Fabien Nègre is a French writer, journalist, consultant to chefs and restaurateurs, gastronomic critic and commentator, wine man and cigar connoisseur.He has a doctorate in philosophy and a post-graduate degree in economy. He has worked in radio and television. He is a bon vivant, a gastronome, and a gourmand. He’s a bit Lyon, a bit Italy, a fair amount Marseilles, and a lot Paris.
Fabien Nègre has opinions about restaurants the way some guys have opinions about football players. Ask him about a new restaurant and he’ll tell you, “Don’t even think about that one, all hype” or “Love the food, hate the guy” or “Not bad, but people are only talking about it because he’s friend’s with so-and-so,” or “He’s a friend of mine but you can do better than that,” or “Come over and try a new rum I just got.”
Ask him for suggestions for a restaurant for, say, two American couples coming to Paris to celebrate their anniversary, and he’ll say, “What do they want to spend per person, 500 euros? 600? At 800 I got just the thing for you, unforgettable.”
Fabien writes portraits of great chefs. He writes (in French) with a psycho-philo-gastro-humano-literary approach that gets to the heart of what that makes a top chef unique. That makes his work a bugger to translate, as this one of Chef Guy Martin on France Revisited. Dozens of original portraits appear on the site www.LesRestos.com.
When Fabien Nègre calls you at midnight, you pick up the phone to find that he’s already started the conversation. If you were to try to walk across Fabien Nègre’s mind at that moment you’d be hit by a stray thought in less than ten seconds. But if you were to share a table with him in a restaurant for two or three hours you would have a terrific, well-fed ride on the back roads of French thought.
– GLK