Le Grand Véfour, the first grand restaurant in Paris,^[1] France, was opened in the arcades of the Palais-Royal in 1784 by Antoine Aubertot, as the Café de Chartres,^[2] and was purchased in 1820 by Jean Véfour,^[3] who was able to retire within three years, selling the resataurant to Jean Boissier.^[4] A list of regular customers over the last two centuries includes most of the immortal heavyweights of French culture and politics, along with the tout-Paris.^[5] Sauce Mornay was one of the preparations introduced at the Grand Véfour. Closed from 1905 to 1947, a revived Grand Véfour opened with the celebrated chef Raymond Oliver in charge in the autumn of 1948. Jean Cocteau designed his menu.^[6] The restaurant, with its early nineteenth-century neoclassical décor of large mirrors in gilded frames and painted supraportes, continues its tradition of gastronomy at the same location, "a history-infused citadel of classic French cuisine."^[7]

When it lost one of its three Michelin stars^[8] under the régime of Guy Martin for the Taittinger Group, it was headline news.^[9]

[edit] Notes