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This chapter is taken from my book ‘Off the Autoroute’ which is now available on Kobo as well as Amazon
The area around Perpignan in French Catalonia is where our travels all started around twenty-five years ago. It is a short hop from Provence so let us see what we found there starting in Perpignan or Perpinyà as the Catalans call it – I advise you to do the same.
Walking down a bakingly hot Rue Alsace Lorraine in Perpignan I was feeling deeply sorry for myself. Quite rightly I was extremely guilty about all that my family had endured as this, their first French holiday, had started so dreadfully badly. That part of the story I covered in detail in my first book.
On the right-hand side of this narrow street, we came across Le Malassis, a small typically French, Café bar. It shone out to our bedraggled party like the oasis of calm and welcome that we so desperately needed. For us, this fine little café and its owner would become the turning point towards a lifelong love of France, its food, wine, culture, and people.
A small red metal table and four chairs were available on the narrow pavement terrace. Seated at the next table were two young Japanese tourists engrossed in their camera. We were more than delighted to sit at the available table. The chef patron was leaning nonchalantly on the doorframe of the café. He was taking a mid-morning cigarette break but keeping his chef’s hat, his toque blanche, firmly on his head. My exposed and I suppose I must admit it, a head that was now rather lacking in top cover, was swiftly heading towards the colour of a London Bus or a glorious Languedoc rosé wine. Monsieur Le Chef headed languidly over from his station at the door and looked pityingly at my once pale Lancashire complexion. He slowly took off his toque and placed it firmly on my head to protect me from the blazing sun.
Two words were all he said, ‘Tete Rouge.’
Now France made sense, my mood transformed.
Yes, I was going to like this place, the café most certainly, but I would soon grow to love France as a travel destination and especially its people. From that moment on I always have, but these first moments in Perpignan will always remain special. We will often return in years to come to Le Malassis and the delightful M. Argenson. We will spend many happy times in his delightful café with his generous warm hospitality, until one day when we found Le Malassis shuttered up and closed. When we visit up until that final time we are remembered and greeted as friends rather than merely customers.
Let me explain why.
From the open doorway we tentatively peer inside the restaurant and see the busy M. Argenson cooking inside an extremely hot steamy kitchen with his African sous chef working alongside him. M.Argenson’s rather formidable wife is waiting behind the typical well stocked old wooden zinc-topped bar just to the right of the entrance. A friendly, and can I say on behalf of my son, a stunningly attractive young waitress, immediately comes up to greet us. This is a fine start and Le Malassis is just the sort of place I had hoped to find on our first exploration into the art of French dining.
We are seated at the allocated table and yes, it does have the expected check tablecloths and yes, the waitress does immediately bring a carafe of water. It is all so stereotypically French – it is delightful.
I take off my cap, oh, sorry no I still haven’t got one.
I begin to mop my brow to the amusement of M. Argenson who is looking over his shoulder at our party from the kitchen. He comes out after having handed his hot pan over to his assistant he warmly shakes my hand and reserves his kisses for the ladies. Although the waitress is attentive and capable, he is happy to explain the menu himself and then hand us over to the young lady, not before insisting we have a carafe of rosé wine for the table.
We have already decided on what we wish to order for lunch and the charming mademoiselle brushes a slender hand across her hair as she first asks our son what his heart’s desire is. Unfortunately, and entirely due to her extreme attractiveness, he is unable to speak. This condition applies to English as well as French, so I quickly step in and decide to order for him. He has already resolved that he would happily stay here and follow her life’s journey but sadly this must be a brief encounter. How many times does that happen in France?
For myself, I order conservatively and safely for my very first French meal – omelettes fines herbes with a bowl of frites. Excellent choice.
Niamh orders a goat’s cheese salad. I am not really a fan of goat’s cheese. For me it is too goaty. Oh, come on you know what I mean.
Niamh loves this pungent cheese and especially the intense French versions of this variety which varies in flavour and strength from region to region. You will find that goat’s cheese in France is just as popular as Cheddar cheese in England.
Our daughter Charlotte plays safe also, and orders a croque monsieur, which is basically a ham and cheese toastie although the French tend to try to elevate it to a higher gastronomic level.
I see my omelette being rolled for plating and when it arrives it is simply perfect. One of the benchmarks that many famous chefs use when deciding to hire a new chef in their kitchens is to test how well they can cook an omelette. Get it right and they get the job. Cooking the perfect omelette is not as easy as we amateur cooks tend to think and no doubt like myself you have had or made some firm rubbery ones in your time.
There are no mistakes here, this omelette is superbly cooked, just on the point of being set and a little gentle in colour on the outside, still soft and oozing at the centre, flavoured with an excellent balance of herbs. The fresh green herbs are as is usual in this French omelette – parsley, chives, tarragon, and chervil. Delicious.
The omelette is accompanied with a bowl of the absolute best French fries I have ever tasted. No, I must insist that they must be the best anyone will ever have tasted. Charlotte certainly thinks so as she keeps taking a handful from my bowl as her meal has not come with any such accompaniment.
All the while M. Argenson has been observing the scene and watching her stealing my fries. Then he busies himself once again in his kitchen. Within a few moments he comes out from the open kitchen to our table carrying a large bowl of fresh fries and places them down in front of Charlotte. Her eyes light up in delight and so does his at seeing her obvious pleasure and her thanks for getting such a treat.
