La maison
One tree, one zinc, one recipe book
In the winter of 1986, Henri Marchand bought a zinc bar at auction from a shuttered café in Pigalle and had no restaurant to put it in. By spring he had signed the lease on a former droguerie at 27 Rue de la Folie-Méricourt — mostly, Colette always said, because of the chestnut tree in the courtyard. Le Marronnier opened in May 1987 with twelve tables, one blackboard, and Colette's recipe book.
That book is still in the till drawer. Pascale Aubert — who started here as a Saturday plongeuse in 1998 — took over the kitchen in 2011 and cooks from it every week: the blanquette page is translucent with butter, the margins full of Colette's corrections.
« more thyme than you think » — Colette, in the margin of the blanquette page
Quelques dates
1987
The doors open
Twelve tables, the Pigalle zinc, and a first service that ran out of bread by nine.
1998
Pascale arrives
A Saturday dishwasher who kept correcting the vinaigrette. Colette noticed.
2011
The kitchen changes hands
Pascale takes the stove; the Marchands take the corner table on Sundays.
2024
The dining room grows
The old stockroom becomes la salle privée — twenty-four seats under the courtyard window.
Les visages de la maison
Pascale Aubert
Cheffe de cuisine
Thomas Verel
Maître d'hôtel
Inès Bakari
Sommelière
Ce qui ne change pas
Rungis before dawn
Pascale drives to the market three mornings a week. The ardoise is written in the van on the way back.
Bread from the corner
Boulangerie Vasseur, forty metres away, bakes our pain de campagne twice a day. It arrives warm both times.
Growers, not négociants
Every bottle in the cave comes from a vigneron Inès has shaken hands with. The list is short and honest.
“I proposed at table six in 1994. We still eat there every anniversary, and Thomas still pretends it's a coincidence the table is free.