I’m not a great fan of the trad French menu but understand it totally. It’s not my thing but in our nearest Les Halles, the oyster and seafood is divine, atmosphere incredible and totally ‘to do’ on a Saturday.
Cheap as chips too…a dozen oysters from Sete plus some ‘wine’ less than 10 euros.
I have already read it and noted (at the time) that it was talking about “perhaps capping” in large cities and it quoted Biarritz (again…).
I’ve not heard of “capping” being put in place, certainly not in our part of rural France. As I have already mentioned, new places have opened in recent weeks (according to our local Press) although I’ve no idea if they’ve suffered in the ghastly floodings we’ve been having.
For us, good food in France is less common than it was when we started to come regularly to France, but things do change, and tastes change. Where we are, we have an experience probably closer to @DrMarkH . Our village doesn’t have a restaurant but many neighbouring villages do. Many have been there for a long time, and the newer ones (our closest is only three years old) have to work hard, and serve good food at a reasonable price to survive. Although we have to drive to have lunch out there is a fair choice within 15 minutes drive and we are rarely disappointed. The larger towns further away have more choice but you rarely see fast food here outside of Carcassonne except for a few pizza vans. I’m happy with the variety and quality of restaurants available in my locality, and I can be fussy. And further away, Carcassonne does have some really good restaurants for lunch or dinner in all price ranges. I’m booked into a particularly good one for lunch tomorrow. Not too expensive mind.
Our nearest was managed by a man and his mum but he retired. The restaurant is funded at least in part by the local communes and still with that subsidy they cannot turn out a decent lunch.
I wish the BIL that first moved over had instead gone to Italy.
Our village now has just the one restaurant, mostly pizzas, or otherwise the usual meat feast bistro cuts, served with the usual veg - spuds in various shapes and sizes, but mostly frites, and carrots, cabbage, peas etc - nothing exotic or awe inspiring. Oh and frogs legs, and friture very occasionally. The pizzas are OK, the rest, ho hum. The other bar which served snacks in the centre of the village shut down a while ago due to some administrative issues and hasn’t reopened since.
The nearest half decent meat/fish based restaurant is 8 km away, but as with so many things food-related in rural France, it knows nothing about vegetarian cooking. The struggle is real, and we are inclined as a couple not to eat out simply because there is generally nothing worthwhile or interesting for my wife. Maybe the vast majority of French diners are perfectly happy with burgers and chips, and ironically this is what I tend to find in the UK and Ireland too. It seems that convenience has trumped creativity and imagination, so the fact that so many are closing doesn’t come as a surprise. The whole made with ingredients sourced in France, or locally, and prepared from scratch campaigns seem to have gone out the window, as the requirements for high turnover in order to make a profit don’t sit well with long preparation times. Probably, I’m just too old, grumpy, and fed up with being served unimaginative dishes at a price tag that beggers belief.
In our part of rural Normandy the village has a choice of one restaurant. Happily the current owners know what they are doing…though to preserve some work life balance they make it work by basing it on the french workers lunch and have limited evening opening.
We have seen a number of recent but predictable disasters nearby:
I think the premise of the piece is correct as there have been several articles in both the French and UK press over the last year or so saying the same thing. Globally, food has become expensive, more people now work from home and the younger generations are now wedded to fast food and food deliveries so is it any real surprise restaurants are struggling?
Wine consumption in France has also fallen drastically over the last 20 years and that must have an impact on restaurant profitability.
Pretty much the norm in Bretagne too. I often used to go and meet OH and his employees if they were working not too far from home and have a workman’s lunch with them as we had to pay for lunches so had accounts at several restos as most firms do/did. Best one was at the Nuclear Power plant at Brennilis which has been decommissioned since the 80’s and was being dismantled very very slowly by EDF but some enterprising people had set up a proper resto for the workers and knew they would have customers for many years to come
I’m pleased you write that as it was what I was thinking. Stella is usually a thoughtful poster!
I do try to be a thoughtful poster… and I did read the links before replying .
Sometimes outside pressures get the better of me and I have to let off steam.
apologies to all.. but I find blanket coverage ( eg Decline of The French Restaurant) not to be totally correct. As I said.. the articles seem to home in on cities, not that elsewhere is necessarily thriving.. finances are stretched throughout..
France is a big place and in my area we do have new eating places opening (not just the ghastly MacDo’s) where the Owner/Chef is proud to provide trusted French cuisine at affordable prices and using local products.
