatives raising food in the country.”

Vegetables of the period included rutabaga, leeks and topinambours --Jerusalem artichokes, which were served so often during the war that Carla now tends to avoid them.

At one point in the evening, the lights went out, a loud knocking came at the door and an “idiot nephew” of Lulu and Maurice tumbled in, spilling ill-gotten “black market” goods on the floor to much scolding from Maurice.

The party resumed. Lulu sang Piaf-style. Some diners jitterbugged.

Jerome Mingueneau, the 30-year-old chef, emerged from his basement kitchen.

“I used a 1938 Cordon Bleu and other old cookbooks to re-create the traditional bourgeois and bistro styles,” he said. Mingueneau’s pate is from a 1796 recipe.

Carla chose creme caramel, a typical dessert of the period, but another guest had a rich chocolate mousse.

“There was absolutely no chocolate until the Liberation,” Carla said.

Customers pay the equivalent of $52.50 for the show and dinner. Those who prefer a quiet meal without the dramatics can have lunch for about $16.50.

Most patrons are French, but English and Americans come.

Even some Germans visit The Curfew. “They’re welcome here, and seem to like it,” Petitprez said.