French restaurant menus to be made to indicate non-homemade dishes

Restaurants will have to display a new logo to indicate which dishes were not entirely prepared by the chef under new plans announced by the minister of commerce.

Dishes that are entirely prepared by a restaurant can already be highlighted on the menu with the existing fait maison, or homemade symbol, which is a pan with a roof over it. However due to the stringent criteria this requires, it is not very widely used.

Out of France’s 175,000 restaurants, only 7,000 use the fait maison symbol, according to Alain Fontaine, president of the l'association française des maîtres restaurateurs.

In large part this is due to the extra work that the logo requires: restaurants must be able to provide documentation about the cooking process at every stage, without which they could be penalised for false advertising.

Frozen ingredients are allowed, but not chips: a single frozen chip disqualifies a dish from being fait maison.

Under the new plans announced on October 22, the opposite approach will be tested by 2025: a logo for non-homemade dishes.

“We have been working on this for several months,” Minister of Commerce, Olivia Grégoire, told La Tribune.

“We have to do something, because the optional fait maison logo that was created in 2014 is difficult to implement and not widely used.”

“There needs to be more transparency, both for customers and tourists,” she said.

“It is also good for the morale of restaurateurs who take the pain to prepare homemade dishes for their customers.”

It is not yet known what form the new ‘not-homemade’ logo will take.

Read also: French restaurants add €5 to bill if you do not eat all your meal

‘Good news’

“It will make things clearer. Customers won’t have to wonder if there is anyone flying the plane, so to speak,” said Mr Fontaine on FranceInfo. “It’s a good thing, which lots of people were asking for.”

However, he is not certain that the new logo will lead to more homemade dishes.

“To make homemade food, even if it is cheaper in terms of ingredients, you need professionals in the kitchen, not just ‘bag cutters.’

“There is a problem of recruitment that affects the whole sector.”

Read also

Scrummy half: a tasty tour before the rugby in France’s foodie Nice

Restaurant in France sets prices depending on what diners can afford

Popeyes, Wendy's, McDo: why fastfood restaurants are booming in France