Becquetance, For a Cheeky Bite to Eat

Anastasia, 33 years old, chef of the restaurant Becquetance.

Vincent, 34 years old. I look after the dining room and the wine at Becquetance.

I got caught up in the restaurant business after various unsuccessful attempts at studying. My achievements can be summed up by a great deal of experience in an establishment on the Canal Saint-Martin (La Marine) and two or three other spots.

My academic background is more oriented towards architecture. After I graduated, I worked for three years with the Saga Collective on facility construction projects in Joe Slovo township, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. I was already cooking a lot at the time, especially to finance part of the project through fund-raising dinners. When I decided to return to France, I started a CAP by correspondence, and I was lucky enough to get a job as a commis at Bistrot Paul Bert, which is a terrific school. I stayed there for a year-and-a-half, and then I was offered a job as the sole chef in a canteen in Le Sentier, La Pince à Cornichons. I stayed there for 18 months too. Then Covid came along, then a short contract as a second chef and then setting up the project with Vincent.

We met through our respective spouses, both architects. They were working in the same agency at the time. Anastasia was running the kitchen of a small bistrot near the Bourse, and we were both looking for something to reflect our personalities. The outlines of what we wanted were very vague at the time. We got to know each other by discussing what we liked about food and morning and by drawing upon our respective experiences. I thought Anastasia’s cooking was both traditional and generous, with a touch of creativity that kept the food from being boring. And it goes without saying that it was delicious.

Our complementary profiles were an obvious asset. I love wine, and I’m very good at appreciating it, but I wouldn’t be able to retain all this information about the different vintages without getting confused. We found ourselves coming round to the idea of a bistrot, a welcoming neighbourhood place where you eat a variety of unpretentious seasonal dishes prepared without fuss but with great care.

We needed warmth in this small space. Wood seemed to us to be the obvious choice. Oak lends itself perfectly to this. From the woodwork in the bar to the glass roof in the kitchen, the shopfront and the stairs. It seemed important to us to create a coherent whole, the rest being composed of raw materials already on-site (concrete and stone for the basement). To create this floor, we were inspired by the work of the architect Carlo Scarpa in several of his projects.

The initial idea was to create an irregular, but gridded mosaic. The deep green marble inlaid in the polished concrete gives a taste of both roughness and sophistication. As for the trash wall, we wanted to keep a remnant of the old premises in the space where we welcome customers. It works like a canvas on the wall. We left it as it was; the inscriptions from the old building works are still there.

The work was largely carried out by Costaud Rénovation. The tableware we use was created by Charlotte Auroux from the Zoug Zoug workshop (Gambetta). The coffee service was made by Emmanuelle Angot, whose workshop is further up the Rue de Ménilmontant. The Agecop team produced the oak structures. And finally, the wall lights were designed and made by our mutual friend, Clément Jacq.

Some elements of the work were carried out by the family. My brother and my father did all the tiling and marble work, and my mother made the cushions for the benches. The table bases were already in the restaurant. We had the tops made by Placages André. And as for the chairs, most of them come from the splendid collection at Cartel de Belleville.

This is probably the most difficult question for me, because I don’t theorise about my cooking at all. My dishes and menus are mostly conceived instinctively, using the season and what it offers us as a basis. I like to work on the principle that things that grow at the same time must go together in at least one way, perhaps even in a hundred ways. I work closely with producers and suppliers, and quality is of primary importance. Jean-Luc Larcade, from Les Petites Fermes, has had my complete trust for years now. We have been working with wonderful vegetables from Les Trois Parcelles farm since the beginning, and Tom Saveurs and Le Bateau de Thibault supply us with seafood. The delicious creams and cottage cheese from Maison Borniambuc are also great allies. And we mustn’t forget our local friends, Benoît Castel, for the bread, and Crème for the cheese. As well as carefully chosen seasonal products, the basis of my cooking is traditional bistrot food and sometimes even the food my grandmother made. I love honest, unpretentious and generous cooking. I especially like to take a new approach to a dish by adding one or more elements from other culinary cultures. Mixing cultures in cooking is something that is quite central to what I enjoy doing.