Chicken Fit For A King

Poached with slices of black truffle in a broth flavoured with tarragon and Madeira, there’s no finer way to treat a bird

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DELIGHTED by the unexpectedly warm, late-April sun streaming through the dining-room window, Robert, Jane and I sat down to lunch five years ago at Paul Bocuse’s fabled restaurant a few miles north of Lyons. Knowing, exactly, the dish we were going to eat long before la carte would be presented, we perhaps settled down a touch smugly.

Within minutes, three double vellum sheets the size of a school classroom atlas appeared, almost obscuring the immaculately turned out willowy waiter standing behind them. With a beatific smile, he handed one to each of us, bowed no more than two inches, turned about and left.

​Welcome to the longest-serving three-Michelin-star restaurant: since 1965!

Chef Bocuse died just over that a year ago, at the grand age of 91. Five years earlier, at the close of the above luncheon, we were greeted by the impressive man. His wife, quietly, almost ceremoniously, guided him between the tables of all his, by now, glowing guests. He had clearly aged and was a little indistinct, but spoke with true grace and benevolence.

He was certainly slower than I remembered him from several years before that, when he briefly sat at table with me and another chum, a man of considerable girth. ‘You must eat le poulet en vessie,’ chef declared, his eyes aimed at my friend. And so we did, naturellement.

That mutual, dear chum, Bill, had died when Jane, Robert and I had our lunch, so, yes, we knew exactly what to order—and extravagantly set about toasting Bill with fine Burgundy.