Who are you, François Simon ?

A long-time food critic at Le Figaro, where he built his legend, the renowned but very discreet journalist tells us about his daily professional life.

We catch him by phone, on a Tuesday at 9 AM, as he jumps in a Parisian taxi towards the most famous of all the Italian mountains, the Dolomites. Always on the road. "I'm condemned to be constantly on the move," he says. This workaholic has enough to fill miles of articles and audio columns for the travel guides Louis Vuitton, La Tribune Dimanche, Les Echos and, most recently, France Inter, for the Sunday show On va déguster, in which he plays the role of the "bad cop". "It amused François-Régis Gaudry to have a counter-fire, which is a pretty good idea, because it's a very positive show, in empathy." Not to mention his Instagram videos, annotated with his voice and his recognizable phrasing, which have given him a new lease of life on the social network: 383,000 subscribers at the moment. He also owes this success to the famous line that concludes each sequence: "Will I go back? [Y retournerai-je] ?" This is the title of his book, published by Flammarion last May. For the occasion, Le Bon Marché had imagined, with its publisher, a dedication in the form of a confessional, in order to preserve his anonymity.

François Simon doesn't just work hard: he does things quickly. The author of these lines was frightened when he read one day that it took him only fifteen minutes to complete a two-page article (about one page). How does the food critic, who is said to have inspired the role of his fictional colleague in the animated  film Ratatouille, spend his days? "I start them around 5 or 6 AM. Gym, ice shower, green tea, boiled egg, toast, berries, and then I attack. And around 10 AM, I finished my first day. Is he still working as hard as he did yesterday? "Let's say that today, I take more pleasure in taking my time. In fact, the papers, now, I rub them, I sand them, I let them marinate, I brush them again the next day, whereas before, it was the machine gun. I think it wasn't as good. From now on, the sentences are not more elaborate, but a little more matured. »

In reporting, whether in France or abroad, he confesses to always managing to make "non-programs" on cities, except for restaurants where he has to book.  "The rest of the time, I try to walk around, to stroll. I'm not in the race, I walk a lot, all day long. For the Louis Vuitton guides, I visit about 60 restaurants and addresses in two weeks. That's a lot, you have to have a very Spartan diet, not drink alcohol. One drink at the limit, when I'm done with the day. I try to maintain a healthy lifestyle, otherwise I'm dead. The march returns. Often, it's 25,000 steps a day. "And even sometimes, it allows me to internalize a little bit the place I'm going to do, to think about the people who worked hard for this project. It's the opposite of miokuri, you know, that Japanese thing? This attitude whereby when you leave someone, you don't take your eyes off them — and it can last for a while — which allows you to think about the person you just saw. Here, it's the opposite: I'm thinking about the restaurant I'm going to visit. I say to myself: "Hey, who can it be? Is it good? Is it a good idea to marry world cuisines? (in this case for the restaurant Almas, rue de Chabrol in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, recently reviewed on Instagram, editor's note). You see? And then it allows you to loosen your thoughts, and finally, it feels so good. »

For Instagram and videos, it's a different mechanic. "Here, you have to concentrate really well, because I do that in freestyle: you have to send the javelin right away. It takes seven minutes to edit the thing, to regulate the sound, the voice-over... When I'm not in shape, it takes a quarter of an hour, even faster than a paper. It lasts a minute, but often, the first take is never the right one. And sometimes I find my voice a little too sad, so I put a little more voice back. The most polite of food critics says that this digital celebrity has not changed anything in his life. And he responds to requests. "I've always been courteous to those who send me questions like: 'I'm coming with my fiancée to Paris on Sunday evening. Do you know of a restaurant near the Montparnasse train station?" I answer. Which is a bit absurd, but not answering, I find it incorrect. That said, it doesn't happen every half hour. There are also a lot of young students who want to meet me because they are doing a dissertation, for example. So there, it's always yes. People who ask for career advice in food journalism, there too, it's always yes. I explain to them that there is nothing to scratch. And yet, it still arouses as many vocations. If it's a passion for them, let them go. Otherwise, of course, I don't recommend going there. I tell them exactly how much they will earn, how much a paper is paid for in Le Monde or Le Figaro, and then they start to realize. You have to work like the damned, which I explain to them. »

François Simon follows his desires and the requests of the editors-in-chief of the media with which he collaborates, which does not prevent him from having long-standing whims. "I've always been obsessed with everything creamy, whipped cream, all that. An English dessert that's a little slouched, it blows me away. And otherwise, peppers. That's my passion. I even build a dish on a pepper pop. I take it everywhere: I have seven or eight pepper trees. He doesn't bring them to the restaurant, like Pierre Hermé and other picky gourmets known for sitting down with their own knife. "I knew guys who came with their own salt or even nutmeg. In the 70's, at a time when glasses were not always great at the table, they carried their glass with them. He laughs, before having to hang up, the call of duty sounding the end of our interview.