One of life’s greater pleasures is taking lunch.

 

But taking a long lunch in a small, undiscovered, French café is possibly the greatest pleasure of all.

 

Once upon a time, I rarely ‘took time out’ - so when I came to start this company, I resolved to ensure that ‘lunch’ would be treated with due respect – in a manner befitting the French ‘way’: two hours of gastro-indulgence.

 

I have never looked back.

 

If I am, now, a few centimeters too wide at the waist, I am unashamed of it: as it is in country cafes more than on busy boulevards that I find French life at its most human and palpable.

 

I am uneasy about my French language skills or even being English, but here in the ‘plat du jour’ café kingdoms of ‘patrons’ and their customers: farm workers and engineers, shopkeepers and gendarmes, the fallen and the wealthy, I come as close to embracing and understanding France as I ever will.

 

Lunch. Made in France.