Maison Prunier, 16, avenue Victor-Hugo, 16th arrondissement, Paris. Not sure that in 1924, in the spring of its inauguration, many would have thought about it. A hundred years later, we can't help it. Chance, coincidence, the address is perhaps not so innocent, because, in his heaven, who knows if the great Hugo has not, once again, played with the spirits.
On April 30, Prunier will, in fact, become a legend of the century. One of those restaurants which, from La Tour d'Argent to Ledoyen, from Maxim's to Lucas Carton, invented the great restaurant and gave Paris its little gastronomic genius. In his way, its founder, Émile Prunier, was not far from being one. Certainly, a visionary, like his father, Alfred, before him.
Audacity and modernity
This is where the epic begins. Strong as the true novel of a little 13-year-old Norman who, moved to Paris, established himself as a wine merchant, married his cook Catherine, opened, in 1872, a small store on Rue d'Antin and developed a passion for fish,…