On the Le Bouillon Chartier in Paris, the recipe for a perfect bourguignon beef includes beef, carrots, wine, butter and “coquillettes”, a tiny pasta. It is cooked for at least three hours. And it must be accessible, so the price may not exceed 10 euros.
Since 1896, the Belle Epoque restaurant was the destination of Paris for a cheap French fare. It is a noisy canteen with meals that give energy for the day, where one at a living salary can eat for less than they earn in an hour.
But rarely in Bouillon Chartier’s historical historical history was so difficult to maintain cost under control as it is today.
The figures entering its beef, including restaurant electricity as well as salaries for the crowded staff of servers and cooks, are 30 to 45 % higher than five years ago, said Christophe Joulie, owner of the restaurant. And to maintain a A fixed price for the bouillon chartier dish (which costs about $ 10.80) has reduced the margins of its family business by up to 20 %.
“The price of all those who have increased substantially,” Mr Joulie said a recent week at the restaurant in the ninth Paris apartment, one of the three Bouillon Chartier locations in the city. A line that had been formed almost two squares until 11:30 am, when the doors open for the multitude of meal. “But our struggle is to always offer a decent meal at a decent price.”
The challenges faced by Mr Joulie reflect the broader impact of sticky inflation throughout Europe. Inflation in the euro region rose to 2.4 % in February after cooling last year. The European Central Bank has reduced interest rates for the sixth consecutive time on Thursday, but is facing an uncertain path forward as an increase in military spending and potential tariffs that make up the horizon.
Inflation has been reduced by a 10 percent record after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and pandemic lock. Prices for energy, meat and dairy products, and even glass utensils and tablecloths, do not grow so quickly. But they are still stubbornly higher than before the inflation epidemic.
The highest prices also add other businesses to Europe, pressing factories and energy trade, including restaurants, on the rim. In houses across the country, people trying to put food on the table find the price of their supermarket basket has only been sunk.
On the Bouillon Chartier, these forces are marble throughout the beef Bourguignon, France’s most iconic dish: the overall cost that goes almost doubled by the pandemic, Mr Joulie said.
The price of the beef ordering from long -term suppliers has increased three times, driven by a higher cost of supply and fertilizers, energy to run slaughterhouses and gas for tractors and transport.
Other ingredients have been reduced to their top price, but remain high, according to Insseee, the statistical service of France.
Mr Joulie’s electricity account for his restaurants increased to 1.5 million euros a year, from € 500,000 three years ago. Last year he was able to negotiate a lower contract, but this has not filed for the losses. Wages, which make up about 40 % of the price of a bourguignon of beef, have increased by 15 to 20 percent during this period, as workers demanded higher wages to keep up with inflation.
“Every morning I go to see my shopkeeper to understand what we can buy,” Mr Joulie said. “It’s like playing the stock market.”
Le Bouillon Chartier began as a popular canteen, who became a famous Bouillon broth-or Bouillon-and a rich fare to blue collar workers in Paris a century ago. Eventually, white workers are borne by tourists, who flock to larger numbers these days after the restaurant appeared on the Netflix Show “Emily in Paris”.
In a time of rigid inflation, Bouillon, as restaurants as they are known, has become a cooking refuge from the cost of life that has covered the costs of the average French citizen. The most expensive in the menu is a FRITES steak at € 13.50, a third to a half cheaper than it would be in bistro and restaurants. In recent years, about twelve cheap bouillons copycat have opened in Paris, attracting a crowd.
But the popularity of the Bouillon Chartier was not always strong. The cheap Paris dining room was judged by the mid -2000s, when eating habits changed, and more people raised fast food, Mr Joulie said. He was on the brink of bankruptcy when his father, a restaurant who started as a waiter in the French bistro in the 1970s, entered his son to rescue it. Together, they run Groupe Joulie, a business that also includes 12 elegant Parisian bistro.
The twin was renovated the restaurant in the ninth apartment, now a historic monument, maintaining its original decoration of Art Nouveau Globe channels, wooden lining and red tablecloths. The huge mirrors hung on potato walls inspired by Balthazar, the busy French restaurant in New York.
To reduce prices, Mr Joulie must work with the volume. It orders 1.5 tonnes of beef a week only for the beef dish in the three bouillons, serving over 4,000 visitors a day. Customers spend on average € 20 per ticket.
When prices go up too much, it will eliminate some elements from the menu. The popular Confit Duck, for example, was temporarily injured when it could not keep the price at € 12.50. And in early January, Mr Joulie was forced to remove beef for a week due to a jump in beef prices. It has maintained the cost of the dish at € 10 for four years.
Mostly, he chose to get the financial blow from his company’s margins. “We can do this because we are a family business that we do not see the stock market or investors,” he said.
“He has worked so far,” he added, gesturing at the Phalanx of Diners sitting elbow in the huge hall, decorated with a giant fresco made by painter Germont in 1929 to pay his delayed tab. Twenty waiters in black vests and white aprons revolved around the tables, taking orders and zippers in the kitchen. The glasses were confused and the silverly struck in white plates coming with the chartier emblem, which put on the top of a table covered by the table, where the waiters wrote the bill with a pen.
Despite the buzz, Mr Joulie said that the scourge of inflation is simmering under the surface for each dinner. Traffic in its restaurants, and restaurants and bistro around France, slowed after a post-literal increase. By the end of 2023, persistent high energy and food prices had deepened a life cost crisis. Even in Bouillon, customers ordered less.
Ali Belcacem and his friend, the long -term regular, were polished by a chocolate mousse of € 3.20 after eating Bourguignon and Andouillette or a sausage, washing it all with a glass of red wine. “We don’t eat as much as before,” Mr Belcacem said. Men, who live nearby, were in fixed income and have been financially squeezed, especially in the last year and half, with persistent high electricity and food accounts, as well as clothes and gas.
“When they say inflation has fallen down, this is not the reality,” Mr Belcacem said. “Our shopping cart for certain items is increased by 40 %.” They faced themselves at a lunch on the chartier because they were rich and economical.
Mr Joulie swept the dining room and looked at Mr Belcacem as he paid his account.
“High prices hurt a lot of people,” Mr Joulie said. “Now more than ever, it’s important to keep things accessible.”
