Lunch at Le Grand Vefour

Mango jacket
Wilfred sweater (similar)
Zara dress (similar)
Mango boots
Chanel handbag
Celine sunglasses
Celine necklace
Linjer rings (c/o) (similar)
Mejuri earrings (similar)
Location: Palais-Royal – Paris, France

Paris, October 15, 2021

Dear friends,

When we moved to Paris in 2012, we relocated so that Ian could attend culinary school. I think maybe I’ve mentionned that once, but that the story is buried in a long ago post that most of us no longer remember clearly. I’ve always envied Ian; not because he had the experience of attending culinary school in Paris, although that would be a dream for many people. (It isn’t one for me – I hate to cook.) But because he found something he is passionate about, that he can also do as a job, so he goes to work everyday to do what he loves and gets paid for it. That’s the dream. (It’s also not my reality. I have a good job, but my field is certainly not one that inspires me. Unfortunately, writing briefly successful novels does not pay bills.)

Part of the course Ian took at ESCF Ferrandi was an internship. And by luck or by chance (or some combination of both) he was placed at Le Grand Vefour, a Michelin-starred restaurant that is also the oldest in Paris. For almost six months, he worked fourteen hours a day, Monday to Friday, preparing meals for the Parisian political elite – and once, the late Karl Lagerfeld. The work was exhausting and all-consuming, but he still remembers it fondly.

Le Grand Vefour was not the kind of place we could ever have entertained the idea of eating, even though Ian worked there. At the time, a bowl of pasta during the lunch service would have cost as much as a new pair of leather shoes. Between Ian’s internship pay, which was minimal, and the money I earned in fits and spurts from freelance writing, we could just manage to afford pasta at our neighbourhood brasserie some weekends. The Vefour, beautiful and prestigious as it was, was not accessible to us by virtue of its beauty and prestige. But we always said we’d go eat there someday, if we could somehow afford it.

Someday, of course, was an undefined date in a future we couldn’t yet imagine.

Nearly a decade later, we are a world away from having just enough in the bank to make three more mortgage payments. But until recently, the possibility of dining at the Grand Vefour still seemed remote. We’ve changed, but not that much. I will still choose a new pair of shoes over lunch every single time. We’ve changed, and the Vefour has changed, too. In order to survive the pandemic, the restaurant was forced to democratize – menu prices are less shocking now, especially at lunchtime. The old world establishment is open to anyone willing to come in, and represents an affordable indulgence for many these days.

That isn’t why we’re finally going to eat at the Grand Vefour today, though. The changes are good ones, we think. But the truth is, if we’ve learned anything in the past two years it’s that someday might never come. Nothing in life is guaranteed. If you have a chance, you need to take it, because it might never come around again. After years of annual visits to Paris, we’ve been away for two and a half years. We don’t know when we’ll be back. So someday is today, because otherwise, it may be never.

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