The Second Worst Restaurant in France

By Alexander McCall Smith

Pantheon     2019

256 pages     Fiction

A reader doesn’t pick up an Alexander McCall Smith book to delve into an elaborate, drawn-out plot. The reader chooses to read an Alexander McCall Smith book to be entertained. The Second Worst Restaurant in France is classic McCall Smith. It is witty and wise, with delightful characters, and cracking-good dialogue. Is it brilliant? No. Is it fun? Yes.

Paul Stuart is a Scottish cookbook author. He first appears in the book, My Italian Bulldozer, which I have not read. While that book has Paul writing a food guide to Tuscany, he is now under contract to write a larger tome about the philosophy of food—a task that is formidable, and he is having trouble getting a handle on the topic.

 Paul is an appealing character because, above all, he is very accommodating and understanding. We find out very early in The Second Worst Restaurant that he is not fond of cats, and he is driven away from his home by his girlfriend’s cats. A cousin, Chloe, offers to take him with her to a small village in France where she has rented a house. Paul thinks that if he separates from his girlfriend and her cats and goes to a quiet place, he might make some progress on writing his book.

When they get to the village, Paul finds that it has little to offer except a very good bakery and a very bad restaurant. Some actually consider it to be the “second worst restaurant in France.” Paul takes on the task of improving the restaurant because one of the cooks actually is quite talented. This part of the plot reads like a Restaurant Impossible episode. But again, we don’t read McCall Smith books for their sterling plots.

We read his books for characters like Chloe, who is brilliant, annoying, and memorable. Paul remarks that Chloe is a throwback to earlier times “when people made tactless remarks and rarely apologized for what they were.” Chloe can talk about everyone and everything, but Paul finds himself worrying about how much truth there is in her endless commentary. I think that Chloe is a remarkable character, and I found myself appreciating everything she had to say. Here is one quote I enjoyed: “I read the other day about a Corsican saint called St. Baltazaru of Calvi, who performed the miracle of changing wild boar into sausages without benefit of a charcutier. Apparently, he just had to touch a wild boar and it would become sausages—just like that.”

McCall Smith is an extremely prolific author of several series, all with delightful characters. The books are all a lot of fun. My favorite series remains The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books, which are based in Botswana, where McCall Smith taught Law at the University of Botswana. 

I needed something light and fun to read on a long plane ride, and The Second Worst Restaurant in France was perfect. It almost made me want to head to France to seek out the restaurant and see how much it had improved.