2023-10-28 10:07:07
While city centers have their share of quality restaurants, it is sometimes difficult to eat well in the outskirts.
For a long time, whether in Paris, Lyon, or Marseille, the suburbs remained a breeding ground for small hands who went to work in the large restaurants in the city centers. And conversely, in the suburbs we found very few good restaurants with handmade cuisine. One of the first starred chefs to denounce this unfair situation was Jacky Ribault. Already the owner of two Parisian addresses, he decided to open a third in Noisy-le Grand:
“When I had financial problems, I rented a house in Noisy-le-Grand, and I fell in love with this town. However, I found it unacceptable not to find a good brewery, with modern, trendy dishes, without having to go back to Paris.” This is how “Les Mérovingiens” was born, a quality brasserie where Jacky Ribault offers a menu from 25 euros.
Other leaders followed suit. In working-class suburbs, rents are more affordable than in the city center, you escape urban stress, and it is often easier to have fresh produce delivered every day. Thus Camille Saint-M’Leux settled at Villa9Trois in Montreuil, Edouard Chouteau is in Lambersart, near Lille, Vivien Durand in Lormont, near Bordeaux, Jérémy Pereira offers his cuisine in Puteaux, next to La Défense.
Low prices
A group has even specialized in opening restaurants in the suburbs, the Bistrots Pas Parisiens, a group of which one of the leaders is the host of the show Top Chef on M6, Stéphane Rotenberg:
“Our ambition is to create chef’s bistros, where there is a lot of demand and little supply. If professionals in the profession tell us that these are not easy places, they are wrong. There are people who want to eat well in restaurants. We always put chefs there with brigades, they work with fresh products, and the prices are contained.”
Homemade cuisine, at a reasonable price, less than 30 euros. Often, moreover, it is the mayors themselves who demand quality addresses in their municipality, as was the case in Clamart, with the arrival of Papa Pool last spring.
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