Gault Millau Jan. 80
THE “GREAT GOURMANDS”
SLAVIK
“If men were smarter, they would skip business lunches and invite women to lunch.”
Slavik: the man with the drugstore between his teeth. Dozens of pubs, bistros, and restaurants to his credit. Fiercely debated but undeniably the foremost decorator in France whose name the history of dining will remember. His profession made him madly fond of good food. He spends his life in restaurants (almost always the same ones…) and his pot is bubbling with ideas. Christian Millau interviews him.
“What do you hate most?
-Snack bars, canteens, and pompous grand restaurants, in a Louis XV style rectified by Fallières. It kills my appetite.
-A Russian ogre’s appetite. By the way, is Slavik your real name?
-My surname is Vassiliev and my first name, Wiatcheslav, like Molotov. My family is from Saint Petersburg. We were late emigrants. Before Paris, we lived in Tallinn, Estonia, then in Finland. In Tallinn, I was four years old and I remember very well the restaurants where my parents took me. Minus 18°C outside. The pianist playing Rimsky-Korsakov, fresh cream by the ladleful on blinis, caviar… I have a dazzling memory of that time. In fact, since then, I haven’t stopped living in restaurants. In my childhood, I never knew the warmth of a family table. Everyone remembers their mother’s fabulous cooking, but I was a boarder—throughout my youth, like a military orphan. My mother wanted to make me a soldier who would return to conquer Russia on his white horse.
– And then?
– Then, I continued to eat rubbish. After Arts Déco, I was hired at Galeries Lafayette, where I was in charge of window displays and trade fairs. There were some very good people there, like the painter Dimitrienko. We ate radishes, stole each other’s wives, and learned a lot of things. It was there, for example, that I discovered that if you display a shoe with the outside facing out in a window, the result is negative. You have to show the hollow. The person looks and is already drawn in. All this led me to Publicis where I worked on industrial aesthetics, and then one day, in 1957, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, returning from the United States, handed me his drugstore. I had no idea what that could be. In less than a minute, he only explained that he needed a long space where many people could both consume and shop. So I remembered the lessons learned at Galeries Lafayette, and particularly the compression-decompression rhythm that must be used to make a crowd vibrate. You squeeze in to enter, then there’s a moment of astonishment. You’re like Napoleon on his mound, on the morning of Austerlitz, and then you launch into a circus act. I had two other obsessions: the infinite comfort of the backside—so very good seats were needed—and lighting that makes people prettier, giving them a tanned look. And then, there was also this anti-solitude aspect, this opening to possible adventure. Everything is at hand… In any case, it worked, and at Bleustein-Blanchet’s, the drugstores have aged well. At others, I wouldn’t say the same…
-You’re not going to make me believe that it was the drugstore that made you discover cooking!
-It started in 1965, when I did Le Bistrot de Paris for Michel Öliver. Suddenly, an epiphany! I threw myself into good food. I started collecting addresses, driving miles for lunch, and taking insane trips to pick up a bottle of wine or a sausage.
Moreover, as I’ve always loved women, I quickly realized with delight that good food made women much more available for pleasure.
-Do you really believe that the sight of a man devouring food transports women to seventh heaven?
-There are two categories of women. Those interested in food and the others. I’m only interested in those who are interested. The gourmands, the big consumers. I hate women, but also men, who eat sullenly, all askew. I also don’t adore those who eat with their mouths open and shovel food in like concrete mixers. One moment, you thought they were very decent people, and all of a sudden, you discover they’re pigs. But what a joy to see a woman who orders her meal and doesn’t let it be imposed on her! And what a delight when she slips you a small piece from her plate with her fingertips! I know no more extraordinary sign of complicity than that.
– Do you often go to restaurants?
-Every day. For lunch. In the evening, I’m inoperable. My head in the soup. Whereas lunch, especially with a woman, is a bit like recess. In the evening, a tête-à-tête is more commonplace. At lunch, you feel like you’re stealing hours. If men were smarter, instead of poisoning themselves with useless business lunches, they would invite women, including their own. For no reason, just for pleasure. That would leave them with far more memories than the ritual Saturday night outing.
And for a man, it’s a dream. In these restaurants packed with men, the woman becomes the center of attraction. If she’s beautiful, they devour her with their eyes, forget to talk about their schemes, and for you, it’s flattering. In the evening, the competition is much greater…
– Do you like to constantly discover new restaurants?
