This article was also published in the Financial Times.
In conversation with Pascal Aussignac (pictured), the chef/proprietor of Club Gascon in London's Smithfield, I was amazed to hear him utter a phrase that I never thought I would hear from a Frenchman. 'The problem is, Nick, that we French just can't do sexy.'
He was not, of course, referring to the French nation as a whole but to the fact that French chefs are no longer considered to be the most admired or respected. In any world poll, the best French chefs lag behind a Spaniard, Ferran Adrià at El Bulli; a Dane, René Redzepi at Noma, Copenhagen; and even an Englishman, Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck. Nor do French chefs even have the satisfaction of running London's busiest restaurants. These are Hakkasan, Nobu and Zuma – all Asian.
On the increasingly important screen, the relatively sedate pace of French cooking lacks the immediacy of something prepared over a flaming wok. And while the all-important spices and aromas are there, they can be less obvious in French cuisine than even in Italian restaurants, whose popularity in New York seems to be unremitting, according to Tim and Nina Zagat, recently in London to launch their 2011 guide and to eat grouse at the River Café.
Aussignac's 'non-sexy' theory is not strictly borne out by recent London openings, however, as some of the most impressive are French. Bar Boulud, Bistrot Bruno Loubet and Koffmann's are undoubtedly three of the best. Anthony Demetre and Will Smith are about to build on the success they have achieved with Arbutus and Wild Honey by opening the very French-sounding Les Deux Salons in Covent Garden on 16 October. And 11 new branches of Côte, the keenly priced French bistro, will open around the UK this year. Has familiarity simply bred contempt? Is French food now too popular to be sexy?
Part of the answer was provided for me by the arrival of a copy of At Elizabeth David's Table shortly after my encounter with Aussignac. This is an excellent collection of the very best everyday recipes David introduced British cooks to during the 1950s and which have subsequently graced many British homes and restaurants. (Between 19 and 23 October Sally Clarke will be cooking a range of these dishes at her restaurant Clarke's in London W8.)
Elizabeth David, with whom I had the pleasure of sharing many meals, would have poured scorn on the supposition that dishes could be sexy or not, just as she poured scorn on chefs who believed that they had the right to deviate from a classic recipe. Her overriding belief was that any recipe, simple or complicated, must be correct and, as her former editor Jill Norman points out in her introduction to this book, served 'without extravagance or pretension'. These are not qualities that make for memorable sound bites or for brief cooking demonstrations on TV or YouTube.
But if David, a great Francophile, were to conduct one of the trips round France today that inspired so many of her recipes, she would undoubtedly find it much more difficult than she did 60 years ago as the French have been singularly responsible for the decline in their own culinary reputation.
The most significant factor in this has been the introduction of the 35-hour working week by the former Socialist government, a piece of legislation which bears no relationship to how people work in the hospitality industry.
During the summer, Jean-Michel Cazes, the cosmopolitan proprietor of Château Lynch Bages in the Médoc and of the nearby Hôtel Cordeillan-Bages with its two-Michelin-star restaurant, simply laughed when I asked him how he enjoyed being a restaurateur. 'It's impossible for it to be profitable with the current legislation as we have to close on Saturday lunch and all day Monday and Tuesday. It's depressing just looking at my empty restaurant let alone realising what it is costing.'
And while this significant change has taken place behind the scenes, one aspect of French restaurant life that has barely changed at all are the names and faces of the chefs at the top.
While Ferran Adrià's decision to retire aged 50 in July 2011 will allow one of several young Spanish chefs to take his place, there seems to be no such movement in France. Paul Bocuse, now in his mid 80s, still casts his shadow over many of Lyons' restaurants. Alain Ducasse, having scaled Michelin's culinary heights, has expanded his empire into bistros, as has Guy Savoy and not just in Paris. And Joël Robuchon, the most highly regarded of all, not only announced his retirement but then promptly went back to work to open L'Atelier du Robuchon in Paris, which proved so successful that branches have opened all over the world. With little movement at the top, what incentive is there for any young, aspiring French chef, sexy or not?
Yet the longevity of these chefs may just provide the new platform French cuisine currently needs. In 1991 a CBS 60-minute programme highlighted the 'French paradox', where a diet high in fat and coupled with a high consumption of wine led to a remarkably low incidence of heart disease compared with its American counterpart. Today, French cooking may not be seen as sexy but it does seem to be very good for those who have spent years practising it. It can only be even better for those who enjoy eating it.