Paris, april 2021,
It's been more than a year (march 15) that the restaurants have been closed down in France because of the pandemic and higher risk of transmission among unmasked people sharing the same rooms for a couple of hours. French restaurants were then allowed to partly reopen again in june 2020 before
having to shut down again on september 28 following
the up-and-downs of the pandemic. This have been a heavy blow for many of them, even with measures taken by the authorities to alleviate their burden (rents, fixed expenses, salaries). You can listen to a few reports and interviews made recently on the British-accented French network France 24 to understand how they suffer and tried to adapt to minimize the losses. We all hope that this economic sector which gets our cities alive and thriving will get through these troubled times, but we're expecting many closures, especially for the small operations with little financial backing.
To illustrate this hope in a grand way, I'm publishing here pictures I shot some 10 years ago at Pierre Gagnaire's flagship restaurant Le Balzac. It was an assignment job for a photo shoot I made for a third party at the time (that's why I didn't publish it on Wineterroirs), it featured Pierre Gagnaire preparing an entree dish in the kitchen, a dish I and the writer were going to have for lunch right there in the restaurant afterwards, quite a magic experience... I alas didn't take notes then [always take notes!], and of course I forgot what the recipe was all about, but I think it was seafood (possibly scallops) cooked with mushrooms, among other ingredients. Enjoy !
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