– Not really, I have my little circuit. What happens quite frequently is that I’ll have a starter in one restaurant, the main course in another, and dessert in a third. It might seem strange, but I like it.
– I imagine you’re mostly seen in the restaurants you’ve decorated, like Le Bistrot de Paris, Baumann des Halles, Bistro 121, etc.
– Yes, from time to time. At Bistrot 121, I’m like a fly in honey, but apart from that, my favorite places are rather Georges, Boulevard Pereire, Lipp, Le Récamier, Chez Philippe, Rue de la Folie-Méricourt, and what I especially love are the real “zincs” (zinc counters), particularly Le Rubis, at Papa Gouin’s, Rue du Marché-Saint-Honoré, at peak hour, around one o’clock, when you feed like pelicans, holding your plate in the air. I calculated that at that time, there are five and a half men per square meter. It’s one of the very few places in Paris where everyone talks to everyone.
There’s also Serge, 76, Avenue Jean-Jaurès in Saint-Ouen, a marble workers’ zinc counter where, on some days, you can amuse yourself by counting the Bentleys and Rolls-Royces at the door. You eat from the blackboard menu and the owner does the cooking: veal sauté with leeks, farm chicken with new garlic, small wines that light up the eye, wines to take away, and a bill of 40 F. I could also mention the Burgundies and the fabulous bone-in ham from La Cloche des Halles, Rue Coquillière, or the snack bar at the covered market on Rue Daguerre whose owner, Michel, is a film fanatic. He even knows the names of the script supervisors from B-movies shot twenty years ago.
For a few weeks now, I’ve made Falstaff, Rue du Montparnasse, my regular spot.
Three Auvergnats run the place. They concoct neo-Belgian cuisine—eel pâté, waterzooï—which is eaten on the first floor, in a room styled like a “garrison brothel.” Moving.
– Did the Auvergnats do the decor?
– No, I did.
– And what do you like to eat?
-I rather know what I don’t like. Stews, navarin, daube, coq au vin, not too much charcuterie, except when the pig has just been slaughtered. I also don’t like overly elaborate cuisine. I like it when it’s simple, and that’s actually the most difficult thing. I will tell you, however, that I have a predilection for hot oysters, stuffed cabbage, blanquette, fish sauerkraut, raw fish, and all fish, for that matter. I love fish so much that one day I’m going to try live fish.
– And in the evening, when you’re not invited?
– I dine at home. I indulge my cravings for kasha, that buckwheat porridge which is the couscous of Russians, and other times, my wife prepares her masterpiece for me: idiot’s pasta, a dish from Quercy. You peel potatoes, cut them in half lengthwise, hollow them out a bit, and in each one, you put a whole clove of garlic, without butter, salt, or herbs. Nothing. You arrange the potatoes in an earthenware pot with a lid, leave them on low heat, and after three good hours, when you smell a faint garlic aroma, the potatoes have turned saffron-like, orange in color. They’ve absorbed all the garlic, and they’re wonderful, with a little fresh butter and spices.
– Do you worry about your health?
– I weigh ninety kilograms for one meter eighty-six. It’s not ideal. And then, I must admit that I’m bloated from Chinon. I definitely drink more than a liter of wine a day, and I have the highly reprehensible habit of indulging in mandarin-beer, with a squeeze of lemon. I plead guilty… No, I never diet. As for my physical exercises, they are the kind not discussed in an honest magazine like yours.
-What are the most beautiful restaurants in the world for you?
-In Paris, Maxim’s, for women seeking beautifying tenderness—ah, if only one could eat it stuffed, the magical little pink lamp!—and the Gare de Lyon Buffet. In terms of rigor, I tip my hat to Jean Dives, who designed the decor of Chiberta. I also find Jardin du Louvre successful, which has that little dose of kitsch and even vulgarity essential to any great restaurant. There’s nothing more overwhelming than the “Chenonceaux” style, which most French restaurateurs dream of at night. Imagine a restaurant like a 16th-century salon from the 16th arrondissement before the Treaty of Versailles—it’s death. Might as well leave people at home since they have the same thing. Just like the Knoll style, it cuts off all roots of food. A restaurant room must carry memories, even if they are faked and fabricated on the very day. Speaking of memories, I recall going to an absolutely fabulous restaurant in Munich. Well… a kind of restaurant. It was on the ground floor of a grand bourgeois building, and you needed a thousand recommendations to be admitted. It was an immense apartment, full of marble fireplaces, marquetry furniture, family paintings, chandeliers, and torches. An old man played the harpsichord, and in small lounges, other old people, well past their prime, served delicious food on silver platters. It was as beautiful and incredible as Visconti’s apartment. At the end of the meal, a very old lady with three strings of pearls trotted like a mouse to our table and told us she would have been delighted to invite us but unfortunately, times had changed, etc., etc. I was about to cry when she pulled the bill from her sleeve.
