La Bonne Franquette

Presumably named in 1925 by Francisque Poulbot, the painter and Butte Montmartre benefactor to whom we owe the famous "petits Poulbots", the restaurant was already an artists' haunt in the 19th century.

Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir (who lived nearby) as well as Monet and the 2 major artistic figures of this Parisian neighborhood, Suzanne Valadon and her son Maurice Utrillo, had their habits in this house dating back... to the 16th century!

Between two modest meals and a glass of absinthe, they came here to meet their color merchant, Père Tanguy, whom the most famous Dutch painter portrayed in 1887.

A simple, relaxed meal, sometimes improvised but always convivial: that's what the expression "à la bonne franquette" means, dating back to the 17th century. At the time, it was a way of distinguishing between meals eaten at court, which were highly formalized with its own set of rules of decorum and rituals to be respected, and those eaten by the common people, who were not so constrained.

In the language of the time, a distinction was made between eating "à la française" (of which the Unesco-listed Repas gastronomique des Français is the direct heritage) and sharing a meal in a more informal manner, "à la franquette". The suffix "ette", surely of Normandy-Picardy origin, implied the idea of eating "frankly, quite simply".

An expression with performative virtues, the fact of hearing it in the mouth of a host had the immediate power to put the host in the mood. To find out more about La bonne franquette de Montmartre, click here.