Does smoking interfere with enjoying meal?

Question: Judging from your reviews, you’ve spent a lot of time in France exploring probably some of the world’s top restaurants. As a nonsmoker and native Californian who has also traveled in France, I’ve always wondered how the French can reconcile their love of haute cuisine and their passion for smoking before, during and after dining. I have always found it hard to truly taste the food in a classically smoky Parisian bistro.

Emily Arms

Santa Monica

Virbila: Smoking is much less prevalent than it used to be. Lots of restaurants have nonsmoking dining rooms now. And even in Italy, smoking isn’t tolerated as much as it used to be. Cigars make me crazy, but cigarettes -- maybe because I grew up with a father who smoked -- are more just interference, like loud talkers or an air-conditioner: part of the ambience.

When I heard Giacomo Tachis, the enologist who developed Antinori’s Tignanello among many others, had stopped smoking, I asked him if he could taste better now, hoping his answer would encourage my husband to stop smoking. Tachis shrugged and said, quite honestly, no. He didn’t taste any better because his palate was accustomed to the smoke and he simply tasted through it.

And I think that’s what the French do. Taste through it.

I don’t think it makes for the best tasting experience, but it’s there. That’s what it is. And traditionally smoking has been part of the entire dining experience. Just like the perfume that women wear, which, if you think about it, interferes with the full appreciation of a wine.

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