My friend Guillaume is always telling me interesting things. Guillaume recently alerted me that a man who was fired for not being fun enough at work got his job back, winning five hundred thousand euros in a landmark case. He had just celebrated his birthday there. There was talk of flaming duck and a chocolate fountain. Guillaume showed me a picture of the crystal-curtained lobster towerβseven layers of vermillion crustaceans, topped by an upright specimen thrusting its claws to the sky, as though it had just slayed a halftime show, amid a cloud of mist.
The restaurant is called Les Grands Buffets. A week or so later, I went to its Web site, and entered my e-mail address to receive a secure link to make a reservation online. It was late July. The next available table was for a Wednesday in December, at p. If I wanted to bring children under ten years of age, I needed to submit their names at least three days in advance. They eat at discounted rates. I would be refused entry if I showed up in sweatpants, an undershirt, a bathing suit, a sports jersey, flip-flops, a ball cap, or any of three kinds of shorts.
The toughest reservation in France, it turns out, is not at a Michelin-starred destination like Mirazur or Septime. Last year, more than three hundred and eighty thousand people paid fifty-two euros and ninety centimes for the pleasure of visiting Les Grands Buffets. Drinks cost extra, but they are sold at a minimal markup, so a bottle of Mercier champagne costs twenty-five euros, about the same as it does in the supermarket.
Everything else is unlimited, from caviar to stewed tripe. All-you-can-eat buffets are usually associated with a catholic array of foods: California rolls and king-crab legs, baby back ribs alongside pasta bakes and hot-fudge sundaes. However, Les Grands Buffets serves only what it considers to be traditional French food.
Les Grands Buffets has four dining rooms, sumptuously decorated in different styles. One has an Art Deco theme. Tables throughout are set in a grand style, down to the fish knives. Waiters clear plates and serve drinks, instead of leaving guests to a soda fountain, squirting cherry Coke into the same paper cup as Tropicana and Sprite. The bistronomy movement, which in the past thirty years has whisked the cloths off French tables and consigned silver to drawers, is, Privat thinks, a cost-cutting crusade masquerading as a trend.
