For a hundred and seven years a major part of French literary life has been played out here.
Its first floor lounge, where the members of the Goncourt Academy meet behind closed doors, is the object of all fantasies.
Its mythical Ruhlmann staircase, from which the deliberations of the jurors are announced, at the heart of all attention. The Drouant restaurant would not be this internationally renowned institution of Parisian gastronomy without the Goncourt prize, which it has hosted since 1914.
Read alsoDiscover the exceptional collection “The best of the Goncourt prize”
It was in 1880 that the Alsatian Charles Drouant opened a modest bar-tabac on Place Gaillon, between the Stock Exchange and Opéra Garnier districts.
He then serves the oysters of his brother, an oyster farmer in Brittany.
Very quickly, he decided to transform his café into a restaurant, whose refined cuisine attracted painters, sculptors, journalists and writers.
At the end of the 1920s, Jean Drouant, his son, secured the services of Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann, a figure of Art Deco, to redecorate the establishment - he was responsible for its magnificent wrought iron staircase as well as its marine ceiling on the ground floor, which Cocteau said was the sky and the sea of fish.
Stayed in the family until the 1970s, the restaurant then changed hands several times,
The first meeting of the Goncourt Academy at Drouant took place on October 31, 1914, eleven years after its creation.
The choice of this new meeting place, which comes after that of the Café de Paris, where she met until then, is not due to chance.
Firstly because the restaurant was frequented by the founder of the Academy, Edmond de Goncourt, during the last years of his life, but also by several academicians, or future members: Gustave Geffroy, Alphonse and Léon Daudet, Jean Ajalbert, Octave Mirbeau, the Rosny brothers… Because Drouant was renowned for its good food, a significant advantage for the “Ten” of the
“academy”
, as qualified it when it was launched in 1903 Émile Faguet, of the French Academy, who saw there a potential rival.
Ten life members have been meeting there since the first Tuesday of each month, from September to June, around an oval table in the very cozy Salon Goncourt on the first floor, next to that of Renaudot.
The opportunity to discuss literary news around a hearty lunch and to announce, between the beginning of September and the end of October, the selections of works before the proclamation of the winner at the beginning of November by the secretary general of the academy.
Since 1961, on the initiative of the writer André Billy, to echo the armchairs of the French Academy, vermeil cutlery has been engraved with the name of each holder and his predecessors.
In 2020, due to the health crisis and the closure of restaurants, the award ceremony did not take place at Place Gaillon… but via Zoom.
Having found its academicians in 2021, Drouant capitalized on the price by offering its customers the opportunity to taste the same meal for a month - kept secret until the deliberations - as that served to the jurors, and this seated in their engraved armchairs in the Goncourt salon. , in the dishes that are usually reserved for them!
On the menu, for 255 euros (wine included), paraded six services signed by the young chef Thibault Nizard: crushed oysters and Oscietra caviar;
scallops, candied Jerusalem artichoke and squid ink mousseline;
lobster, shellfish and burnt leeks;
hare in the royal style senator Knives;
truffled brie and mesclun;
mont blanc and blackcurrant sorbet.
Where and how can I get a book from the collection?
At your newsagent from March 10 every other Thursday (the first volume at €3.90, then €12.90 for the following ones), but also at the Figaro Store.
Discover our subscription offer: receive 2 volumes at home each month for €16 the first month, then €25 per month (free shipping).
Each book is also sold individually.
The collection is available in bookstores from March 24.