An Irish Chef in France

Euro-Toques chef Martin Dwyer, is much missed in Ireland since he and his wife Sile sold their eponymous restaurant in Waterford and moved to France. They now live in the Languedoc, where they take guests - and feed them very well.

This month Martin, observing the ways of his adopted country with amused delight as ever, lets us in on his Twenty things which say you are in France.

1 Old men:- (I’m talking three score and ten [and over] here) whizzing on racing bikes through the countryside in day-glo lycra.

2 Ladies of a certain age:- Totally convinced that dyed red hair gives them style- unfortunately as genuine red hair is rare here the resulting orange shade still startles.

3 Cars with Suntans:- Yes ! If cars get too much sun after a certain time they start to peel (a phenomenom unknown in Ireland)

4 Paper Roses :- This is a polite term for plastic flowers which the French happily use even in quite sophisticated restaurants.

5 Pollarded Trees:- Sometime in Autumn the council workers pollard trees to within an inch of their lives, however, each summer, despite my anxieties, they return in full leaf.

6 Total lack of “Open Fires” or indeed Coal:-In all my time here I have never seen any direct heat except from an enclosed stove.

7 Wearing of Winter Clothes in the very beginning of autumn:- Even if the sun is splitting the stones custom demands that one’s clothes should change with the change of season. (I have been publicly rebuked for still wearing shorts in September.)

8 Old people:- They seem much more evident here, creeping to the shops every day or sitting outside their front doors (often in groups) in the evenings.

9 Inferior Brown Bread:-Their idea of brown bread has absolutely no texture, it tastes just the same as their white. I have discovered that millers discard the bran.

10 Shut Shutters:- The French shut their shutters against the cold (November to April) and the heat (May to September)

11 Three Course Lunches:- the French have never got the idea of a light lunch. Lunch is much as dinner and frequently includes a glass of wine.

12 Margarines or Butter “Substitutes”:- Thank God they have never caught on here.

13 Websites with Muzak:- All you want are the opening hours of the museum and your ears are smothered with Montovani and his Music of the Mountains.

14 Coloured Vans:- It is obvious that the French equivalent of Henry Ford decreed that they could have vans of any colour so long as they were white.

15 Kissing:- This happens everywhere. Three restaurants I frequent require me to kiss Madame before I get served and sometimes getting through the supermarket involves large amounts of osculation.

16 Drunkeness:- I am sure it exists but is rarely seen. To our shock the French drink with their food, rarely afterwards.

17 Second Hand:- The French and I adore a bargain and are not in the least against buying stuff in the local Vide Grenier (literally Empty Attic) where you will see very smartly dressed people fingering racks of hand-me-downs

18 Bad Television:- I don’t believe that the French think of the television as a form of culture, they stuff it with talking heads and strange quizzes.

19 Divorcees:- Most of the French customers who visit seem to have enormously complicated marital histories. Frequently two or more partners will be mentioned in the course of Dinner.

20 Bon Jours:- Must always said to the company when you enter a shop or restaurant and their sex must be correctly noted as in Bon Jour M’sieurs, Bon Jour Mesdames or indeed Bon Jour M’sieurs, ‘Dames.
 

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Martin Dwyer started cooking professionally over 40 years ago in the legendary “Snaffles Restaurant” in Dublin. After a time in a Relais Chateau in Anjou and in “The Wife of Bath” in Kent he opened his own much acclaimed restaurant, “Dwyers”, in Waterford in 1989. In 2004 he sold this and moved south to France where he and his wife Síle bought and restored an old presbytery in a village in the Languedoc. They now run Le Presbytère as a French style Chambre d’Hôte. Martin however is far too passionate about food to give up cooking so they now enjoy serving dinner to their customers on the terrace of Le Presbytère on warm summer evenings. Martin runs occasional cookery courses in Le Presbytère and Síle’s brother Colm does week long Nature Strolls discovering the Flora and Fauna of the Languedoc. 

Le Presbytère can be seen at: www.lepresbytere.net; 
email: martin@lepresbytere.net