An Imperfectly Shaded Garden

It is an imperfectly shaded garden on a very hot day in August – in a restaurant that is also the home of Jacques Maximin. Some years previously I had gone on a pilgrimage to the Hotel Negresco, on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, to experience the cooking of the chef who had been hailed as the next king of French gastronomy. The cooking was dazzling, if a little technically over- wrought, but the grand hotel dining room dominated by giant photographs of the chef was somewhat vainglorious.

Shortly afterwards I learned that Maximin had left to open his own restaurant in a theatre near the old port in Nice. Rumours abounded of its vaunting ambition, as the kitchen was put on stage and the diners formed an audience in front. It had folded before I had an opportunity to visit. By then he had decamped to the less pompous setting of his own home. There were still elements of vainglory. There were photographs of the man with various great chefs, and his name was emblazoned on every possible surface, not to mention his stalking presence as he wandered around in the company of two large Labradors.