The letter ‘o’ is a
mysterious one at the best of times. It lacks an obvious start or end point,
is easily confused with the puzzling number zero, and forms the phonological centrepiece
of this strange
song featuring Ost & Kjex. Its very presence in the word “mysterious”
is itself something of a mystery*. But if you were trying to make it look even
more enigmatic, you could do little better than superscripting and underlining
it, before rotating it a beguiling 45˚.
 |
| Oh... |
Au Clocher du Village
is the cozy-looking bistro which I walk past whenever I exit Église d’Auteuil
station, as befalls me from time to time. On my first sighting, I was
immediately hooked by the cryptic ‘o’. Was the underscore a diacritic? Was
its slantiness an arcane prosodic cue? Perhaps an artistic approach was needed –
could the ‘o’ be tumbling gracelessly to the earth, a token of this establishment’s
rustic charm in
the city
of haute cuisine? Or could it symbolise one of the
swinging bells evoked in the poetic title? For some time, it seemed to me there
was nothing in the world more perplexing and unfathomable than the tilted
letter that had captured my imagination.
Until I found a second
one.
 |
| ... my god. |
A mere 800m separates
Au Clocher’s frivolous vowel rotation from a perfect replica, this time tucked between the letters “au relais Chard” and “n”. At a restaurant called “au relais Chardon”.
If my curiosity had
been piqued before, it had now been soaked in methylated spirits and exposed to
an open flame. How many more lop-sided ‘o’s were lurking around this city? Or
if it was only these two, which one came up with it first? Did the owner of one
walk past the other and recognise a good thing when he saw it? Was this a very
literal case of one restaurant mimicking the other to the letter?
As it turns out,
there’s more linking these two establishments than just a cartwheeling ‘o’ and
an ill-advised chocolate colour scheme. They share an owner, and at a total of
two locations represent the smallest possible restaurant collective you could
just about call a chain. Oddly, it’s not the first minimal chain I’ve come
across in Paris. I was struck
recently by a façade lit up with the name “Le Congrès” at the Porte Maillot,
having already discovered one at the Porte d’Auteuil. I was confident an online search would prove the existence of others around town - but to paraphrase one famous Parisienne, “that’s all there is, there [are]n’t any more”.
 |
| Spot the difference |
I have other examples, but rather than list them I’d ask that you just
take my word and indulge me the next few sentences. The unlikely parade of
Parisian double acts provides a welcome contrast to the tired copy and paste
instinct of English restaurateurs. Yes, places like Côte, Bills and Strada are
solid eateries in their own right - but once you’ve seen one,
you’ve seen 35%
of restaurants in Britain. So I'll take the tilted
‘o’ of tw-independent Parisian dining over a flat UK chain culture any
day.
 |
(My apologies to
anyone who finds “French food is better than English food” rather an
uninsightful conclusion.)
*Where’s the ‘o’ in
its French root and counterpart, mystérieux?
