The man nicknamed the Pie King by Jamie Oliver was credited with reviving the reputation of the traditional British pie at a time when London only had eyes for continental cuisine.
Now, he has left his restaurant in the capital behind and crossed the Channel to embark on an even more Herculean task. Calum Franklin, a Bromley-born chef, wants to show Parisians that British cooking is not as bad as they think.
Franklin, 41, has opened a large gastropub, called the Public House, in the heart of Paris. It serves standard British fare such as scotch eggs, braised beef pie, fish and chips, and sticky toffee pudding, albeit with a finesse unrecognisable to anyone introduced to them at the Watford Gap service station in the 1970s.
His venture has raised eyebrows. Although the French have long welcomed British chefs, it was only really with a view to teaching them how to prepare French cuisine. Franklin’s upfront Britishness is something of a novelty, especially as he is now in charge of a team of 25 French chefs preparing up to 200 or so covers for lunch and the same again for dinner.
After the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale on April 8, the pub generated media attention and unexpectedly positive reviews. TF1, France’s most popular television channel, said it was contributing to a new interest in la cuisine anglaise, adding that a dozen or so British restaurants and cafés had opened in Paris in the past five years.
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TF1 tentatively suggested that an end to the “culinary misunderstanding between les rosbifs and the frog-eaters” might be in sight, although it was quick to add that the French could only appreciate British food “when it is prepared in France”.
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Franklin recognises that he will have his work cut out if he is to win over the locals. “I doubt that anywhere has greater hostility to British cooking than Paris,” he said. “It’s taken a kicking here.”
But he feels prepared to make the French change their minds. “I like a challenge and part of the challenge is to change this perception.”
Franklin said he was “extremely passionate about British cooking” and had “fire in my belly” at the idea of proving its worth in France. “I always wanted to work in Paris but when I was younger, I was too scared,” he said.
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His apprehension is understandable. Eating at the Public House on Thursday was Pauline, a 37-year-old Parisian legal adviser with a stereotypical vision of British food. “Ce n’est pas bon,” she said, adding that on her initial trip across the Channel she had fallen ill “on the first day” after eating fish and chips.
“English food is too rich,” she said as Elodie, 37, her dinner companion and fellow legal adviser, shuddered at the recollection of the jelly she had been given on a school trip to Britain as a child.
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Despite all the bad memories, both women and their friend, Marie, 38, an account manager, seemed to be enjoying their meal. “The atmosphere is great,” said Elodie. Even Pauline concurred, describing Franklin’s food as “not bad”.
Franklin is used to treading new ground. As a young cook at a time when modern European food was all the rage in London, he developed a “passion” for British cuisine, and notably its pies.
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His interest spiralled after he became executive chef at the Holborn Dining Room in London, where he found an old pie tin in the cellar. Neither he nor any of the other cooks in the restaurant knew how to use it, but he was determined to learn, spending long hours studying old recipes and techniques, notably in the British Library.
In so doing, he discovered the 600-year history of British pie-making. “The way pies are regarded has changed over the centuries,” he said. “There were times when they were served at royal banquets with birds flying out of them. At other times, they were seen as peasant food.”
In the years after the Second World War, the pie became an industrial foodstuff and it went through a period during which its reputation dimmed once more. But Franklin says it has enjoyed a recent “renaissance” in Britain.
Now, his task will be to cook up the pie renaissance in France.
Pie and a pint? The British chefs whipping up a storm across the Channel
The Pie King is not the first chef deciding to take the leap across the Channel.
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Matthew Ong was head chef for six years at the Albion restaurant in Paris, which claimed to combine British and French culture. His cooking was widely lauded by Parisian critics.
Rose Carrarini, who founded the reputed Rose Bakery in Paris with her French husband, has won plaudits in the land of the baguette and the patisserie. The newspaper Le Monde sang the praises of her cheesecakes and tarts.
Chris Wright, a self-taught cook from Manchester, won the prize for the best village bistro of the year from Le Fooding magazine in 2016. His bistro is in a small village in the Cantal region of central France.
Edward Delling-Williams, who began cooking in a pub in Bristol, is now chef at The Presbytere restaurant in Normandy, which was praised by Ouest France, the regional daily.
David John Kelly is the founder of Project Sausage, a British deli in Paris that serves sausage rolls, pork pies and Cornish pasties. Télérama, the French equivalent of Radio Times, sampled the fare and approved of it. “Who said the English did not know what was good?” it wrote.
