The French are centring dining in their Olympic plans, which include a boating dinner on the Seine prepared by the chef Jean-Philippe Berens. Photo / James Hill, The New York Times
The competitions can seem almost an afterthought as the country rolls out 80 pop-up restaurants and countless dining experiences to wow spectators.
A wing of the Eiffel Tower has been cleared out to make way for a brand-new restaurant called Gustave 24. A fully built commercial kitchen is set to be airlifted into the Palais de Tokyo, a contemporary art museum on the Right Bank. Open-air brasseries will soon be erected on two bridges across the Seine.
Oh, and there’s also some kind of athletic event about to take place.
As it prepares to host the Olympics, France — a nation already sitting on an elaborate culinary infrastructure — is creating a from-scratch collection of pop-up restaurants and dining experiences on a scale far beyond the offerings at any past Games.
Some 80 temporary restaurants are being set up in Paris and other locales around the country where competitions will be staged. They will serve an average of 30,000 diners a day, each offering a different menu and format. And they’ll offer visitors a chance to experience the Olympics as dinner theatre.
At Versailles, they can feast on lobster ravioli in the gardens while watching equestrian events. In the Eiffel Tower, they’ll be able to enjoy moules frites and live music while observing beach volleyball down below. And when competitions aren’t taking place, these restaurants will host speeches from past Olympic winners, and virtual-reality experiences that simulate participating in a swimming race or standing on a podium to receive a medal.
A food programme this sweeping may come as little surprise in a country whose cuisine is so revered that it was named part of Unesco’s “intangible heritage of humanity” in 2010. But France is hoping to draw even more attention to its culinary traditions, and the multicultural country it has become.
“Food is such an important message for French people,” said Christine Doublet, the co-director of Le Fooding, a restaurant guide and food events company in Paris. “For the Olympics, which are going to be this huge international platform viewed all across the world, they want to show how powerful French gastronomy still is.”
If all runs smoothly, a similar culinary programme will be adopted at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, said Felix Zafra, a vice president at On Location, the North Carolina-based events production company overseeing the new restaurants. He and his team have been contracted by the International Olympic Committee, the event’s overseeing body, for those upcoming Games.
Zafra oversaw the creation of a few pop-up restaurants at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, but his company had to dismantle them when the Games were cancelled because of the pandemic. When the Tokyo Olympics were finally held a year later, spectators weren’t permitted and food options were severely limited.
“We went through a difficult time with Covid, and these Games in Paris are going to be really unique,” he said. “They are the perfect time to be starting this new model.”
The pop-ups, most of them in Paris, vary in cuisine, ambition and price. They include a food hall around the Palais de Tokyo selling chouquettes, bao and gazpacho alongside a virtual-reality swimming experience (£85, about $150, to start), and a lounge next to the finish line of the 100-metre dash at Stade de France that will serve rhubarb consommé and smoked eggplant with haddock cream (for up to a staggering £8,500).
All tickets include a guaranteed seat at the Games — a big draw, given the unpredictability of the lottery system for securing tickets. Some restaurants are one-night-only affairs, while others will last throughout the Games.
These elaborate dining arrangements reflect bigger changes in the sporting world at large, where the food has become as important as the games being played. Matches and tournaments are now regarded as opportunities to wine and dine, with signature cocktails, seafood bars and concession stands headed by famous chefs.
But no organisation has ever attempted that kind of service at the scale of the Paris Games. The 2012 London Olympics and 2016 Rio Olympics offered some dining within the stadiums, but no new options elsewhere in those cities, Zafra said.
France’s big plans will pose formidable logistical challenges. For just the brasseries overlooking the Seine, for example, the On Location crew will have to haul in furniture, install plumbing and set up electrical connections on two centuries-old bridges. The food at all the attractions must meet strict sustainability standards set by the Paris organisers; 80% of it must come from France, and each venue must offer vegetarian options.
“There is quite a bit of anxiety over getting produce delivered,” said Carrie Solomon, a Paris chef and cookbook author who will prepare dishes like chilled green tomato soup and white truffle risotto within the tennis complex Roland-Garros. “I know a lot of people are trying to figure out how to order certain things in advance and there are concerns like: What if they block off certain main roads into Paris?”
Zafra said he was confident the chefs could handle the operational challenges; instead of hiring only established names, his team also picked up-and-coming chefs who are nimble enough to cook in a pop-up environment.
In late June, even as the Eiffel Tower sported a colossal set of steel Olympics rings, and a torch-shaped countdown clock nearby read 28 days until the opening ceremony on July 26, Parisians seemed more preoccupied with the coming national election and the city’s worsening traffic conditions.
“A lot of people want to be around to see what is going to happen but are worried about getting to work, getting home, child care,” said Doublet of Le Fooding. “How is everything going to run in a city that is already pretty saturated?”
And because many of the new restaurants will appear in busy tourist attractions, the installations had barely begun. The plaza outside the Palais de Tokyo teemed with skateboarders doing tricks along the stairs. The running track was still being laid at the Stade de France. Soon, these places will house charcuterie stations and international food stalls.
Zafra hopes the pop-ups will help change global perceptions of French cuisine. “We are trying to send a message that French food is accessible, it doesn’t have to be expensive and presented on a silver clôche,” he said.
That is, unless you’re talking about the £15,000-a-person dinner that will be served on a boat cruising the Seine during the opening ceremony. Diners will float on the river alongside delegations from every competing nation, also on boats, while enjoying a multicourse meal conceived by the chefs Alain Ducasse and Jean-Philippe Berens.
During a recent trial run for a group of Parisian influencers, waiters in crisp uniforms filled glasses with Moët Impérial and served plates of poached lobster dressed in lemon and basil. Diners stepped out on the deck to pose with the Olympic torch, the sunset-washed Notre-Dame cathedral visible in the background. On Location declined to disclose how many tickets for this event — or any others — had been sold.
Clarisse Castan, a talent agent who was sipping Champagne on the deck, said she hoped the city would provide financial assistance to markets and restaurants whose business might be hurt by road closings. “We need to find the right balance locally, but globally, it is freaking amazing,” she said. “I am so proud to have the Olympics in Paris.”
Jennifer Davis, the author of Defining Culinary Authority: The Transformation of Cooking in France, 1650-1830, said she was somewhat disappointed that Olympics organisers were creating their own restaurants rather than directing people to existing establishments, many of which are staying open for the Games rather than taking their usual summer breaks.
“There is a kind of state control and centralisation that continues in presenting the culinary face of France,” she said. “That has some really good qualities. It will make for a more uniform experience for tourists. I think that it won’t necessarily move money from tourists to the diversity of eating around that region.”
She offered a suggestion: “Send people to Chinatown rather than set up the imaginary noodle shop within Olympic Village.”
Zafra said the pop-ups and local restaurants would “not compete, but complete each other.” The events “will showcase the best of France, and we want people to experience more outside of our walls,” he said.
And for spectators who don’t care or have time to dine in a restaurant, Olympics-affiliated or otherwise, there are always the concession stands. Many of those offerings will be classically French, including quiche Lorraine and savoury galettes.
More typical stadium fare will also be available — like hot dogs. But in keeping with the ethos of the Paris Olympics, the bun is freshly baked, the mustard is homemade and in the name of sustainability, the dog is vegan.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Priya Krishna
Photographs by: James Hill
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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