Éric Frechon was executive chef of Epicure at Le Bristol in Paris when I interviewed him for The Luxury of Attention. The book’s roll call records that he left Le Bristol in April 2024 after 25 years, and that Epicure continues under Arnaud Faye.
Frechon was among the eighty hoteliers and chefs whose conversations form the basis of the book. Not every one of those conversations produced a passage that appears under the person’s name in the chapters. Some, like his, did their work earlier, in the long period of reading and comparing interviews from which the book’s argument took shape. When I set out the disciplines that the best chefs share, from the formation of an apprenticeship to the daily pursuit of a standard that is never quite reached, his account was part of the evidence I was weighing.
I have chosen to list him here, as I have listed everyone I spoke with, because the book’s claims rest on the whole body of interviews and a reader deserves to know whose voices stand behind them. There is no quotation from him on this page, since the book does not quote him directly.