Colours of home

Colours of home

Wednesday 3 June 2015

What Do the French Think of Australia's Top Restaurants?

My French in-laws were in Melbourne recently. As a birthday present, we got them a voucher for Attica, Australia's top resto.

We got them this because on their last visit to Oz they hadn't known where to go for good food.(And being French, of course, sourcing good food was priority number one!). They'd gone to fish and chips shops, for instance, hoping for fresh seafood - and then spent hours afterwards peeling batter off fish. My mother-in-law pleaded staff not to batter the scallops to no avail (and much peeling).

My husband Maxime had an additional reason for wanting to arrange things for his parents to do.

'Otherwise, they'll just spend their time going to Coles,' he explained.

So you can imagine his chagrin when he read their email recounting how they'd spent their first day in exciting Melbourne, beginning with breakfast and then shopping 'chez Cooles [sic]'.

In comparison to Coles tubs of mashed potato, and deep fried flake, Maxime and I were quietly confident that their evening at Attica would be a roaring success.

But it wasn't entirely in the bag. Never under-estimate the powers of the Frenchman to criticise. They would have to be the most imaginative, creative critics in the world. What's more, my mother-in-law Jeanne, herself an accomplished cook, says she always orders risotto in top restaurants - because it's so hard to get right. (When I first heard this, I made a mental note never, ever to cook it for her myself). And she was taking a notebook in order to take copious notes throughout the meal. Maxime and I kept our fingers crossed ...

The next day, they gave us their detailed analysis of the night.

'Some people dressed very casually, while other people dressed up.' Why don't they feel the need to show respect to the restaurant and the other diners?'

Because we're barbarians. 'Erm, well -'

'There was a series of small plates - really microportions - of tastes of native herbs. Sebastien was hungry so he ate all the bread. And he asked for more.

In this sentence, Jeanne got to diss the resto AND her husband all in one go - nice work!

'And then there was this sort of undercooked potato thing' Jeanne was completely mystified by this object. The hungi homage had totally passed over her head. Oops.

'But the strangest thing was when I went to the toilet.'

'Ah,' I said, thinking, I'm really not sure I want to hear this,,,

'The waiter led the way and then held the door open for me!'

This was apparently deeply shocking.

'It would NEVER happen in France!'

'Why not?' I aked, confused. I mean, it wasn't as if waiter had asked if she wanted to do a number one or number two.

'Because we don't do this!'

'Why?'

She was astonished I even needed to ask and was at a loss to explain something so obvious.

'It's too intimate.'

Well. I don't find toilet doors very steamy myself, but then I'm not French.

Luckily, Jeanne recovered from having the door to the intimate toilet world touched by the waiter and managed to continue with the meal.

'The dessert was too sweet. Of course, Sebastien wolfed it down.'

Bingo - another double whammy. She was in good form!

But the micro-portions thing stuck in my Australian craw.

'I mean, the French invented nouvelle cuisine!' I complained to Maxime later.

'That was the Parisians,' he said, smugly happy to stick the knife in to those smug Parisians. 'You wouldn't see that in Alsace!'

No, I thought, but you do see a lot of diabetes....

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