Standing at the end of Avenue Friedland a few minutes early for our lunch reservation at 12:30, we are giddy with anticipation, and perhaps a little nervous.

"I would conclude that I am nervous because I am foreign, because I am not accustomed to eating this way, and because I suspect that there are things one absolutely does not say or do in the dining room of this restaurant that we, or I, will say or do…We will break a cardinal law of French etiquette, something more heinous, perhaps, than licking our fingers and wiping our chins with the tablecloth, and we will do it with gravity and politesse."

- A Meal Observed, p. 11