So I went to France and the food was bad

Restaurants in France are mediocre at best. Fight me, Frenchies

On Saturday 2 July my husband and I packed up our car with our two dogs and the thirteen year old boy, and began what would be our first proper holiday all together in six years. We drove south to Dublin, then crossed the Irish Sea, then drove through the night through Wales then England and presented ourselves at the Channel train crossing in Kent, exhausted but eagerly anticipating our arrival in France. Once there, we hoped, we would feast on delicious food and enjoy the small towns and less-travelled byways of a country that my husband — as a chef — has long considered a Mecca of sorts.

Well, we were wrong on all counts. Very wrong. But we had a tremendous adventure nonetheless.

I’m almost afraid to say this, as if I’m going to sound like a spoiled American princess or I’m going to go viral and enrage the French nation and get death threats, but holy shit, the food in France was terrible. And I mean — across the board terrible, as bad as you would expect in the UK, where bad food is a national characteristic.

Lest I sound too ungracious, I will start by saying we had two or three very good meals in the four weeks we were there. And we visited some stunningly beautiful villages and I drank a lot of great wine. But our quest to experience a rural French idyll was so thwarted at every turn, restaurant-wise, that it became quite hilarious and we began to enjoy it. The frustration became the charm, kind of like Fawlty Towers.

Our first failed attempt to have a decent lunch happened our first day, in Picardy. We drove through empty village after empty village, all extremely picturesque but devoid of any commerce, or even any people. Eventually finding a big enough town, I tried two different restaurants but was rejected by both of them, on the grounds that they were full. Thankfully, after being summarily dismissed by the French, there was a small, unassuming Moroccan place that welcomed us and fed us a mountain of cous cous, chicken and vegetables. It was a Sunday, so I put it down to that and made a note to never arrive unprepared on a Sunday in rural France again.

A few days later, in Brittany, I began to sense that it wasn’t just a Sunday thing.  After an incredible walk to Mont St Michel (once of the most beautiful places I have ever been to), we tried to have lunch in St Malo. On the internet, I found a restaurant that looked like the kind of spot where locals would go to have a decent, no-fuss, authentic meal. We parked up, and noting that there were tables available and it was only 1:30 and therefore should be in the clear, I walked in and confidently asked to be seated.

“Mais non,” came the definitive reply from the hostess, who seemed taken aback that I had even had the temerity to ask, as if I had walked in to her restaurant and asked her to give me a pedicure. Trying very hard not feel insulted, we skulked back to the touristy town we were staying in, where at all hours the restaurants pumped out overcooked, overpriced seafood and my son had a Croque Monsieur that looked like it originated in the toaster of a budget airline. On our final night in the town, my son’s spaghetti bolognese had a fly buried deep in it. We sent the bowl back, only to have it returned to us freshly microwaved, sans fly. 

Tourism! We surmised. It was just the fault of the touristy spot we were staying in. Brian and I reassured each other that once we arrived in the wine region of Bordeaux or in the mountains near Spain, it would be a different story altogether.

 To quote the waitress in St Malo however, ‘mais non.’ It became something of a game to see if we could convince any non-touristy French restaurants to take our money and give us food in return. It was a game we mostly lost. 

We spent a weekend in the Pyrenees in a tiny village called Osse-en-Aspe (see also my dispatch last week), which was a stunningly beautiful place. Nestled in a valley with sharp mountain peaks rising dramatically above bright green pastured hillsides, the stone chalet homes sit atop one another with rich purple and pink flowering vines running up the walls between them. I thought I had arrived in heaven. It was fiercely hot, even as high up as we were, but the cold mountain river was there as a respite. There were incredible looking sheep that were herded through the village, and in the bigger town a few miles away a woman ran a cheese shop made from their milk. I asked her if they area got many tourists. “Non,” she replied with a shrug. I failed to pick up on the signal. In fact, I swore I could smell the aroma of lamb roasting on a wood fire, and I thought I might just fall in love with this place. Turns out, it was just wishful smelling. 

Me, searching optimistically for a restaurant that would serve us food

The afternoon we arrived in Osse — after a crazy drive up and then down almost 7,000 feet of Col du Tourmalet — I quickly noted that there was only once commercial enterprise in the village, and it appeared to be some kind of fitness studio outside of which a few people stood smoking. After that, it appeared closed. There was no Bar Tabac, no boulangerie, but — happy days! — there was a restaurant! Not wanting to make the same foolish assumption as we had in Picardy — that you could get a meal in a French restaurant, willy nillly, on a Sunday — I made a reservation for a Sunday lunch. I had high hopes.

