Au Michel by Daria Lojko

A surly Uber driver brought us to a white, three-story château through wrought-iron gates. The Napoleon III-style building soared from its opulent curtilage. “Ooh! Ah!” we breathed out.

Before I knew it, Daisy raised her iPhone high. “Stella and I are at a three-star Michelin restaurant called Au Michel, located onthe right bank of the Seine River just outside Paris. I’m very jetlagged but can’t wait to try all the amazing food! What about you, Stella?” She pivoted the phone camera toward me, and I contorted my face into an awkward, horse-like smile.

“Thanks for visiting and coming on this Michelin adventure with me,” I told Daisy.

“Of course, hon! It’s great content for my travel Vlog. Plus, your dad’s paying.”

“He won’t get any poorer,” I smirked. “It actually did take some convincing to have him pay for your ticket. He wants me to ‘get over this nonsense and return to the States!’” I mocked my father’s baritone.

To our right, several men in black suits congregated next to a raven-black Bentley, obstructing what appeared to be the main entrance. Daisy and I had grown up in the wet and dreary suburbs of Portland, Oregon, where men, women, children, and non-binary persons dressed as though a hike could break out at any moment. I gave a quick tag to my trendiest denim shirt, straightened my bony six-foot frame, and sauntered toward the black-suited men, exuding confidence. Daisy minced beside me at my shoulder level in her casual-chic, cotton frock.

One of the men rushed toward me. “Bonjour, mademoiselle! Aga-aga-aga-ju-ju?”

Uh-oh! A French-speaking, suit-wearing threat. Can’t look flustered! “Ah… Bonjour…rhestaurhant?” I murmured in “solid” French.

“Aga-aga-ju-jur.” The man’s eyes sparkled with a hint of amusement.

“Je suis désolée! Je ne parle pas français! Parlez-vous anglais?” I squeaked out the key phrases I’d prepared for just such unpredictable situations.

“Only in the eeevenings,” the Frenchman said. “Not durghing tha day.”

I gaped. One could expect the French to be snobbish. But then the corners of his lips curved up. It was a joke! I let out a relieved, nervous titter.

“The rhestaurhant is this way, please,” he said.

Daisy and I followed the man and his gleaming scalp with spikes of blond hair. More men and women greeted us inside, “Bonjour! Bonjour! Bonjour!” A swirl of black-and-white uniforms. The spiky-haired man led us further through the main dining hall to a sunroom no bigger than a tenth of Dad’s lumber yard with eight round dining tables. My heart skipped a beat. Emerald-green velvet chairs, white tablecloth, and golden finishings were as if straight out of Vogue, which I still scooped up as soon as it hit the stands and passed on to Daisy once every picture of perfume, outfit, and decorative interior was drilled into memory. Spiky showed us to a table next to the glass wall with a view of the garden. Outside, the afternoon sun spilled its golden warmth over the ivory statues of well-fed, frolicking children.

As soon as we settled in our seats, the man, with a flourish reminiscent of the Great Houdini, produced two crystal flutes of champagne, its effervescence dancing in the light. We accepted with glee.

“Today, would you like to order a ten-course menu or a thirteen-course menu?” he inquired.

“Je would like ten-course, s’il vous plaît,” I offered a dignified response. His spotless satin suit screamed, “Kneel before me, lowly American,” but I knew how to hold my own in a place like this, at least in theory.

“Tres bien. Mademoiselle speaks French!”

“I’m doing a study abroad semester. At a culinary school. I love France!”

“Oh, charmant! What make you fall in love with France?” our spiky-haired waiter asked, folding his hands behind his back in a courtly gesture.

“My parents brought me with them to Paris when I was eleven.” My cheeks tingled. “For their wedding anniversary… I will never forget how beautiful it was. Paris is so charming. The food is unbelievable!” I gushed.

Behind the waiter, the tables were filling up with guests.

“Oui… Merci. And you want to become a chef?” He grinned, revealing a row of narrow, wine-stained teeth.

