Aroom of gutsy flavours and twinkling magic

MIDWAY through university, a mate and I spent a good chunk of our summer in the remote wilds of south-west France. Ostensibly there as live-in, temporary handymen at a vast, cobwebbed former schoolhouse, we painted shutters in the heat, went on a road trip to Perpignan, and generally lived out what felt like an especially uneventful arthouse film.

- Jimi Famurewa

Bouchon Racine

66 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6BP.

Meal for two plus drinks about £150.

Open Tuesday to Saturday noon-3pm, 5pm-10pm; bouchonracine.com

It was the Chuckle Brothers as directed by François Ozon; one of those youthful escapades where it is hard to track the exact logic and reasoning that led you there. Still, if there is one lasting thing it gave me, then it was a defining interaction with rustic French cooking. Burnished, incapacitating cassoulets; the socky funk of cured meats; a tiny, menu-less village bistro where the opening hours were as mysterious as the animal parts bobbing in the daily stew. From the bubble of my life as a takeaway-loving, black suburban kid, this was my first real experience of the Gallic tendency to bring languor, rugged elegance and ceremony to every dining experience. But then, about two decades later, I went to Bouchon Racine in Farringdon - chef Henry Harris's reimagined version of his venerated French establishment- and so much of what I had caught a glimpse of during that sweltering summer finally made sense.