EDIT: Things might be very, very different “after the flood”. so much damage to homes and businesses…aaaargh.
But it is though Stella if you look at the facts, where you are restaurants might be doing okay but nationally dozens are closing every week.
You are a great defender of France and the French way of life but in many areas things are changing and not for the better. When we had our holiday home in the early 2000’s you’d struggle to find a ready meal in the supermarkets but now there’s aisle after aisle of frozen and chilled convenience food that people are addicted to. Persuading people to ditch that c**p and eat proper cooked food in a local restaurant is nigh on impossible and will only get worse.
I tend to explode in my head when I read blanket statements like “The British” or “The French”.
Whereas I wouldn’t “explode” if the statement said "Many British or Many French or even Some British/Some French… I would possibly/probably nod in agreement 
Anyway… let’s all breathe a sigh of relief (if we can) as that means we are alive 
I had this explained to me by a charming Frenchman yesterday and I was trying to tell him the corresponding phrase in English but words failed me 
and no, I’d not been on the tipple.
Happy Thursday Everyone !
There is an Institute de Gastronomie along the coast from here and if you watch Ici Tout à Commence every evening you will know what it is. The current waiting list for a table is around a year or more for the public to sample a meal at their restaurant manned and catered by the students who also learn hotel keeping, bar keeping as well as high end cuisine. Family went a few years ago now and enjoyed the experience but there was only a set menu to keep the costs down for clients and institute but they said they enjoyed what they were served.
I was very disappointed that the Popeye’s that opened in Agen only lasted about 6 months as they actually some spicy heat into their food.
I will never understand the premise of anyone who thinks that this was a sound business idea…obviously, there’s probably more to it than just the language barrier, but business acumen would also seem to have been lacking in that case, and not just “persistent headwinds”.
Many years ago, a French couple took on a local resto/bar.
I went to their grand opening.
Wiping my mouth after enjoying superb moules etc, I was congratulating her on this surely being a profitable “moules et frites” evening… the place was packed… and she admitted that she had no idea what profit she might make.
But how did you decide how much to charge per head ???
Oh well, no-one will pay more than blah blah… was her reply.
I spoke with her gently (fearing I’d misunderstood) and discovered that she had no idea how much the moules were costing “as we haven’t paid for them yet”.
Plus she had no idea how to figure out overheads etc etc to include in the price (you experts will know about this sort of thing.)
She’d just thought of a low figure to charge per head.. to attract clients.
They were pleasant enough, very enthusiastic and they’d thought it would be easy…
Of course, when the bills came dropping in, they realised their mistake.
They came a cropper within just a few months, when they handed the keys back and walked away.
Oh dear, sounds clueless.
Our bar/resto has closed again. The most recent incumbents have been trying to make a go of it for four years but just could not find the winning formula - the bottom line is the village is a bit too small to sustain it.
A formerly popular resto used by lots of trades at lunchtime and filled to capacity in summer months was taken over by another family, within 6 months closed, friends reported food was terrible. New owners again 6 months, shocking food, they served one of our friends a large fish finger that was still partly frozen! They ran out of the fish dish of the day but didn’t bother telling us. Closed again at 6 months. This was a successful business before these later ones took over, takes real genius to make a mess of that.
No, I think it just takes a new owner who doesn’t know how to make the business work.
Something not dissimilar happened to a local Chinese resto we often went to - new owners, terrible service, food standards ratings reviewed at a zero or one and out of business within 6 months.
It’s a Moroccan now - ate there the other day, good enough to go back but not sure it will last.
Some of the pricing decisions made by restaurateurs baffle us. A couple of places did a seafood salad or a pareillade de mer with half a lobster that was very popular with some diners. When lobsters became more expensive, they both said they couldn’t put the price of the dishes up because people wouldn’t like it going over 40 euros or whatever. Instead, they upped the price of other dishes to subsidise the lobster eaters.
At another local place, the owners decided they weren’t earning enough. Rather than change anything about their menu or the ambiance, they worked out how much they needed to earn from each diner, going by the covers the previous year. Then they put all the prices up to try to achieve the figures.
Someone we knew went in for lunch, knowing about the price increase and he was OK with that. But when his main course arrived it was half the normal size and when he asked where the rest of it was, the reply was ‘we’ve gone gastro’. He stayed away until the owners put portions back to what they had been and somehow these people are still in business;