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Soon Ed is eyeing his wife's saucisson chaud. They are both looking covetously at Rosi's delicate puff pastry filled with snails and sweetbreads. Rosi, for her part, tosses a longing look in the direction of Ed's oysters. Everyone sneaks a glance at Paul's pink-hued foie gras resting on a quivering bed of clear aspic. Soon Connellys and Manns are trading morsels. For several minutes conversation stops. Finally Pat has something to say: "I think Ed's and mine were the best." Paul heartily objects. "Mine was best," he declares.
Now the main courses. Paul rhapsodizes over his squab in red wine sauce. Ed hyperventilates over his firm-fleshed turbot aswim in fragrant cream and saffron. At last the table is cleared and the dessert carts arrive. "If we eat dessert," Ed laughingly asks no one in particular, "will the plane get off the ground?" Included in the dazzling array are three different chocolate cakes: one is a heavenly concoction the waiters call "chocolate mousse-chocolate meringue cake." Pat can't make up her mind. "I have just the thing," says the waiter, writing on his pad with a dramatic flourish. "One Chocolate Plus." A few minutes later Pat gasps. Her dessert plate contains not one but three generous wedges of each chocolate gateau. In the center is a huge dollop of whipped cream. "It's lucky," says Ed, "that you wore an expandable dress."
In the kitchen now there is a lull. Awaiting the orders for the 9 p.m. seating, Banchet decides to start on a veal mousse for the next day. "I like everything fresh," he sighs. "It's a lot of work." Later Banchet roams through the dining room wearing his rumpled double-breasted chefs jacket and no hat. He looks exhausted. His French accent has grown stronger with fatigue. "Eet's hard," he puffs, before disappearing into the kitchen again. "Some nights eet's very hard."
Banchet has made no secret of the fact that he finds his marathon work week tiring. Ten years from now, he says over and over, "I won't be doing this." Already he has started to branch out. He is a consulting chef for the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas. In partnership with a longtime friend, he has started a seafood restaurant, La Mer, in Chicago. But ten years from now is a long time. And for as long as Le Français continues to exist, the Ed Connellys and Paul Manns of the world will keep coming back for more. After all, declares Paul Mann as he departs, "this is a little piece of heaven on earth."
—By Madeleine Nash