Merguez tartine @ Epicerie Fine
449 Smithdown Rd, Wavertree, Liverpool, L15 3JL
Authenticity is a concept that comes up a lot when people – myself included – talk about eating. Can food ever be authentic once removed from its original context? Can you serve authentic Mexican street food in an English restaurant?
What happens when you aren’t able to stick authentically to a recipe? Is som tum inauthentic if it uses cucumber rather than green papaya, even if it’s made by a Thai chef?
And what’s the purpose of reaching for authenticity in food? Is it bourgeois obsession, cultural voyeurism or an attempt at preserving a link to a shared past, even an imagined one.
Obvious to say, but I don’t have an answer to these questions. I’ve had fantastic Lebanese food in Malaysia and awful steak and kidney pie in North Yorkshire. But I can’t deny that sushi somehow tastes better sat up at a wooden bar, even if it’s in Old Swan rather than Osaka.
Where does Epicerie Fine, a small and sweet French eatery nestled in the eastern crook of Smithdown Road, find itself in terms of authenticity?
The restaurant is bright and calm, music is kept at an unobtrusive volume, a steady stream of regulars come and go. You feel happy to dine alone, to have a demi pression of beer – you feel, even, that this is the best thing you could do. In this sense it’s the platonic ideal of a neighbourhood bistro, the kind you might in any outer arrondissement.
The menu is certainly, very recognisably, French – a greatest hits of cookery from around the country; Provencal prawns in pastis to Normandy cotelette de porc.
Also available are merguez, North African sausages which are – now, latterly – considered as authentically French as onion soup. Long chipolatas of coasely-minced spiced beef, served in the evening with a bean cassoulet or at lunchtime on toasted baguette spread with fiery harissa and topped with a fried egg. Perfect.
Epicerie Fine also stock a range of tinned foods, cured meats and cheeses. Our friend, who is from outside Paris and lives locally, often shops there. She also says it’s one of the most authentically French restaurants she’s been to in England, for what it’s worth.
