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PARIS — When the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard made his first visit to New York, he was shocked by a sight that seemed to epitomize all that was wrong with this capital of the postmodern world – “a certain solitude like no other,” the spectre of adults eating meals all by themselves.
“It is the saddest sight in the world,” he remarked. “Sadder than destitution, sadder than the beggar is the man who eats alone in public.
“Nothing more contradicts the laws of man or beast, for animals always do each other the honour of sharing or disputing each other's food. He who eats alone is dead.”
This should give you a feel for how you'll be received when you walk into certain Paris eateries and request une table pour une. You won't get scorned or turned away, but you'll be given the sense – often for the entire evening – that there is something not quite right about you. The French, as the old cliché suggests, approach the dining experience as something akin to the act of lovemaking. So imagine how they feel when you set out to do it in front of them without a partner.
The Michelin rating system was designed for individual male business travellers. Escoffier had lone passengers in mind. But as Doug Saunders discovers, eating alone in Paris's top restaurants still guarantees a certain amount of scorn. (Randy Quan for The Globe and Mail)
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As a defiant solo diner, however, I refuse to let the vicissitudes of Paris dissuade me from enjoying a three-course dinner with only a paperback book as a companion. Nor should you.
Perhaps (like me) you are a business traveller who won't settle for mere room service in the city that gave us the restaurant. Or maybe (also like me) you're a pleasure-seeking misanthrope who would rather have an intimate relationship with your food, your waiter, your sommelier and the comforts of your own mind – free from the tyranny of company.
Either way, you should have strategies for finding that perfect one-person table on the banks of the Seine.
Lunch is no problem: Plenty of Parisians take their midday meal alone, these days even with a laptop computer (better brasseries and cafés now offer Wi-Fi).
But we're talking about proper dining here – a 9 p.m. repast cooked by artists at the top of their game in a memorable location and served by professional, deeply engaged staff. A big dinner can be a wonderful thing shared with a warm circle of friends; it can be even better by yourself.
And there the hazards begin: At brasseries, even the best ones, it's customary to stick solo diners in the middle of a long row of narrow tables, jammed elbow-to-elbow between couples enjoying gustatory intercourse. Or at proper restaurants they'll put you at a ridiculous corridor table facing a blank wall, lest your solitude dim the consumptive passions of the house.
It shouldn't be this way. After all, the Michelin star-rating system was designed for individual male business travellers, who in the last century were the main occupants of restaurants, even the better ones. When Escoffier transformed cooking into a grand scientific journey, it was with lone passengers in mind.
But something has happened to dining – something having to do with tourism and television and modern relationships – and the happy dialogue between diner and dish has turned into a busy ensemble piece.
So let me offer a few ways to bring back the lonely magic.
A TABLE FOR 80
Among people who dine alone regularly in Paris, there is something of a cult of the communal table – an institution that began in the 19th century as a way to provide decent food to the working classes and survives today as one of those charming underground secrets that keeps the city exciting.
The most authentic and lighthearted of these places, and the one with the most devoted following, is Chartier in Montmartre. Its huge, ornate dining hall takes no reservations; you show up and they put you at a simple table with other strangers, as they've been doing for 120 years.
Many of your companions will be visitors from other countries – this is a well-known place among travellers – and English is often spoken. And you can quickly make friends here. But it is also perfectly acceptable to open up a newspaper at your table, and many people do.
The waiter, a busy but efficient chap, writes your order on the paper tablecloth. What arrives is traditional French cooking at its most basic and unadventurous, usually executed absolutely perfectly – a real treat if you've had too many dried-up confits du
canard and over-buttered sole meunières.
In fact, their simple pot-au-feu, fragrant and rustic and full of pure flavours, reminds you why this stuff remains so popular. And you'll be challenged to spend more than $40 on a full dinner with wine and
dessert.
A far more refined version of this collective experience is Mon Vieil Ami, an austere, modern little place in the
middle of the Île St. Louis, opened five years ago by the Michelin-starred chef Antoine Westermann.
His food, based on the palates of Alsace, is truly spectacular and adventurous – made with superb ingredients and presented in gorgeous, often seemingly impossible arrangements. His warm mushroom salads, his scallops in rich and multi-layered endive sauces and his glazed duck breast have developed cultish followings; they are explosive, highly concentrated dishes, well worth being jammed into a long communal table.
As for the prices, they're stunningly low – under $75 for three courses with excellent wine.
And the lone diner is privileged, since two or more people will have a very hard time getting a reservation.
THE KING OF THE LONERS
The communal experience, however, is no substitute for actual solitude, the one-on-one meeting of diner and chef. And for this experience, we all must worship at the shrine of Joël Robuchon.
Before 2003, the idea of a Michelin-starred restaurant for single diners was unthinkable – big tables loaded with glassware were all that could be found at the two- and three-star level. L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, at the foot of the storied Pont Royal hotel in Saint Germain des Près, has changed all that by eliminating the table entirely.
In a dark, red-lacquered room with a strange 1980s vibe, diners sit at stools along a rectangular bar that surrounds the kitchen, where all the magical under-girdings of a two-star restaurant are in full view. The waiters act like blackjack dealers, dishing tiny courses, huge plates, and an excellent list of single-glass wines from behind the bar.
This place has caught on, with branches in London, New York and even Las Vegas, but only in the claustrophobic dining universe of Paris can its true impact be appreciated. Robuchon's eight-course tasting menu, for $175, is a good place to start, though you might want to order more (your one-person evening may have to appear on your expense claim as “dinner with five important officials”).
Robuchon's foie gras, for example, rendered crispy in a vaporous foam, is the best I've ever had. His version of boeuf bourguignonne, a single chunk of beef cooked all day in a deep and brooding sauce, is an unlikely delight. He does about eight amazing things with scallops. And the desserts – tiny and Swiss-watch intricate – make majestic journeys across your tongue.
The first time I ate at the Atelier, I sat engrossed in a magazine through several tiny courses until I heard the two men beside me giggling. They had come from Lyon on a foodies' pilgrimage to the great chef's cathedral, they said, and it seemed hilarious that this Anglais was diverting his attention away from the spectacular food to the printed page.
My second time, a big and somewhat dishevelled man took the seat beside me and immediately lost himself in a paperback novel.
He spoke quietly to the waiters, who brought him huge plates of strange items that weren't on the menu, and he offered them discreet comments. I smiled with approval, awed by this grand display of epicurean self-assurance.
Only after he'd left, over cognac, did I realize that my neighbour had been Joël
Robuchon.
That moment of affirmation reminded me of an interview I once read with Mavis Gallant, the great Canadian short-story writer.
She moved to Paris in 1950, after discovering that women could not be served alone in North America, even at New York's Algonquin Hotel. On her first day in her new home, she went into the legendary brasserie La Coupole, sat down by herself, and witnessed a new world.
“Across the aisle from me was a woman of about 35, on her own, very good-looking, and I guess she was a journalist,” she told interviewer Peter Terzian.
“She had a pile of the evening newspapers and she was reading them as she ate. I still remember: She had oysters, she had half a bottle of white wine and then she had a fruit tart – I think strawberry or raspberry.
“And nobody bothered her. She just read and she read, and nobody said to her, ‘Are you waiting for someone, Madame?' And she paid and she left. And I thought: This is paradise.”
Doug Saunders is a member of The Globe and Mail's European bureau.
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