The hired waiter

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What the concierge had to say about Antoinette Le Cloaguen was interesting for Maigret. She and her daughter bought the worst cuts for themselves from the butcher. They didn't have a maid, »only« a cleaning lady came every morning. But the Le Cloaguens were rich, said the good soul of the house. The receptions every Monday were an indication of this.

The inspector simply accepted the following remark, but I was quite surprised:

On Mondays, however, a head waiter from the Potel et Chabot was sent for.

Which restaurant hires out its waiters? I really have no idea whether this was or still is common practice. As we don't have such receptions here - perhaps a mistake, who knows - the idea seems strange to us. It's possible that Monday afternoon was a sour-pickle time in the restaurant, that it wasn't a problem to temporarily give a waiter away.

That is perhaps a matter of the German language: The preposition »from« suggests to me that it had to be a restaurant that lent out its staff. My search for a place with this name turned up pavilions, but they were in all sorts of different corners of Paris. If you search for the name on a current map of Paris, different locations are mentioned. Very irritating.

However, if you change the ratio word from »from« to »of", it becomes a new shoe. Then it's just a company and what kind of business could hire out a head waiter? Exactly, a party service!

I have my doubts as to whether the management of Potel et Chabot would still describe itself as such today. In an image brochure, there is more talk of »event communication", scenic design and art, both in terms of the design of rooms for events and the catering.

I would question whether Madame Le Cloaguen could still hire a single head waiter.

Jean-François Potel was a master pastry chef in Paris. In 1820, he came up with the idea of teaming up with a famous chef called Étienne Chabot, who had cooked for the French court, and setting up an upscale catering service. 

The business with the Le Cloaguens of Paris, who only hired one employee, had probably mostly been a side business. 

The company hosted receptions for kings and state guests and - what a time it was! - organized magnificent events for the opening of railroad lines. According to the company's history, a banquet for a mayor of Paris is said to have been legendary, at which 23,000 place settings were served.

Today's head waiters master the most diverse forms of service. Until now, I had only differentiated between »good« and »bad« service, but Potel et Chabot bring English style and »service à la Beaumont« into play alongside service on a trolley. I can't get a precise picture of the latter, but I have read about references to »nouvelle cuisine«. You could hire head waiters for your own purposes, but nowadays you have to hire at least two to get into the party service business.

The big events are advertised and they don't have to hide behind the banquet of the former mayor of Paris. Potel et Chabot can also help anyone who has space problems, for example because they cannot host a soirée for two hundred people in their two-room apartment: Simply rent one of the halls or pavilions that the company runs and then there will be no problems with washing up or clumsy guests who have thrown things down. At least in the Paris area, interested parties can be helped without complications, and somewhere in China, but actually the teams of this service provider are ready for you anywhere in the world. (Which also explains the different locations on the map when searching for the company name - these are the locations that can be hired).

At the time Madame Antoinette Le Cloaguen secured the services of Potel et Chabot, it was already a name in Parisian society. She could have assumed that her friends would not look at her askance and that the service would be beyond reproach.