-There are restaurants where you immediately feel good. Is there a secret to a successful restaurant?
-It depends. If you play the bistro card, the sign of success is when men take off their jackets and, if they’re truly elegant, wear suspenders.
-I note that you yourself are wearing superb red suspenders…
-Yes, and I’ve also noticed that in front of such suspenders, women’s eyes pop out… Well, back to the bistro. Let’s take the example of Le Bistrot de Paris which, I believe, has aged very well. Why? Because I put mirrors everywhere and especially because I created a tumult. You’d think you were in a schoolyard. Everyone is shouting, and the more you shout, the thirstier you get. It’s all profit.
-You are a true poet.
-Bah, we are concrete poets. We work for merchants.
-The tumult… Granted, in the case of a bistro. But for restaurants?
-There, you have to park people in spaces exactly like beds, with alcove lighting, at eye level. Like at Maxim’s, where that salmon color erases double chins and makes faces up.
-And the tables?
-The ideal is a round table. The man and his woman chewing in silence, side by side, looking at the room, is tragic. The round table, or at least oval, is the only one that allows for exchanges. You set up groups of four round tables, spaced one meter seventy apart, and between these groups, real passages. Around a round table of eighty centimeters by one meter twenty, you seat six people, which is therefore very profitable. The problem, obviously, is that a round table is only profitable from three or four people. For two, you’d have to reinvent the guéridon (small round table). Do you know the guéridons at Café Florian in Venice? Well, that’s what I’m thinking of.
-Do you find the height of the seats and tables to be good?
-Not necessarily. Always Venice, at Harry’s Bar, there’s a detail that no one notices but which partly explains the fabulous charm of that place: the tables and chairs are ten centimeters lower. You are wonderfully comfortable. A bit like a child on a potty. If I were to design a restaurant for women, I would put low armchairs, boudoir-style ‘crapauds’. Everything would be round or oval. No straight lines. And between each table, there would be very heavy drapes, in embossed velvet, which would give a bit of the impression of being in a confessional, while still seeing others. It’s very important in a restaurant to be separated but without losing contact. The decorator of the Jardin du Louvre succeeded well in this, with its small, cell-like dining rooms opening onto each other. And then, of course, there would be an unreasonable quantity of flowers. Flowers are a restaurateur’s best investment.
-And the colors?
– First, there are the colors that kill. Electric blue, strident redcurrant. Blue and gold are beautiful, but at Versailles. Yellow is the color of madness, a true chromatic drug. Orange creates such violent euphoria that it’s unbearable. However, it can be used for isolated objects. In very marginal cases, I’m not against chemical-mineral colors, like violet or emerald green, but that brings you closer to a nightclub or a modern art gallery. Ultimately, for me, the right choice is the whole range of colors that evoke food, from blond to bitter chocolate. There’s a chromatic conditioning there that’s close to ideal. However, there are other horizons. When decorating the Pronto chain restaurants, I invented my flag: white, black, and sand gray. I like it. In fact, that’s where I’m currently realizing one of my old dreams: a very dark, tiered bar where women are perched very high, like in a baobab. I am against French rationality and for unsettling situations. I would like to create a restaurant where people would eat in unusual positions. A vertical restaurant, a bit like a theater. There would be almost elastic chairs, which one could shape as desired. Under the tables, there would be a bug that would vary the individual lighting according to the intensity of the conversation, and in the room, a very particular background sound, with very distant noises, like a barking dog, a gust of wind in the trees, and then long periods of silence. I experimented in a La Rochelle restaurant, with sounds of waves, cries of seagulls, and it was quite wonderful, because everything integrated perfectly and no one found it strange. I had even recorded a formidable argument in the kitchens with the owner’s shouting and plates flying. That didn’t surprise them either. They must have been used to it.”
Christian Millau
NB: Subsequently, out of caution, Slavik became wiser.
The Pronto restaurants were in the United States. We will talk about it soon.
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