The Town of Versailles is often ignored by those visiting the Palace of Versailles. That’s understandable in that the palace, the gardens, and the Trianons in the park can keep a visitor well occupied for most of a day. Yet the town, as a planned adjunct to the palace, merits a visit as both an uncrowded extension of the royal domain and, for all its 17th-18th-centuriness, a welcome bit of contemporary, local French life during a visit otherwise devoted to historical and monumental France.
For one, the town’s Notre-Dame Quarter has one of the most attractive market squares in the Paris region, part of the planned 17th-century layout that fans out from the palace. The current covered markets that enclose the square, Halles Notre-Dame, date from 1841.
It’s along that market square that Patricia Boussaroque, freshly graduated from the celebrated Ecole Cordon Bleu in Paris, recently set up a cheery and intimate kitchen-workshop, where she offers two- and three-hour cooking classes in the preparation of classic (and occasionally contemporary) French dishes and desserts.
In Paris there are dozens of possibilities for taking cooking classes lasting anywhere from one hour to one year—in schools, in kitchen supply stores, in restaurants, in private homes—so one needn’t go out to Versailles from the capital just for several hours in a kitchen. But what’s special about the prospect of an easy-going class with Patricia is the way in which it can contribute to a full, leisurely day in Versailles, both town and palace.
As a chef Patricia doesn’t have decades of professional culinary experience in her hands since for twenty years she worked in the corporate world in human resources. Until recently, tying on an apron had largely been an amateur passion not a career. Her atelier cuisine is now the result of well-baked career change.
After obtaining her Grand Diplôme from the Cordon Bleu in the spring of 2009, she found this unique location by the market to install a bright, convivial kitchen-workshop and began sharing her passion as a professional in September.
Set dates for daily classes in French are posted on Patricia’s website, yet the most enjoyable way to include a cooking lesson from Patricia on a Versailles outing would be for you and your traveling companions to arrange a private class. Patricia, who speaks fluent English, can either privatize an already scheduled class for your own small group or create a special class for you outside of the posted schedule, beginning with a tour of the market below.
Patricia’s affable, easy-going approach to cooking classes make them attractive to casual chefs, a group of friends, or families looking to bring home some French culinary experience and more than a taste of history when they visit Versailles.
© 2009, Gary Lee Kraut
L’Atelier Cuisine de Patricia, Place du Marché Notre-Dame, 4 rue André Chénier, 78000 Versailles. Tel. 01 71 42 82 42. www.lateliercuisinedepatricia.com.
Halles Notre-Dame, the covered markets of Versailles, are open Tuesday to Saturday 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Sunday 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. The best time to visit is when food market stalls also occupy the square outside from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.
Note: The palace, the Notre-Dame market, and Patricia’s atelier are all closed on Monday.
This was the best decision I made in Versailles! I came to Paris and Versailles for 3 weeks with my daughter while she worked on a movie… I was starting to feel a little bored, when my best friend suggested I take a French cooking class! I love to cook, I am Italian and I thought French cooking would be fun. Madame Patricia is fun and warm, translated much of the class in English for me ( my French is ok) and everyone else that was there was very nice to me as well. I went back the next week and felt like an old friend. The food was delicious and the social aspect was just what I was missing!