“That’s right. I’m here to learn from the best.” I displayed my most cultured smile, but the flaming cheeks betrayed me.

“Charmant.”

He then turned to Daisy, “And you? Would you like the ten-course menu or thirteen-course menu?”

“Thirteen-course, please,” she chirped.

I couldn’t help but do a double-take, but I trusted that my petite friend knew what she was doing. After all, everybody knows those Michelin dishes are tiny.

“Would you go back to Portland if it doesn’t get better with your classmates?” Daisy whispered to me once the waiter had left.

“Heck no!”

Through the main dining hall, another man in a suit led a group of young women in pearls to a table behind ours.

“They’re here.” I kicked Daisy under the table. “The damsels from my school.”

Seeing them at the restaurant was expected and expectedly heightened the self-imposed finesse standard. I had picked this place, knowing that they frequent it. At the same time, what a comfort it was to have sweet old Daisy by my side while I bulldozed my way into the sophisticated Parisian lifestyle.

“What did I tell you?” I whispered.

The women picked their seats unhurriedly, shifting their Saint Laurents around, and finally settled. I scanned the array of pointy pumps under their table and tucked my feet under my chair. The oversized-style sneakers and lived-in burnt-orange knit skirt I wore were the pinnacle of street style in Portland. Next to the students of Gaston Meunier Culinary School, I might as well have worn a lumberjack’s overalls. I didn’t let that dampen my confidence. Hadn’t they heard that athleisure is the trend of the day?

Daisy turned to peek. “They’re very pretty.”

You could say that.

“That’s Mathilde in Chanel, in the middle.” My eyes flickered to the brunette in a lavender boucle two-piece. “I swear she has those suits in every color.”

“So elegant,” Daisy responded. My friend was missing the point.

“Her and Josephine—next to her in Dior scarf—are in Knife Handling with me twice a week. We work at the same table! They pretend like they don’t understand a word I say. Not even Bonjour! Can you believe it?”

“Do you say it correctly?” Daisy the lamb was beginning to get on my nerves.

“Bonjour! Bonjour!!” My voice climbed at least two octaves. “How else can you say it incorrectly?!”

Mathilde deigned to look at me with her signature “languid eyes” gaze a la French actress. I stretched my lips into a tight line in place of a greeting. Regally, she drew an arch in the air with her chin toward Josephine, and a muffled chuckle spread through their group. Like hiccupping llamas, I thought. I stopped my eye roll a quarter of the way.

In a minute, two waiters brought buns to our table. We lauded the plush bread. Next came parmesan crostini. “Oh, this is so good!” We cooed as the flaky crostini disappeared in a second. Those were appetizers, we were told, and not included on the list of main courses.

We chatted in anticipation of our first dish out of ten and thirteen. When it arrived, Spiky announced in a heightened register, “Sea urchin tartlet!”

With that, our multi-course dinner began. I stared at the pastry and scanned the utensils. Do I start with inside or outside? Isn’t the outside fork for salads? But a tartlet is not a salad. The forks flickered at me and reflected my distorted image. Out of the corner of my eye, I checked my classmates. They weren’t eating yet.

“How do we eat this?” I asked Daisy.

She hesitated. “I think we just take it and put it in our mouths,” she answered and did just that with her fingers. I hastened to follow her example, shoving the whole tartlet in.

“Mm…mhm…” I mumbled, working to force the entire tartlet inside my mouth. I searched Daisy’s delicate profile for her reaction to the taste.

“It’s… savory,” she managed.

“A very strong sea flavor,” I added. “Kind of like concentrated oyster.” Or rotting seaweed, orange and slimy. I kept that image to myself.

Haute Cuisine appreciation is a learned skill reserved for the few, I reminded myself. True sophisticates like my friend and me.

Then came something with crab and foam or foam of crab at the bottom of a ramekin. Then, lobster cappuccino. That’s right, lobster cappuccino. You won’t find that in Portland. Served in a small coffee cup, the creamy, marine-tasting froth overlaid the aromatic espresso. I told myself that I kind of liked the unusual flavor combination as I champed the crustacean’s meat fibers after each sip.

