The waiting game

A review of 'A Waiter in Paris' by Edward Chisholm - the best behind-the-scenes work about French restaurants since Ratatouille.

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There’s a scene in A Waiter in Paris that encapsulates the mixture of light and dark that makes this true life tale so compulsive. In it Chisholm braves the kitchen, a place which is out of bounds to waiters, and is surprised to find someone addressing him in English with an “exaggerated East London accent”. This is Femi, a West African brought up in England who has been deported for undisclosed reasons.

They have an increasingly absurd conversation about the French not having a word for ‘gluten-free’ which ends with Femi explaining “it’s cos they French, bruv.” But as well as being funny, it’s also tragic as le patron took one look at Femi’s skin colour and sent him down to the kitchen with the other Africans. “You can vouch for me, yeah?” he asks forlornly. “That I speak proper English and that I’m a proper waiter, bruv. It’s a mistake I’m down here.”