Tori’s Table
Letters from a chef in Paris
words by Tori Sharp
photography by Lil Watkin
“There is often a clash in the city, young competing with old, worn-out pushing back against the shiny and new, but that is what keeps Paris alive”
The best time to cycle down Boulevard de Menilmontant is very early on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Outside of these particular hours, you’ll find yourself dodging and swerving a flock of beer drinkers and kebab eaters. I know this road well, as it is the stretch of cycle path that connects me and the Butcher. We both cook for a living and, so, our schedules can be somewhat atypical.
We meet post-service- after-hours when the city is sliding into bed, guaranteeing a smooth ride. We rise in the early morning to prep for the Saturday lunch rush and the road is empty, whilst I am sleep-cycling, everyone else is still sleeping. The plates have to be on the table by 12h30, having fed the team their early bird lunch, packed away the orders, lit the barbecue and cleaned the floor. Paris is a city that sleeps well; we don’t awake at 6h30 for Pilates nor pre-work coffee dates, but privilege the hours spent under the covers, rising when the cloud of fresh baguette scent wafts out of the boulangerie that only opens at 9am. When nothing outside is open, why go out at all? Which is why this sweet spot at 8 o’clock on the weekend is perfect for cycling.
This road leads from the bottom of the 12th arrondissement, snaking up through the 11th, past the ghostly Père-Lachaise cemetery, up into Belleville and finishes by the mouth of the Bassin de La Villette. Passing through the Algerian quarters of Menilmontant, inhaling the still present wood-burning odours of the succulent kebab shops; swiftly arriving into Chinatown, where four arrondissements collide like the timeworn and the modern, the cocktails bars and the 100-year-old bistros. There is often a clash in the city, young competing with old, worn-out pushing back against the shiny and new, but that is what keeps Paris alive, the constant adaptation whilst preserving a world-renowned history.
In a moment where restaurants are struggling, we don’t doubt the future of the industry as we know that she can acclimatise.
Paris is a river flowing with the times.
