How America Killed French Cuisine

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The menus at the sidewalk cafés of Montmarte, the neighborhood in which we stayed, were carbon copies of each other, as they were in the other quirky arrondissements to which we ventured. Boeuf Bourguignon, carré d’agneau a la Provencale and cassoulet are undeniably delicious, but I was expecting more from Paris than Julia Child’s greatest hits—yes, even in reasonably priced (for Paris) local brasseries.

As the days wore on and we ventured further into the city, we were flabbergasted not only by the sheer number of McDonald’s, Subways, Pizza Huts, and Domino’s we encountered, but also by the sloppy food carelessly dished out at the beautifully appointed, but gastronomically challenged brasseries we hit. Twelve euros for wilted lettuce topped with a pile of canned corn and other assorted veggies? Really?

Many local Parisians that we spoke to eagerly groused about how typical café food just wasn’t the same—and they, too, lay the blame on the economy.

“They spend too much time catering to tourists,” grumbled one Montmarte local, a retired gentleman in his 60s who had lived in the neighborhood for 20 years. “They should spend more time in the kitchen and less time worrying about the specials and happy-hour board.”

A concierge at our hotel complained that while getting a luxe meal was a snap if you could afford it, finding an economical delicious meal on the fly in Paris was becoming increasingly difficult. “The culture of food here is so strong, I get very upset thinking about the changes that are going on,” she said. “Even four years ago, brunch and all of these deals to entice customers didn’t exist and the food was better—restaurants and chefs could focus on the food, not the promotion. I still won’t go to McDonald’s, though.”

Every café and brasserie seemed to be offering standard Americaine brunch options, and aggressively civilized dinner hours (8 p.m. or later) were being blithely rolled back to 6 p.m. It all seemed so mediocre, so—dare I say it? —McDonald’s!

In France, McDonald’s is taxed as a takeout establishment, not a restaurant, allowing it to keep costs way down and expand as quickly as the waistlines of its most loyal customers. “They’ve played France like a fiddle,” Steinberger says. “They bombard their customers with brilliant corporate propaganda about how much of their food—about 70 percent—is sourced in France, which hits French people right in the heart.” These days, ordering a Croque McDo—two melted slices of Emmental cheese and ham on a bun—may be the closest many Frenchmen can come to supporting their local farmers.

Spain, in many ways has supplanted France as “the intellectual hothouse of haute cuisine,” Steinberger says, with chefs like the recently crowned King of Cuisine Ferrán Adrià enjoying the freedom to spend all of his time cooking and creating—either at his much-vaunted restaurant El Bulli in Roses, Spain (when he chooses to open it), or his Barcelona laboratory/workshop at which he tinkers with everything from centrifuges to canisters of CO₂ to caviar to tofu.

But is it really time to say “au revoir?” to France as the world’s culinary guiding light?

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