Alex Kapranos has been a regular at Le Pantruche since he made Paris his most regular home two or three years ago, following his marriage to French singer-songwriter Clara Luciani. The bistro is a 1930s fantasy of a neighbourhood restaurant in Pigalle, set among the guitar shops of the city’s equivalent of Tin Pan Alley or Denmark Street: a dozen tables and a well-stocked bar crowded into a tiny shopfront room; today’s wines by the glass chalked on a board (nothing over €10); a menu that changes according to what seasonal flavours chef Franck Baranger is excited about cooking; casually stylish regulars who all seem to know Martin, waiter and maitre d’, by name.
Kapranos was introduced to the restaurant by the producer of Franz Ferdinand’s new album, who has a studio round the corner. He loves it here for many reasons, he says, but specifically for the everyday miracle of its Grand Marnier souffle. Before he was a rock star, Kapranos was a chef himself, most notably at Glasgow’s outpost of London’s Groucho Club, Saint Judes, so he knows what’s involved. “At Saint Judes, we used to do this thing called an inside-out chocolate pudding,” he says. “When it was perfectly executed, you had this wonderful light crust a bit like a cannoli. And then you would just tap it gently, and the whole thing would collapse in on itself and this gooey, delicious chocolate would ooze out. But to get it right was literally a margin of about 10 seconds of cooking. And if you fucked it up, that meant you had to start again. We didn’t even try souffles – but when they do them perfectly each time here, I’m still just awestruck.”
