Le Saint Eutrope (my perfect little bistro)

Some kids get the itch to become astronauts but when I’m grown up I want to be Harry Lester.

Once I am I’ll open my perfect little bistro. A tear-the-paper-off-the-table, stoneware carafe and colourful brocante-deco affair, doesn’t matter where so long as it’s hard to get to, oh - and in France. I will dress in worn out French worker blue and greet my guests bonsoir from behind the bar, to the smell of duck fat double fried chips. The proper sort: well salted, not crisps, not frite: thick.

It will be a simple place, thirty covers, two servers, basta. Convivial. More seasonal, more whatever’s-in-the-pot than strictly regional. Food that reminds you of France but different. Nothing philosophical or technical (except the moonshine amaro I've got brewing in the basement), just religiously fresh. The food restaurants used to make before they got tired in the race to the bottom, caught up in €12 formulas or turned into self-referencing performances - and forgot.

When I'm grown I look forward t…