The sheep that I hoped would be on the menu in the only restaurant in Osse en Aspe.

Reader, those hopes were dashed. Instead of my imagined roasted lamb from the nearest hillside and an interesting wine list, we got freezer cauliflower and a pork chop from the local supermarket. The choice of wine? Red or white, origins unknown. The extremely brusque older gentleman who served us seemed quite put out when our main courses landed at our table before we had a chance to finish our starters. We giggled like naughty school boys at his evident annoyance at our inconsiderate slow eating. At two o’clock on the nose, three young people appeared in the door. They sheepishly asked if it was too late to be fed — I held my breath in the tension of the moment. Would they be seated, at this hour? The waiter showed them his watch, now at one minute past the hour, and pointedly told them, “We are not Spanish, you know!” The few customers in the otherwise empty restaurant dropped their cutlery awaiting the outcome of this high stakes decision. There was nothing else to eat, for miles and miles. Something about the kids must have tugged at the grumpy waiter’s heartstrings, because, despite the late hour and his ill-disguised irritation at their sudden arrival, he let them in. Boy, did he regret that! As he walked them to their table, and the rest of us turned back to chewing our dry pork chops, I heard him suddenly exclaim in horror “pas de viande, pas de poisson!”¹ The late-arriving customers were vegans! Sacre bleu! The audacity! This despite the fact the starter was made up entirely of vegetables, so there was definitely food on premises to feed them. 

At this point, all the other customers simply erupted in laughter, as the waiter, despairing, headed straight to the bar, poured himself a drink, knocked it back and then sank his head into his hands. Feeding a few tables a set menu lunch with no wine list had simply been too much for this restaurant professional.

We had two very good meals in France: in a Sardinian restaurant in Bordeaux and in a Catalan restaurant in Perpignan. Take that, French culinary notions! 

The most memorable of all our meals in France, and it was Italian.

Everywhere we went up until the final week, the heat was oppressive and air conditioning non-existent. Each Airbnb was hotter than the last, no matter how how up in the mountains we were. I was able to get some relief in the evenings, sitting outside, but husband and son were feasted upon by mosquitoes. While all our Airbnb hosts were welcoming and hospitable (though innocent of any concept of indoor cooling systems, overall, the entire nation gave off a vibe of irritated surprise at the presence of visitors. Kind of like, we had all arrived unexpectedly and at a very inconvenient time for them, and all the restaurant staff were doing what they could to accommodate our annoying demands for food.

The highlight of the trip for the males in our party occurred in the fancy Cote d’Azure town of Juan les Pins — name checked in that wonderfully terrible 1969 song ‘Where do you go to my lovely’ — where we went to visit Brian’s son. I was convinced, against my better judgement, to take part in a speedboat expedition in which a rubber raft is pulled along at great speed while its passengers cling to the handles, holding on for grim death, while being whipsawed over the water. While the boys — a twenty-something, a forty-something and a teen — encouraged the speedboat to go ever faster, somehow — I still don’t know how, because I swear I did not let go — I simply took flight. One bounce too many, and I ended up slamming into the Med. It was as if I was a tiny beetle that had been picked up and then flicked away by a mean child. Thankfully only my pride was bruised, but my son and husband, once it had been ascertained that I was not hurt—  never laughed harder in their lives. For days after, they kept returning to it, the sight of my feet up in the air and then, poof! — gone. Despite — or perhaps because of — my increased girth thanks to all those mediocre frites and highly drinkable wine — my husband tried to salve my embarrassment by saying I only bounced off the boat because of my light and dainty frame. Nice try, honey.

Our final week was spent in Paris. No matter how many times I visit I never fail to be gobsmacked by its funky beauty. How are the people of Paris so stylish, so gorgeous? I marvel at the women in particular, all flowing scarves and wide-legged pants and impractical shoes, weaving through the crazy traffic on bikes, often smoking, always without a drop of sweat or any apparent fear of getting any of their long, loose, couture garments caught in the spokes of their bike and being crushed under an oncoming bus. How do they do it?

Last night my son and I arrived in Italy. At the hotel, the room was air conditioned, the staff could not do enough for us and we were fed dinner at nine pm, on a Sunday, in a restaurant, without a reservation. The word ‘no’ was never spoken. 

And immediately, I relaxed.

1. translation: “no meat, no fish!”