Le Malassis is a generous place that is full of warmth and pleasure. As I have described this meal you can appreciate that it is in fact only a simple lunch, but this restaurant firmly sets a standard for us to use on our future travels. Thankfully in the intervening years we have found many such places throughout France. These café/bar/restaurants will be quite humble and generally run by one chef who will deliver the most pleasingly simple food reflecting that particular region and punch well above their weight in giving pleasure to the diner.
In between all this frites activity Niamh’s goat’s cheese salad had been brought out by M. Argenson. I have to say it was hard to ignore the huge smile on his face as he presented this dish in front of her. As he set the plate down I recoiled in my chair as if someone had just sprayed some ammonia or incredibly strong bleach on the table. The strength and goaty power of this cheese was breath-taking in a very literal sense.
His smile said it all, ‘You like goats’ cheese, well let’s see how you get on with this one – Ha.’ (The smile was in French)
He turned and headed back to his open kitchen, his broad shoulders rising and falling with laughter. He and his able assistant were giggling like two young schoolchildren who had just placed a whoopee cushion on the teacher’s chair.
I said at a moment when I could breathe:
‘There is no way in this world that you can eat that. I don’t think I can even stay sat next to you with that on the table. It needs to go outside.’
Niamh said, ‘I can, and I will, just watch.’
Do you know what? She ate every single morsel of it.
How she did that I will never know as I can say categorically, I could not even have tried a small bite of it.
The kitchen audience looked on as Niamh unhesitatingly ate the dish, a smile of pleasure and satisfaction on her face, a smug face that was turned in the direction of the kitchen. Absolutely no sign of the immense pain I was sure she must be in. She genuinely was not at all discomforted. She enjoyed her meal and looking back she has eaten more similar strength goat cheeses over the years, and I have had to sit there observing and taking in the aroma.
This incredible culinary feat of Niamh showed M. Argenson and his staff that it was our intention when here in France to engage with their food and culture. Along with our attempts at speaking French it sealed a lasting friendship as we continued to return over the years to this café bar, always welcomed and recognised even though it could be a couple of years in between visits. By contrast, you can visit a supermarket café in England every single day of the year and order the same thing and be asked by the same person on every subsequent time as to what you want without being offered a flicker of recognition. That makes the level of service at a humble place such as this so lovely and rewarding, something you will happily travel a long way to keep experiencing.
After finishing our carafe or two of local rosé wine and our ice cream desserts we bid a warm farewell but assured them all that we will return later in the week and of course we do, repeating almost exactly the very same meal we have enjoyed on this our very first meal in a French restaurant.
The time this Saturday is getting close to two o’clock by now, but the shops are still closed except for a rebellious cheap clothing store just along the street and also the pharmacy next door to the café. Presumably, people need indigestion tablets at lunch so some exceptions can be made.
As we turn back into Rue Louis Blanc we hear the unmistakeable sound of a jeweller’s clock high above his window and then the shop front shutters crashing back upwards signalling that all shopping can now restart. Everyone has been fed and watered, people are a little sleepy perhaps, but they will try to serve you with your intended purchases now. To us it is very odd how all this routine works. For a full two hours the whole activity in the centre of Perpignan comes to a stop except for the pavement cafés. Then precisely on two o’clock it is as if time restarts and the whole place is once again alive and vibrant with shoppers and the pleasant hum of people finishing their long lunch.
This is not the English way but then again this is the beauty of travel and even at this early stage in our travels it is clear that you will always get the best out of your trip by embracing the local culture wholeheartedly. A carafe of chilled wine at noon is certainly a fine incentive for me to stop shopping, not that I need much incentive. Another carafe at two o’clock would encourage me not to restart.
We begin to explore down the side streets that lead away from the centre of the town and come upon the Serge Blanco clothing store. This was launched by the famous French Rugby Union full back, a sport I love to watch, and I have admired his style of play over the years. The great man is actually stood outside the store, but I still do not trust my French language skills sufficiently to approach him. On this visit to Perpignan his brand is in its infancy, but it goes on to be an expensive global brand. Should have got the shirt.
While I am distracted, and star struck, Niamh and Charlotte manage to find yet another jewellers shop. That is not too difficult here in Perpignan, famous for its fine garnets. If there is one speciality store that Perpignan is not short of then you would have to say that it was jewellers and there are lots of excellent ones here. This one that the girls have now found specializes in Lalique, that very high-quality French glassware started by Rene Lalique in Paris in the late 19th century. This jeweller sells a range of necklaces and earrings created by Lalique and it is understating it to say that the girls find these baubles incredibly attractive. Once more the service in the store is very attentive but without making you feel overly pressurised, and it is not long before a purchase is made. The opaque azure glass necklace and earrings are unarguably beautiful and by the standards of today’s Lalique prices these turn out to be a sensible purchase. These gems are still as beautiful today over twenty years later.
Recalling now that previously mentioned final visit.
That would be about ten years after our first visit when we came to Les Malassis to find the little café all shuttered up and secured. There was a small sign on the window just visible through a gap in the shutters.
As my French had improved over the years, I perceived that M. Argenson had died recently.
We were devastated at this unexpected news. I would have placed his age at about mid to late sixties but he seemed so fit and full of life, although it was clear that smoking was one of his main pleasures in life. I went to enquire after him at the chemist shop next door and they confirmed that he had indeed passed away.
It was the end of an era for us, this place had filled us with the hope and confidence that we could travel more extensively. It succeeded totally in doing that and we would never forget the kindness of M. Argenson and the sheer simple joy of this humble place that had no pretentions above its station but spread an abundance of bonhomie and offered great simple food. Our landmark café has reopened but we have never returned.
The memories are of a place in time and must stay that way.
French Travel Books - France, Paris, Provence & French Food & Wine 