Chez JoA tale of four restaurants in which I manage to discuss naked bodies, rotten weather, good food (of course) and proof that the customer is not always right ...
So would you like the aïoli, sir? It was the dish of the day at Chez Zette, a restaurant I'd been meaning to visit for two years or more without ever getting round to making a booking.
The aïoli, a copious combination of boiled fish, vegetables in the traditional Provençal garlic, olive oil and egg sauce after which the dish is named, had to be ordered in advance. Tempting but non merci. We preferred to choose from the menu. All fixed, table for four at nine.
It had been a strange day, so wet in the morning that we'd cancelled lunch Chez Jo (it didn't seem right to make that read ''at Chez Jo'') at Cavalière but then bright enough to take a long seafront walk - Le Lavandou to La Favière and back - in late afternoon.
Chez Jo is wonderful. The beach at Le Layet is favoured by naturists, but those of us who feel our bodies are hardly for display to that extent are not frowned upon, unless being called les textiles - which is what nudists, or some of them, call non-believers - is intended as a derogatory term.
We'd been there a week or so earlier, when the sun was shining. The restaurant is reached either by strolling down a cliffside path from the main road or parking in Cavalière and clambering over rocks separating Le Layet and its neighbouring beach before crossing the sand while trying very hard not to look - or, according to taste, while looking with intense interest - at the sunbathers.
Around us, other textiles (whether by persuasion or in observance of decency at the table) were being served sea bass, langoustines, bouillabaisse and lobster. It all looked delicious, though I was less in awe of the dishes set before my immediate neighbours, a doctor from Avignon and his partner, who had respectively chosen omelette and salad.
Our generous helping of grilled gambas served with fried potatoes came, with a half-litre pichet of rosé, to €65, not cheap but considerably better value than a lot of meals out in this part of the world. What's more, they trusted me to come back to pay next day after I realised that not having cash or chequebook on me was incompatible with their no-cards policy.
They were also very understanding when I called to cancel the return visit. The weather, we agreed, was something of a catastrophe for their day's trade; the beach, inevitably, was deserted.
So Chez Zette, for dinner not lunch, it was to be. Except that when we presented ourselves for our soirée non-aïoli meal, no trace could be found of the booking and no table was immediately available. I spluttered as best I could about the earlier phone conversation in which I had been offered but declined their plat du jour. Rather than wait, we headed down to the port and La Ramade, which was also full - this was Ascension weekend - but made room for us.
La Ramade has a good name and, on a table separated from the next by huge bottles of wine, including one containing six litres of rosé, we ate well enough - whitebait or moules farcies to start with, followed for all four of us by bream - without quite considering it exceptional.
And far from having cause for indignation with Chez Zette, the non-existence of our booking turned out to have been entirely our fault. Or rather mine. I had dialled the number from listings in a guide book but managed to read along from the name and choose the phone number above, a restaurant that also happened to have aïoli as the day's choice.
The discovery was made far too late for a courtesy call to the restaurant we had presumably left fuming with our no-show. And this item had better close without its name until I have had a chance to poke my head around the door, offer abject apologies and promise to return as a paying customer.
Recent Comments