At Le Bouillon Chartier in Paris, the recipe for a perfect beef Bourguignon involves beef, carrots, wine, butter and “coquillettes,” a tiny macaroni-shaped pasta. It is cooked for at least three hours. And it must be affordable, so the price cannot be more than 10 euros a dish.
Since 1896, the belle epoque eatery has been Parisians’ destination for cheap French fare. It’s a boisterous canteen with meals that give energy for the day, where someone on a living wage can eat for less than what they earn in an hour.
But rarely in Bouillon Chartier’s storied history has it been as hard to keep costs under control as it is today.
The elements that go into its beef Bourguignon, including electricity for the restaurant as well as wages for the bustling staff of servers and cooks, are 30 to 45 percent higher than they were five years ago, said Christophe Joulie, the restaurant’s owner. And to maintain a steady price for Bouillon Chartier’s best-selling dish (which costs around $10.80), he has cut into the margins of his family-run business up to 20 percent.
“The price of everything that went up essentially stayed up,” Mr. Joulie said one recent weekday at the eatery in Paris’s Ninth Arrondissement, one of three Bouillon Chartier locations in the city. A line nearly two blocks long had formed by 11:30 a.m., when the doors swing open for the lunch crowd. “But our fight is to always offer a decent meal at a decent price.”
The challenges facing Mr. Joulie reflect the broader impact of sticky inflation across Europe. Inflation in the euro area climbed to 2.4 percent in February after cooling last year. The European Central Bank cut interest rates for the sixth consecutive time on Thursday, but is facing an uncertain path forward as an increase in military spending and possible tariffs cloud the horizon.
Inflation has fallen from a record 10 percent after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and pandemic lockdowns. Prices for energy, meat and dairy, and even glassware and tablecloths, are not rising as fast. But they are still stubbornly higher than before the inflation outbreak.
Higher prices are also lashing other businesses in Europe, pushing factories and energy-intense commerce, including restaurants, to the brink. In homes across the country, people trying to put food on the table are finding the price of their supermarket basket has dipped only slightly.
At the Bouillon Chartier, those forces are marbled throughout the beef Bourguignon, France’s most emblematic dish: The overall costs that go into making it have nearly doubled since the pandemic, Mr. Joulie said.
The price of beef that he orders from longtime suppliers has risen threefold, driven by higher feed and fertilizer costs, energy to run the slaughterhouses and gas for tractors and transport.
Other ingredients have come down in price from their peak but remain high, according to Insee, France’s statistics agency.
Mr. Joulie’s electricity bill for his restaurants soared to €1.5 million annually, from €500,000 three years ago; last year he was able to negotiate a lower contract, but that has not made up for the losses. Wages, which make up about 40 percent of the price of a beef Bourguignon, have risen 15 to 20 percent in that period as workers demanded higher salaries to keep pace with inflation.
“Every morning I go see my purchasing director to figure out what we can buy,” Mr. Jolie said. “It’s like playing the stock market.”
Le Bouillon Chartier started out as a popular canteen, made famous in Paris over a century ago by the Chartier brothers, who offered broth — or bouillon — and hearty fare to blue-collar laborers. Eventually, white-collar workers gravitated, along with tourists, who flock in larger numbers these days after the restaurant appeared in the Netflix show “Emily in Paris.”
In an era of unyielding inflation, the bouillon, as the eateries like it are known, has become a culinary refuge from the cost-of-living crisis that has crimped the spending of the average French citizen. The most expensive item on the menu is a steak frites at €13.50, a third to a half cheaper than it would be in bistros and restaurants. In recent years, nearly a dozen cheap copycat bouillons have opened in Paris, attracting throngs.
But Bouillon Chartier’s popularity has not always been strong. It ruled Paris’s inexpensive dining scene until the mid-2000s, when eating habits changed, and more people gravitated to fast food, Mr. Joulie said. It was on the brink of bankruptcy when his father, a restaurateur who started as a waiter in French bistros in the 1970s, swooped in with his son to rescue it. Together, they run Groupe Joulie, an enterprise that also includes 12 elegant Parisian bistros.
The duo refurbished the restaurant in the Ninth Arrondissement, now a historic monument, keeping its original décor of Art Nouveau globe chandeliers, wood paneling and red-checked tablecloths. Huge mirrors hung on patinated walls inspired Balthazar, the bustling French restaurant in New York City.
To keep prices down, Mr. Joulie must work with volume. He orders 1.5 tons of beef a week just for the beef Bourguignon dish at the three bouillons, which serve over 4,000 diners a day. Customers spend an average of €20 per ticket.
When prices soar too much, he will drop some items from the menu. The popular duck confit, for instance, was stricken temporarily when he could not keep the price at €12.50. And in early January, Mr. Joulie was forced to remove the beef Bourguignon for one week because of a jump in beef prices. He has kept the cost of the dish at €10 for four years.
Mostly, he has opted to take the financial hit out of his company’s margins. “We can do that because we are a family-run enterprise, not beholden to the stock market or investors,” he said.
“Until now it has worked,” he added, gesturing to the phalanx of diners sitting elbow to elbow in the immense hall, adorned with a giant fresco made by the painter Germont in 1929 to pay his overdue tab. Twenty waiters in black vests and white aprons twirled around tables, taking orders and zipping to the kitchen. Glasses clinked and silverware tapped on white plates emblazoned with the Chartier emblem, laid atop a paper table-covering where the waiters wrote out the bill with a ballpoint pen.
Despite the buzz, Mr. Joulie said the scourge of inflation simmered beneath the surface for every diner. Traffic in his eateries, and at restaurants and bistros around France, slowed after a post-pandemic surge. By the end of 2023, persistent high prices for energy and food had deepened a cost-of-living crisis; even in the bouillon, customers ordered less.
Ali Belcacem and his friend, longtime regulars, polished off a €3.20 chocolate mousse after eating beef Bourguignon and andouillette, or a tripe sausage, washing it all down with a glass of house red wine. “We don’t eat out as much as before,” Mr. Belcacem said. The men, retirees who live nearby, were on a fixed income and have been squeezed financially, especially over the last year and a half, by stubbornly high bills for electricity and food, as well as clothing and gas.
“When they say inflation has come down, that’s not the reality,” Mr. Belcacem said. “Our shopping basket for some items is up by 40 percent.” They treated themselves to a midday meal at Chartier, because it was hearty and economical.
Mr. Joulie scanned the dining room and eyed Mr. Belcacem as he paid his bill.
“High prices are hurting many people,” Mr. Joulie said. “Now more than ever, it’s important to keep things affordable.”