The Grands Buffets de Narbonne will have a market next to the restaurant where you can eat without a reservation.

NarbonneThe Grands Buffets de Narbonne plans to invest 10 million euros to create more spacious dining rooms and a new restaurant space for which reservations are not required, according to its owner, Louis Privat. "We will not increase the number of diners who can enter the restaurant in a day, which is up to 1,000 (between midday and evening), but rather the spaces, which will be more spacious," explained Privat at lunchtime, during which the Grande Confrérie du Cassoulet de Castelnaudary distinguished the dish of the bowl from Les Grands Buffets (beans with duck and sausage) because the restaurant cooks it just as French chef Auguste Escoffier wrote it. The Narbonne restaurant stands out among the restaurants in Occitania and throughout France as the highest-grossing in the country, with a turnover of 27 million euros.

Starting in October, Privat plans to begin work on expanding the dining rooms and also on creating what will become the big new feature: a multidisciplinary area that will include a shop for buying wines, cheeses, and desserts; a market of markets, that is, a space with food tasting areas, where you can eat without needing to reserve. "It won't be a space to buy takeaway dishes, but you will be able to eat the most iconic dishes we prepare at Les Grands Buffets," says Privat, who adds that his idea is also to have a space to project audiovisuals about the history of the restaurant and French cuisine. All of this will be on the same site as the Les Grands Buffets restaurant, in a leisure area on the outskirts of Narbonne. For years, the city council has been eyeing other projects for the space, leading to speculation for a time that the restaurant might end up moving to another city. "None of that is realistic right now, because the restaurant is staying in Narbonne, and there are more projects to be built right where we are," explains the owner.

But the new features won't end in the fall, because there will be another: for the first time, they will prepare dishes with truffles. "We know we'll have to buy a ton of truffles to cook all the dishes we've planned," says the owner, and with this ingredient, they will be able to prepare them with every detail, just as French chef Auguste Escoffier wrote. "For example, we will complement our onion soup with truffles starting in the fall," explains Privat.

While, The restaurant continues to cook the great dishes of traditional French cuisine, which also pays homage with paintings commemorating the chef who established it, Auguste Escoffier. Another unique feature is the fact that each of the dishes advertised as freshly prepared (on the handle) bears a reference to the pages of the chef's book. The culinary guide, published at the beginning of the 20th century. This is the case of the duck in the blood, the hare in the royale or lobster in a traditional American style. This very space is what turns the buffet concept on its head, as it has traditionally been understood in our home. We do have to get up to fetch the dishes, but in one of the central spaces, the so-called "asa," they are cooked to order. Furthermore, once at the table, the waiters are attentive to serve drinks and clear the plates when necessary. If seafood dishes, such as lobster, are chosen, the waiters also bring the necessary utensils to the table.

The Narbonne restaurant also stands out for many other features that have made it popular. It has a cheese bar with 111 varieties, including a Catalan cheese bar, Muntanyola (Fundació Ampans), making it the largest in the world, and thus has entered the Guinness World Records. Another of the bars is foie gras, which the waiters serve on the plate upon request, and explain all the varieties available. Another highlight is the wine list, with one hundred and seventy wines, based mainly on those from the Languedoc region, especially Narbonne (such as the Gérard Bertran winery), which can be sampled by the glass at distributor prices. This way, you can savor the wine served at the 2018 Nobel Prize gala, named Cigalus, from the Gérard Bertran winery. At Les Grands Buffets, the wine costs thirty-nine euros a bottle, while in other French restaurants it can cost between 300 and 500 euros, according to Privat. Finally, the dessert section for those with a sweet tooth contains more than ninety varieties of traditional French recipes, among which the crepe occupies a prominent place. suceta.

The buffet price per person is 62.90 euros, with wines not included.