I’m about to begin reaching out to restaurants in Paris for discussion about The Kale Project and incorporating kale into their menus. For the first “phase” of this project, I have a list of places that have both a large Anglo and progressive French following. A lot of the places on my list are owned by Americans or English people – which is a plus for me as it will make the discussions much easier! Plus the Anglo-owned restos have large Anglo followings and these are the people that are most likely to have had some exposure to kale before living in Paris and at least are aware. OR they are like me and were exposed, in love and really miss it. (Sound like someone you know?)
Bob’s Juice Bar; Paris; 10th arrondissement
So, here is my list of restaurants I plan to contact about The Kale Project.
- Verjus
- Bob’s Kitchen/Bob’s Juice Bar
- Rose Bakery
- Pousse Pousse
- Le Bal Café
- Semilla
- Coutume Café
- Merci Café
- Gentle Gourmet Café
- Emperor Norton
I have a list of many others, but I feel like this will be a good place to start.
If you live in Paris, do you have any other restaurants that you frequent that might be interested in The Kale Project? If so, please let me know!
Bonjour Kristen,
Since we commandeer the kitchen at Coutume Café on the weekends, allow us to knock two off that list for you
First off – thank you for taking the initiative on this project. We’d be super happy to help in any way possible. We’ll start you off with what we do know about kale in France, as we’ve been obsessed with the topic ever since landing here in 2008:
• Kale is typically called “chou frisé vert demi nain” – curly green half-dwarf cabbage!
• The seeds (even bio) are widely available from gardening web sites
• You can sometimes find it at Naturalia accidentally mixed in with the Savoy cabbage
• It’s available as a decorative (and thus chemically treated) plant at some home store garden centers
Alas, living in central Paris with not even a courtyard, we can’t grow much of it. We got some seedlings thanks to a friend who sprouted kale recently and they are thriving on our home balcony, though who knows what the sudden spate of hot weather is going to do. If we or our friends successfully get a batch going, perhaps a farmer (or someone with land!) can get a plot up and running. Rumor has it that there’s even a New York/Tokyo-style community garden somewhere in the 12th arrondissement, so that could be another starting point.
Otherwise, we often bring kilos of it in from our travels. Every single neighboring country has kale. When it’s off-season, we even bring in bags of frozen kale to keep ourselves sane. As agricultural standards are set by the EU, there’s probably no barrier to growing or serving kale in France, other than the cultural. So we’re happy to do our part to break down those barriers.
In fact, we’ve served the Dutch dish Boerenkool Stamppot (kale hash) for brunch and it was a sell-out, so any cultural resistance to kale simply stems from a lack of availability/knowledge of the plant. We’ve talked to a number of produce distributors from Rungis and at industry trade shows who’ve never even heard of kale, so it’s going to be a big uphill battle to get it onto plates… but if Paris is starting to accept decent Mexican food and sharing/family-style plates, kale can’t be that far behind.