Then Daisy received a scallop in a nest of rosemary.

“I’m sorry.” Spiky cocked his head at me, conveying regret. “Not for you… this is part of the thirteen-course menu.”

Then came langoustine with foie gras. So savory and tender.

“Have you noticed how dignified they are when they’re presenting the dishes?” I said to Daisy. Haute cuisine is truly an art form.

When the cod was served in a consistency of super-sticky mashed potatoes, I noticed that Daisy’s was in a cup and mine in a bowl.

“I wonder why I got more of this than you?” I asked.

“Maybe because you ordered less, and they’re worried about you getting hungry?”

“I’m actually getting kinda full!” I began to worry about my stomach’s capacity.

“Yeah, me too,” she said. “And I ordered thirteen!”

“You can do it!”

The sun slid from the garden onto our faces through the glass wall.

“It’s getting hot, too,” I said.

“Yeah, it really is!

Next came salmon smoked in cherry wood. Fantastic! We devoured it in silence.

I noticed Daisy getting flushed and traced my forehead with the back of my hand. I was sweltering and probably glistening like a Christmas ornament.

Then came a drop of black caviar on a dollop of champagne sorbet.

“Refreshing!” Daisy said optimistically.

“Mhm,” I replied with no enthusiasm.

“Madame, could we close the curtains or something?” I called the nearest server.

Three people hurried over, fussed around, and pulled a length of tulle about a foot off the side of the wall. They smiled and shrugged, indicating that was all they could do.

“Merci,” I said, full of benevolence. A tickling trickle of sweat traveled down my spine.

Next, something called squab floated at us from both directions, adorned with blobs of foie gras. We exchanged sidelong glances, hunching over the dishes. A couple of cackles escaped, but we dutifully put spoons to our mouths.

The room temperature kept climbing. I struggled to keep from drooping like a drought-stricken plant, but I had to maintain appearances in the presence of high society.

“I can’t eat anymore,” I muttered.

“And I have thirteen courses!”

“You better relish every single one of them for $300!”

We imploded in a bout of stifled laughter.

We tried to count how many dishes we’d already had and how many were still left. It was not adding up. With the heat and the last “savory” dish stuck in our throats, we were convulsing, hunched over the table. I blotted sweat and tears with a napkin, grunting and snorting. My classmates at the next table, their eyebrows forever lifted in either surprise or disapproval, adjusted their purses and pearls and snickered over raised shoulders as if to shield their company from our inappropriate table.

“Oh my God,” Daisy said, “we’ve been here for more than two hours already!”

“And we’re only halfway through. Do you think they do to-go at Michelin restaurants?”

Daisy didn’t know. Boxing the rest of the dishes could be our salvation, or it could be a faux pas.

While we were weighing our options, Spiky approached, lifted his nose, and announced, “The Hare à la Royale!” The crown jewel of Michelin cuisine has arrived.

Addressing me, he added, “I’m sorry, this is not for you…”

He tentatively placed the giant plate in front of Daisy. It contained a six-inch lumpy log with a thick layer of what appeared to be dark chocolate poured on top.

“It’s all right!” I said a little too happily. “I don’t like chocolate!” I was deeply grateful that I didn’t have to deal with the log of whatever it was.

My friend’s eyes widened, and it took all my effort to squash the laughing spasms. I looked up at the waiter. His scalp had developed reddish spots, and the rare blond spikes stood up as if in concern.

“Is everghything allrghirght?” he asked with a thickened accent.

“Yes,” I said. “Everything is delicious. It’s just a lot of food!”

“Ah…yes…enjoy.” He bowed out.

Sweet Daisy stared at the log with a mix of politeness and apprehension. “It’s not chocolate,” she pronounced in a sepulchral tone. “It’s foie gras. It’s rabbit drenched in foie gras.”

“Oh! It smells like the Waggin’ Tails kibble my dog loves! Which actually smells good. Sometimes, I feel like trying it!” I wanted to provide moral support. My friend was clearly in a tricky situation.

