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France's traditional cafe-bistros have fallen from about 500,000 in the early 1900s to between 30,000 and 40,000 today, closing at a rate of two a day, and tourists are being urged to help save them.
France's traditional cafe-bistros are closing at a rate of two a day, with only between 30,000 and 40,000 left across the country, down from about 500,000 in the early 1900s.
French cafe-bistro decline
The number had already fallen to fewer than 250,000 by the 1960s, and the decline has continued as rural populations shrink, residents stay home more and people drink less alcohol. There is a very real danger that this French institution, a style of approachable restaurant that has spread worldwide, will disappear. The cafe-bistro is as much a social-gathering place as a purveyor of food and drink, and has been a vital part of the French cultural fabric.
One place that shows both the appeal and the struggle is Maitenia in Ciboure, in the Pays Basque region of France, a seemingly simple and affordable bistro that does truly lovely food driven by local produce and prepared with skill. There is danger when you sit at one of the outside tables at Maitenia. It is not so much the danger of overeating or of getting a little drunk in the midday sun, though that is a threat.
The main danger is being hit by a pelota ball. The little bistro is perched right next to the village fronton, the court used to play the Basque sport of pelota, which involves hitting a ball, either with your hand or with a racquet, really hard against a wall and hoping your opponent will not be able to hit it back.
The bench tables under the big umbrellas outside Maitenia sit right up against the knee-high barrier at the edge of the pelota court. All it takes is a slightly errant shot and you will have a rock-hard rubber ball splattering your cheese course across the table. To be honest though, I have never been hit at Maitenia. Maybe the players are careful; maybe they are just good.
Instead, I have been able to sit there in the warm French sun and eat beautiful food. The plates are simple, decided upon each morning after the chefs chat to the fishermen coming in from their nightly mission, after they pick over the vegetables and fruits of the day at the market and decide what will work best together. Maitenia is a gem, a treasure, a seemingly simple, affordable bistro that does truly lovely food.
Maitenia bistro struggles
That food is served at wooden bench tables by laidback staff who pour wine and offer coffee and seem to just enjoy the occasion as much as anyone. Despite its obvious attractions, however, including the food, the wine, the affordability and the position among the French-Basque houses just across the harbour from busy St-Jean-de-Luz, Maitenia has struggled. It has changed owners a few times in the recent past. It closed for a while a few years ago.
It is also a replacement for an old village stalwart, Bar du Fronton, which was forced to permanently close in the 1980s. What gives? Surely it should not be so hard to run a bistro in the home of the bistro, France, especially when it is as good as this. Yet bistro-style venues across the country are in trouble.
One reason is that the French, the same as everyone else, are leaving small rural areas and moving to cities. I have French friends now who live in villages that no longer have a boulangerie, no longer have even a dodgy old bar-tabac, because there just are not enough people around to support them. People in France are also staying home more, watching TV and surfing the internet instead of going out at night. And they are drinking less alcohol.
All of which makes it more difficult to run a successful cafe-bistro, and more difficult to find people willing to establish or maintain cafe-bistros in far-flung rural areas. This is sad, you might think, but what can I do about it? Well, plenty. This is a situation in which mass tourism can be used for good.
Mass tourism preservation
We hear so many stories of the foreign masses destroying local culture and traditions with over-tourism, but here it can help preserve them. France is the most popular tourist destination on the planet. More than 100 million international visitors came to France last year for a holiday. That is a phenomenal number of people, and clearly enough to keep a few humble cafe-bistros in business.
The key is to have those tourists stray from the obvious paths. They should make decisions to eat in quirky and sometimes even intimidating little cafe-bistros instead of going with the flashy places they have read about in the Michelin Guide, or seen on social media, or recognise because they are chains where they know exactly what they are going to get.
It will also require tourists to visit small rural villages, places where the attractions might not be so obvious as they are in, say, Nice or Lyon or Bordeaux. Ciboure, for example, the home of Maitenia, is only a 10-minute walk from busy St-Jean-de-Luz, and yet it enjoys just a fraction of the visitors. French bistro culture has given the world so much. We owe a huge debt.
And now it is time to repay it. The fact you can do this simply by eating good food and drinking lovely wine and getting to know a place you may never have previously thought to visit makes it a no-brainer. It is time to save a cultural icon, one entree at a time.
The writer is a Sydney-based travel writer, columnist, broadcaster, author and occasional tour guide with more than 25 years of experience in media, and a lifetime of experience traversing the globe. He specialises in food and wine, writing about it as well as consuming it, and at any given moment in time he is probably thinking about either ramen in Tokyo, pintxos in San Sebastian, or carbonara in Rome. Follow him on Instagram @bengroundwater
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theage:This story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
Maitenia Ciboure Bistro Closures France Mass Tourism Basque Pelota
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