London has enjoyed a revival of traditional French cuisine over the past five years on a spectacular, once in a generation scale.
We’re talking real French classics in places such as Bouchon Racine in Farringdon (rabbit, mustard sauce and smoked bacon), Mayfair’s Maison Francois (œuf en gelée and Paris-Brest aux noisettes), and côte de veau at Chelsea’s Josephine Bouchon. All of those dishes are in their second century of existence (at least), and all are prepared and served by teams at the top of their game in restaurants less than five years old.
But what about trying to reverse the terms of trade? French elites have long been famously snooty about British cuisine. Some 20 years ago, French president Jaques Chirac said of the British “one cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad”. Très drôle, monsieur. Chuckling along to this crass remark, made at a political summit, was the famously trustworthy Vladimir Putin.
Calum Franklin, however, is leading the charge to bring the most traditional of British cuisine to the French. The London chef, also known as the king of pies and creator of the famous Pie Room in Holborn, made the journey to Paris earlier this year to open Public House, giving the good burghers of the City of Light access to Scotch eggs and sausage rolls, not to mention pie au bœuf braisé à la Guinness and fish and chips.
Located in a large, light, and beautifully restored former nightclub in the heart of the legal and financial district near Place Vendôme, Public House opened in April and was doing a steady lunchtime trade when I visited in August – traditionally a month when Parisians escape to the sea or the country, albeit the scenario was disrupted this year by the Olympics.
This move, which took Franklin out of his comfort zone after over two decades working in London, reflects a long-held ambition to work in Paris. “A lot of my friends were cooking here when I was young, but I didn’t have any French and was a bit scared,” he says. “They came back like assassins. I always regretted not going, so when this came up, I jumped at it.”
The decision wasn’t based on a whim to prove a point to the French, regardless of whether doing so made any business sense. The opportunity arose when Groupe Bertrand, a prestigious French hospitality group known for operating some of Paris’s most iconic brasseries such as Lip and La Coupole, approached him with the idea: “They’ve got real pedigree in the city. It was exciting to work with them because they know what they’re doing.”
He also tapped into the French capital’s changing palates and habits: “Until about five years ago, the dining scene here was largely French-centric,” he says. “There wasn’t a huge variety of cuisines, either very authentic or advanced. But younger Parisians have a more global, open outlook. They come back from Thailand or India and want to eat the authentic food that they had on holiday. Now you see people queuing down the street for a Thai restaurant, which never used to happen. So, everybody involved in this project felt that there was a potential desire for British food in Paris.”
Some of the dishes have crossed the Channel intact, while some required experimentation to get them right. “The savoury pastry side of things is pretty straightforward for Parisians,” Franklin says, “because they eat cold savoury pastry all the time. The step to hot pies wasn’t too much of a jump, and we sell hundreds of chicken and beef pies a week.”
Scotch eggs were adapted with a casing of very soft black pudding, which the locals loved but the expat crowd less so. And, as ever, words matter: “If I put the words ‘bread and butter pudding’ on a French menu, it’s a barrier. We have to translate that into French and they taste it and say, ‘Oh, it’s similar to pain perdu’. Sometimes it’s just about removing the mental barriers that might be there with their feelings about British food.”
While the locals do want to taste British food, they want to try lots of different things rather than follow a traditional starter, main course, dessert format. Franklin plans to move starters more towards smaller plates and then have the traditional main courses.
Even after years of visiting and eating in Paris, he remains amazed at the quality and variety of French ingredients he can call on. A tasting of chickens for his chefs saw no fewer than 30 samples on the kitchen table, along with a chart of when they’d be available in the year: “Some of these farmers work seasonally with their birds, which is unheard of in the UK.”
Obtaining other needed ingredients required a bit more ingenuity. Franklin has been known to bring in Coleman’s mustard powder to make English mustard, which can’t be found locally.
“Anchovy essence is also hard to find,” he adds, “while pickled walnuts presented the biggest problem of all. We searched France top to bottom to find them. No one was producing them, so I was trying to bring them over in my suitcase, which was ridiculous. We finally found one guy in the south of France making them as a hobby, and suddenly he’s producing a tonne a year for us, which he’s loving. I think we’re the only people in France that buy them from him.”
French media coverage has generally been positive, a mélange of raised eyebrows and genuine curiosity. One TV news report ran with the banner “Calum Franklin nous cuisine sa potato pie!”, following him from produce markets to the mise en place.
To be strictly accurate, it was the spectacular dauphinoise potato and aged cheddar pie with parsley sauce and caramelized onions that I ate on my visit – “When in Paris, do as the British do.”
Paris established, Franklin is now on his next project, yet to be unveiled, launching in Knightsbridge late next month. One of the most joyful aspects for him has been training up an entirely French kitchen brigade to revel in crafting Scotch eggs and other classic English dishes, to the point where he can get on with this new restaurant.
“I’ve got an amazing chef here, Mamadou Meité,” he says. “We’re setting things up so that I can still come over from time to time, but he’ll be running the shit while I’m gone.”
Richard Lander dined on a complimentary basis at Public House Paris. It can be found at 21 Rue Daunou, 75002 Paris, and is open from 9am-2am, seven days a week. Follow Richard on X/Twitter.