“Then try this!”

“Oh no!” I wanted to be supportive, but not to that degree. “You enjoy!”

Daisy made a pitiful expression, and we lost it. I dropped my head on my forearm and gave in freely to the hysterics that had been threatening to burst. We heaved and wept in pain.

I saw through tears that my friend had collected herself and delivered a forkful to her mouth.

“It tastes like a stew,” she whispered through a laughing paroxysm. Gulping, she worked one bite after another down her throat, thus consuming half of the lumpy log. “I think I have realized today that I don’t like foie gras,” she gurgled through the black mass.

As I watched her submit to the log, I grew alarmed. “Just don’t eat it anymore! You don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it!”

“But there are, like, twenty of them watching me,” she said, her face beet-red above the plate.

“Do you want me to ask them to box it for you?” I suggested.

“I’m not gonna eat it later!” my friend shot back.

With dread, in my peripheral vision, I noticed our waiters balancing plates with something resembling omelet balls under hollandaise.

“Do you like it?” Spiky approached and nodded at the half-eaten log. He peered at Daisy with a quivering smile.

“Yes, it is very good,” she said, her eyes watering. “Very rich!”

A shudder of chortle ran through us like electricity. It exploded in brown fireworks from Daisy’s mouth. The revolting specks landed on the white table linen, spread in rings inside the water glasses, struck Spiky’s moist hands, and splatted the smelly omelet balls. Spiky turned raspberry-red.

Daisy wiped the brown drizzle off her chin. I guffawed. That turned all the respectable patrons’ heads in our direction at once. Bubbling out brown liquid, Daisy caught a glimpse of the roomful of eyes pinned to our table, inhaled, and erupted in a coughing fit.

I rushed in to pat her back. Daisy jumped to her feet and grasped her throat. Her eyes bulged. I began pounding her back. She waved me off as if I were a mosquito, but I was determined to save my friend. I kept pounding. “Elle s’étouffe!” someone screamed. Did she lose a tooth? I thought in a panic.

A monsieur in plaid ecru trousers pushed me away to grab Daisy around her midriff. As he did that, my heel caught on to a chair leg, and I watched the monsieur perform the Heimlich maneuver on my friend as I began to topple. On my way down, I grabbed the tablecloth and a waiter’s jacket and crashed into a bar cart behind me, adding another level of ruckus to the already ensuing chaos.

Once I dug myself out from under the waiter, the tablecloth, various utensils, and a blend of libations, I saw with relief that Daisy had stopped choking and worked on catching her breath. Up on all fours, I attempted to regain my footing. That’s when I caught a glimpse of several pairs of pointy-toed shoes nearby. My gaze traveled up the boucle skirt suits. The girls from my school towered above me and had the full view of my wriggling on the floor. In fact, at that point, everyone in the restaurant was on their feet, pressed against the walls and murmuring at once, with Daisy, myself, and Spiky in the well-lit center of the room.

“Le docterrgh is on his way.” Spiky trembled.

“I’m okay,” peeped Daisy. “No need for a docterrgh.”

The doctor, however, was already entering the room. He measured Daisy’s pulse, listened to her lungs, checked her throat, and heard her story. “Trghy not to lueff when you eat feuud in the futurgh,” he recommended.

As the doctor departed, we were left in fizzing silence. The restaurant patrons had left or been relocated to the main room seating. Spiky shifted from one foot to the other next to a ruined table.

“Can we take the rest of it to go?” I mumbled meekly to Spiky.

“Off courghse!” He nodded with fervor.

Ten minutes later, wobbling, with cheeks on fire, we carried our expanded bellies and the to-go boxes through the main dining hall. I held my head high and avoided eye contact, but I sensed with my skin Mathilde and Josephine observing our exit from their new table in this much cooler, air-conditioned part of the restaurant.

At last, we made our way out of the vestibule through countless deep, courteous nods and au revoirs. I called an Uber and sent a swift text message across the world: “Hey, Dad, can you get me a ticket back for Monday?”