Le Grand Véfour
Restaurant in Paris, France From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Le Grand Véfour (French: [lə ɡʁɑ̃ vefuʁ]), the first grand restaurant in Paris,[1] France, was opened in the arcades of the Palais-Royal in 1784 by Antoine Aubertot, as the Café de Chartres,[2] and was purchased in 1820 by Jean Véfour,[3] who was able to retire within three years, selling the restaurant to Jean Boissier.[4] A list of regular customers over the last two centuries includes most of the heavyweights of French culture and politics, e.g. Honoré de Balzac, Napoleon, Jean Cocteau, Colette and André Malraux[5] along with le tout-Paris.[6] Sauce Mornay was one of the preparations introduced at the Grand Véfour. Closed from 1905 to 1947, a revived Grand Véfour opened with the celebrated chef Raymond Oliver in charge in the autumn of 1948. Jean Cocteau designed his menu.[7] The restaurant, with its early nineteenth-century neoclassical décor of large mirrors in gilded frames and painted supraportes, continues its tradition of gastronomy at the same location, "a history-infused citadel of classic French cuisine."[8]
In 1983, the restaurant was destroyed in a bomb attack. It was then bought by Jean Taittinger who restored and reopened the place.[9]
When it lost one of its three Michelin stars in 2008[10] under the régime of Guy Martin for the Taittinger Group, it was headline news.[11]
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