Robert Hardman

ONE of the strangest sights I have seen was the 1998 World Cup opening ceremony in Paris. Spread over two days, it involved six- storey robots marching through the city's streets surrounded by regiments of foil- wrapped aliens, giant bugs trampolining all over the pitch of the Stade de France, and hideous pregnant goblins on stilts laying football eggs. There was probably a message in there somewhere but I never spotted it.

In Britain this sort of thing would be mocked as pretentious nonsense. In France it is seen as art. And the same goes for Georges, the latest in comically chic Paris dining, which has just opened on the top floor of the suitably peculiar Pompidou Centre, Richard Rogers's pioneering inside- out building.

My friend Melanie, a Paris-based British lawyer, had explained that it was the restau- rant tout le monde was talking about this summer and I soon saw why. The food at Georges is pretty average but the views inside and out — are remarkable. A down- pour prevented us from sitting on the large terrace but the vast interior offers an equal- ly impressive gaze, even from the lousy table which we were given alongside the loos and kitchen.

Through the glass walls you get the full Paris-by-night vista, which is particularly spectacular this year. As part of France's millennial celebrations, the Eiffel Tower bursts into shimmering light for ten min- utes of every hour of every evening of 2000. It is a fine sight, even if the old girl looks a bit like a dowager in gold lame. Not that the assiduously hip crowd in Georges appeared to notice. While I gawped, they affected complete indiffer- ence and carried on staring at each other. It would, of course, be the height of uncool to look like a tourist.

My next faux pas was to ask for a menu. It was already sitting in my place, a large piece of paper folded up with the outline of a nose and some squiggles on it. Obvious, really. Unfolded, it carried a list of dishes without prices. To see those, you have to hold the paper down over the light built into the table. Magically, the melon and Parma ham is suddenly accompanied by the figure '120' (£12). The menu is modern club and fusion food which will seem more cutting edge to the average Parisian diner than to the aver- age Brit. Londoners have seen Thai spring rolls (`petits nems'), pasta, curry sauces and foie gras on the same menu for years, but it is relatively new territory in France.

So, too, are the livery and decor. The wait- ers wear lounge suits while the waitresses wear whatever they like and are only distin- guishable from the in-crowd by the little shoulder bags for their order pads. The floor is metal, the ceiling is a spaghetti of pipes, and every table is .dominated by a three-foot rose which rapidly becomes a pain.

I kicked off with the `millefeuille de crabe et champignons' which was a very large slab of very oily crab on one very thin slice of mushroom. It tasted like a finely chopped coleslaw made with Thousand Island dressing. Melanie had gone for the `mini-legumes a la vapeur (copieux)'. The insertion of a size warning was, again, a daringly unFrench touch but there was nothing avant-garde about the dish. Just as it sounded, it was a copious plate of mixed veg with barely a flavour between them. `This country is supposed to worship the haricot vert, but obviously not this one,' Melanie observed as she munched on another bland, overcooked bean.

The courses come and go instantly. The service, though swift, is studiously expres- sionless (the girl who led us to our table seemed to think she was pouting her way down a catwalk). Moments later, Melanie was on her filet d'agneau 'en croilte d'epices' which was four bite-sized lumps of lamb numbed by a sesame coating (along- side more dull beans). I had the `Mandari- na crispy duck' just because I had never seen the French call canard 'crispy duck' before. I had missed the joke. As Melanie pointed out, Mandarina Duck is the hand- bag label of the moment. Silly me.

The duck was good but the sauce was not. It seemed to be pure balsamic vinegar. We asked a waiter who came back with the reply (in French), 'It is a little orange, a lit- tle jus de canard and a secret ingredient which the chef can't disclose.' Might that secret ingredient be a lot of balsamic vine- gar? `Si, je crois,' he admitted.

At £100 for two, including two bottles of 1999 Brouilly off an otherwise Bordeaux- heavy wine list, Georges is not seriously expensive. It is certainly cheaper than many London in-joints and wins a five-star rating for people-watching.

Throughout the evening a disc jockey toiled over a mixing deck, producing an unobtrusive level of ambient sound which worked rather well. But the star of the show was the loos. Built into this vast pent- house are various metallic pods which turn out to be private dining areas. The most prominent, which looks like a decapitated hippopotamus, contains the loos.

Some may dislike the fact that the gents and ladies are separated only by a thin panel, but washing your hands is a hoot. The water comes through a Heath Robin- son network of pipes alongside a sawn-off drainpipe. Press a button and hot air comes rushing out of the drainpipe.

Georges is the latest offering from the Costes brothers, Paris's answer to Sir Ter- ence Conran when it comes to opening big, bold restaurants in prominent spots. Earlier in the day we had lunched at the Cafe Marly, the huge Costes joint in the colonnade of the Louvre, right opposite the glass pyramid. My £16 sole meuniere was horrid, but the Café Marly must be one of the best places in Europe to sit and gawp for an afternoon.

If you are in Paris for the food, these are two places to avoid. If you are there for views and human drama, they are unbeatable.

Georges, Etage 6, Centre Pompidou, Paris; tel: 00 33 1 44 78 47 99. Cafe Manly, 93 rue de Rivoli, Paris; tel: 00 33 I 49 26 06 60.

Robert Hardman is a columnist and corre- spondent for the Daily Telegraph