A kind of simple magic

writes photographer Albie Clark

One of the cruelest aspects of the global pandemic - bar the obvious and often unfathomable sorrow of seeing so many people suffering and dying - is the shuttering of communal spaces like restaurants. Sequestered in our homes, we’ve had to relinquish many of the shared experiences that normally enrich our lives, like the simple act of sitting down with others to a meal carefully prepared by pros and served with love. Whilst we’ve all had to become a bit more familiar with domesticity - during lockdown I’ve fulfilled a lifelong goal of making proper baguettes and am slowly learning how to sew - it can seem like we have, albeit temporarily, lost something that links us to each other. Some of our most pervasive memories are inexorably linked to sensory experiences; for my wife and I it is the discovery of new places to eat alongside returning to old favourites and feeling the glow that suffuses your belly after a meal made by people who understand that connection. So many of our most treasured culinary experiences have come from the kitchens at l’escargot that it’s worth reflecting on just how influential Fred et al have been in shaping not just how we eat, but how the provenance of that food is just as important. So, first, an origin story of my own.

Like many kids growing up in a small town in Northern Scotland I dreamt of escape. By the age of 16 the issue of how you’d shape your own future was slowly coming into focus, and I harboured a dream of becoming a translator and living in Paris, believing it to be as exotic and romantic as Elgin was pedestrian and provincial. I had always had a penchant for language, and so I eventually wound up in Paris on an exchange, spending my 18th birthday in a typical restaurant du quartier where one simple dish would plant a seed in my brain about how food could be a conduit into new, lasting experiences. We didn’t have much money growing up, but once in a while we would go to the local Berni Inn, a chain of steakhouses. Where those cuts of beef we’d have as kids were always well-done, the steak I would have in Paris just a few years later - as the result of a mistranslation, me forgetting the correct phrase - yielded so easily to my fork, and whilst the bloody juices that ran out were initially disturbing, I can still recall how that first bite melted into my mouth. Encrusted in sea salt, it was served very simply with a baked potato but it’s a meal I can remember vividly some 26 years later. Maybe it’s just the French connection, but that experience is replicated in some small way every time we eat at l’escargot.

I first met Fred in 2010 at the old Institut Français, a short stroll from l’escargot blanc in the West End. In a neat continuation of l’entente cordiale, the photography collective I was a member of held our inaugural exhibition at l’Institut, and I would go on to develop more connections over the years, even getting married there in 2013. Fred was running a pop-up bistrot in the basement, and it quickly became a sanctuary; descending the stairs you’d feel instantly transported to a kind of petite France. I spent a month-long photographic residency at l’Institut during the Fringe Festival in 2012, and mirroring the old adage that the kitchen is always the busiest room at a party, le Bistrot quickly became the locus of convivial activity, a place for performers to relax between shows with a coffee, or share un verre at the end of the evening. Much like Proust’s madeleines, just a slice of Fred’s tarte au chocolat could trigger memories of similar dishes I’d had in France over the years, how something so simple could be elevated beyond the sum of its parts.

A couple of years after that first meeting, I was the photographer on The Budding Chefs, a joint initiative between Fred and l’Institut, a culinary project where young chefs from France would collaborate with similar chefs from across Scotland to highlight each country’s rich larder of ingredients. Over the years we met dozens of producers, some of the very same people supplying Fred’s restaurants. The raw ingredients of these shared experiences could be traced directly to their source: at The Ethical Shellfish Company on Mull we ate hand-dived scallops cooked in the boat’s galley a few moments after being brought from the water; at Highland Wagyu in Perthshire, owner Mohsin treated us to enormous slabs of wagyu beef washed down with magnums of 1986 Château Margaux (!); at le Taxi Jaune on rue Chapon in Paris we had a horse tasting menu, each part of the animal prepared and cooked with the utmost care, each course showcasing the versatility of both horse and chef; in Brittany we ate like wide-eyed children at Olivier Roellinger’s Willy Wonka-esque les Maisons du Bricourt. I would put on a stone in weight each time, tired from the long days shooting but made more keenly aware of the importance of local, seasonal produce and how integral it is to our experience of good food.

At the centre of it all this is Fred’s passion, a word that’s often overused when it comes to those who demonstrate excellence in their chosen field but one which is entirely appropriate. A commitment to hand-picking the finest produce his adopted home can provide whilst employing all of the care and skill he had learnt during his formative years (you can read all about his years as a stagiare on his recent newsletter post) is in every bite.

And that’s why I remember with fondness every meal we’ve had at les escargots. We’ve had birthdays there, the staff treating us like rockstars with flowers and Kir royales whilst bringing us plate after plate of delights; we’ve been so well fed that we’ve waddled down the road to the bus stop as if heavily pregnant, drumming our fingers on our happy bellies. Other occasions stick in the mind for bringing loved ones together, with the soundtrack a room of satisfied eaters and the sensory treats of incredible food. People say your wedding day is the happiest one of your life, and whilst the memories of that day still echo down the years, it was our meal at Fred’s that evening that shines amongst the most glittering and enjoyable moments we could all share.

I’ve also been lucky enough to photograph life at the two restaurants down the years, as well as working with l’Art du Vin, who further deepen that French connection and who share the same commitment as Fred and his team to bringing you carefully-sourced products, so you can enjoy another aspect of l’escargot at home.  

Of course, with changing and challenging times comes a need to adapt, and we’ve enjoyed a few takeaway meals from l’escargot bleu over the last year; whilst the full ambience of a packed restaurant (and tip-top service from Sebastian & co) has been missing, they have represented small beacons of joy punching through l’ennui. I’d urge you to order one yourself for a number of reasons: you’d be supporting a local business in tough times, and since the food is so magnificently simple there’s little of the pressure that plating, say, an 18-element Michelin star/ter might involve. No tweezers or aerated foam dispensers will be needed, but you will want a greedily-torn rustic loaf to mop up any sauce, a napkin or two to mop up your face/elbows (don’t judge me), and a wee lie down afterwards whilst the butter works its own comforting magic.

And that’s what it is, and what Fred does; a kind of simple magic. That ethos of celebrating the link between what we eat and where it comes from runs through the food at l’escargot like seasoning, a subtle sprinkling of edible sorcery that’s borne of a love for what you do. It’s right there painted on the outside of bleu, “French twist using the best of Scotland.”

Merci Fred.