1977: The Meal That Changed My Life. With the Actual Menu

With the help of the kindness of a stranger in a metro station, two lost American girls discover the Restaurant Chartier in Paris. (And I'm happy to report it's still there!)

Look what I found! The menu from my first-ever meal in France, at the Restaurant Chartier in Paris. Check out those prices—they’re in francs, so divide them by five! A quarter-liter of wine? 30 cents.

A couple years ago, I dug deep into my stuff and unearthed the menu from the Restaurant Chartier (now called Bouillon Chartier). It’s from my first-ever night in France, 1977.

Good heavens! No wonder I loved this place! I arrived in France with about $75 in cash and travelers checks, and I had to make that last two weeks on my high school cultural exchange trip. That money went far when poulet roti cost just over $1, and a quarter-carafe of wine (two glasses) was about 30 cents.

I LOVE this menu—it’s everyday French cooking at its very best (in fact, it’s the kind of food I highlight in my cookbook, “Everyday French Cooking,” minus the Cervelle d’Agneau—lambs brains).

So, here’s the story of how I ended up at the Restaurant Chartier. That night changed my life!

Photo credit.

Two Lost Young Americans Discover the Restaurant Chartier

Does anyone ever forget their first time dining in France? Mine was on a high-school cultural exchange trip in 1977. Before meeting our host families in Burgundy, our group spent a few days in Paris.

The first night there, our teacher, Monsieur Thelen, promised to lead us to a wonderful French restaurant—his favorite—but warned everyone that if we weren’t downstairs by 6:00 p.m. for dinner, the group would leave without us. Slain by jet lag, my friend Cindy and I didn’t wake from our postflight afternoon nap until 6:15. Downstairs, the lobby was empty, and the desk clerk shrugged at our questions asked in bad high-school French.

So we stumbled outside into the streets of Paris—wide-eyed, sixteen, and on our own—wondering around which corner we might find this wonderful restaurant that Monsieur had told us about. Once in the subway station, we stared at the map, as if it might say, “You Are Here—and the Wonderful French Restaurant Monsieur Thelen Told You About Is Here.”

I can still see him, this stranger with a headful of dark hair and a bushy black beard who asked if we were lost. We tried our best to explain in French that we were looking for this restaurant that’s supposed to be really wonderful. We actually thought he might say, “Ah, oui. That wonderful restaurant in Paris—I know it well.”

Of course, he didn’t know what or where our particular wonderful restaurant was, but he took my little notebook and wrote out directions to Restaurant Chartier on the rue du Faubourg Montmartre.

How could this man have known that this crowded and informal nineteenth-century brasserie would open our eyes to the otherworldliness of Paris, yet make us feel at home, too?

The waiter wrote our order on the paper covering over the tablecloth. Photo credit.

Cindy and I sat at butcher paper-covered communal tables under blown-glass lamps, watching waiters in floor-length aprons bustling around with rows of plates stacked up their arms; we ate elbow-to-elbow alongside Parisians who couldn’t understand our badly pronounced French but who shared their wine with us anyway, playfully filling our glasses when we looked away. We ordered poulet rôti because it was one of the few things we could figure out on the menu; when it arrived, we ate greedily, tucking into the crackly roast skin, the moist meat, the savory pan juices . . . and the frites—crisp fried potatoes that I ate with my fingers until Cindy said, “Remember what Monsieur Thelen said about how the French eat fries with their forks?”

This is the place where I experienced my first cheese course—a 2.50-franc wedge of Camembert served with crusty baguette. My lifelong love affair with the cheese course—and poulet rôti—began.

More than 30 years later, no visit to Paris is complete for me without a visit to that restaurant recommended to two lost American girls by a kind stranger in a Metro station.

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So, that was my story of my first meal in France. Feel free to share yours! It can be as long or as short as you like.)

P.S.: If you enjoyed this story, you might like my memoir, “Love Is My Favorite Flavor: A Midwestern Dining Critic Tells All.” In it, I offer many stories of how France informed so much of what I seek at the table.

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