Grand Dining in the French Style, Four Centuries of Parisian Feasts

Dinner as spectacle, titillating all five senses, became a French specialty long before Louis XIV codified the form of royal hospitality in the seventeenth-century. This four-hour epicurean experience in the company of food historian Carolin Young (author of Apples of Gold in Settings of Silver) explores the history of grand French dining. It begins with a look at the magnificent objects and settings historically used at such feasts and culminates with an "annotated lunch" at the 3-Michelin-star restaurant, Le Grand Véfour, one of Paris’s oldest but still most sought after gastronomic destinations.

Our adventure begins in the Sun King’s newly restored Galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre, with a description of how such architectural spaces were originally used. Young will explain the food, decorations, perfumes, music and theater placed within them, as well as the strategic politicking that lay beneath the surface of seemingly profligate parties. A brief tour through period rooms in the museum will illustrate how Louis XIV’s descendants refined and embellished court entertaining. Continuing at the nearby gardens of the Palais Royal, we will review this site’s illustrious history as a venue for lavish entertaining and gastronomic excellence. Young will recount tales of the magnificent collations, which the palace’s first occupant, Cardinal Richelieu, offered to the queen and court ladies to accompany premieres of Molière’s plays; the famously licentious suppers at which Philippe, duc d’Orléans and regent to Louis XV, popularized sparkling Champagne in the early part of the eighteenth century; and the culinary innovations and political scheming offered up in the cafés and restaurants, which lined the colonnade even before the French Revolution.

With our appetites sufficiently whetted, we'll retire for a regal lunch at Le Grand Véfour, one of Paris’s most renowned restaurants, situated at the end of Palais Royal gardens, in the site of the Café de Chartres, which had opened by at least 1784. (The restaurant’s current name dates back to 1812.) Napoléon and Josephine where among its first clients. Notable statesmen, writers and personalities such as George Sand, Victor Hugo, Colette, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir have frequented the restaurant ever since. Despite its age, the Grand Véfour remains one of Paris’s most sophisticated gastronomic destinations—a see-and-be-seen venue, offering luxuriant food and ambiance — which exemplifies dining-as-spectacle today.

Participants will select a choice of appetizer, entrée, cheeses and desserts from Chef Guy Martin’s signature lunch menu. The restaurant’s master sommelier will choose appropriate wines to match. During the meal, our host Carolin, in tandem with Le Grand Véfour’s expert staff, will analyze how each dish reflects innovation and creativity within the French culinary tradition and recount stories from the restaurant’s notable history .

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