I made eye contact with Georges Perrier as he strolled through the dining room during lunch two weeks ago, nodding a hopeful hello to each table. I was mid-laugh, frisee and poached egg nearly falling from my hand-covered mouth. Perrier looked at us as though we had failed him, that as just-graduated 22 year-olds, we were the embodiment of Le Bec Fin’s future dining pool: foie gras disregarding, frivolous, and all.

So, a week after my dining experience, when I heard that Le Bec Fin would be closing come spring 2011, I can’t say that I was surprised. I can only wonder if the sight of my table further convinced Perrier to shut his doors.

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A childhood best friend was moving to Brooklyn. Matty: a neighbor who’s life-long uniform has been khaki shorts, a Jordan t-shirt, and updated versions of the same low-top Air Force One sneakers that he’s been sporting since elementary school. Sneakers, which I had decided in 8th grade were filthy and, as a measure of friendship, drew penises all over them on the bus ride home from school one day. Like magic, I met him at the corner the next morning to find him with a stark-white pair. You’re welcome.

So when this friend (who still gives me shit for the shoes) asked me to pick a spot for our final routine lunch, I thought of the most talked-up citadel of culinary pretension that I’d heard mentioned since the time I didn’t have front teeth. Perrier’s dining experience, I thought, would be pretty absurd.

I remembered being six years old and watching my Mom dress for dinner one night. She was wearing high heels and a black, sparkly dress that showed a little shoulder. Dumping the contents of her Mom purse on the bed, she grabbed the lipstick, removed some cash and a few cards from her overflowing wallet, and dropped them all into a mini, matching black purse. I asked her if she was going to a wedding, and she replied, blotting lipstick onto a tissue, “No, sweetie, Daddy’s work is taking us to a very special restaurant.”

And that was the first I had ever heard of Le Bec Fin. Years later, its prominence was confirmed when my art-therapist neighbors booked me for babysitting a month and a half in advance of their prized dinner reservation. Not yet in middle school, I could only imagine that at a restaurant so “special,” there would be no vegetables, and the meal would conclude with an ice cream sundae bar.

More than ten years later, I wonder, what have people been going to Le Bec Fin for, really? Why, for decades, have couples waited weeks or months for a Saturday 8:00 table? Why would a company spend a thousand dollars on taking a group of clients to this particular wine-filled dinner? Is it about the food? Is it about telling the babysitter, the neighbors or the softball coach that Le Bec Fin is where they’ll be found come Saturday night? Is it about the night itself? Driving whoever’s car is nicer downtown and not bothering to look for street parking, instead splurging on valet?

We were set to find out, as Matty pulled up in his Mom’s new 3-series BMW wearing dress pants, a button up, and shiny shoes. Air Force Ones nowhere to be found.

He tossed me the keys and I piled into a car I’d never myself purchase even if I had a million dollars (new, white, small), dialing Le Bec Fin as we sweated bullets in our grown-up clothes and 95 degree heat.

“Bonjour! Thank you for calling Le Bec Fin! How may I assist you?”
“Yes, can I make a reservation for lunch today?”
“Of course. What time will you be joining us?”
“How’s… in fifteen minutes… 12:30?”
“I can do 1:15?”
“You can’t do sooner?”
“I can do 1:15?”
“You can’t do 1?”
“I can do 1:15.”

Understood.

Based on the “I can do 1:15” repeated shtick, I was bewildered upon entering the nearly barren dining room. Four other tables of two barely made a dent in deep, high-ceilinged space of obscene chandeliers, Titanic-like arrays of silver (work from the outside), and a butter dishes with a lids to protect them from their long voyage from kitchen to table. There was no mid-day rush. Le Bec Fin had been playing hard to get. Perhaps, as they should.

I tried to keep a straight face as we were seated, obviously thirty years younger than the popped-collar couples and business lunchers. Each party was positioned at the table so to face the interior of the room. It was a large, spread out, whispered dinner party in who’s conversation the two of us had no place.

Le Bec Fin serves a 3-course business lunch from Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11:30 to 2, offering selected lunch menu items. But the Salad Lyonnaise with frisee lettuce, crisped potatoes, poached egg, and lardon, (served similarly at Buddakan – something to think about) seemed fair to try even for a food writer. I wanted the salad. And the French onion soup. And the mushroom ravioli.

“What is Lardon?” I asked the young waitress.
“It is essentially cubed, salt-cured pork-belly.”

“Well,” I thought, “that makes ordering a salad at Le Bec Fin sufficiently legitimate.”

“And the Rabbit Terrine?” Matty asked.
“Similar to a Pâté but with more coarsely ground ingredients.”
“Alright, I’ll start with that for now.”

“We would also like to inform you of our $40 wine bottle special in celebration of our 40th anniversary.” And today, of all days, I was driving a scratchless, dentless car.

I explained that too much red wine at lunch would make EC a tired girl, and asked for a recommendation for a glass.

“Well, are you thinking of eating meat? If so, I would recommend a red wine. For something lighter, such as a salad or fish, I could recommend going with a white.” I had to wonder if most diners would be offended by such advice for laymen. Did she assume that being wrinkle-free, we knew nothing? Trying to peruse the list slowly and carefully, recognizing familiar names, but really just looking for the cheapest glass, I settled on a Bordeaux. Bordeaux is arguably overpriced, but so is Le Bec Fin.

“White Bordeaux?,” she asked.
“No? Red?”

I get it. I “should” have chosen a white based on my food choices, but if I wanted a white Bordeaux, I would have asked for the white Bordeaux. Superficially, she took us seriously, as no member of Le Bec Fin’s wait staff would disregard customers based on age, but it was clear that she had low expectations for us in way of food knowledge and gratuity. And I can’t say that I could blame her. As the waitress walked away, Matty asked me what he had ordered.

“Ground rabbit and fat… Good call, though.”

He winced. When in Le Bec Fin.

The courses were paced perfectly. Used to table-plate-overload, I had forgotten what Le Bec Fin has stood for its 40 years. While the era of white-linen fine dining may be passing, making way for big names, nearly as big price tags, fusion dishes, and a jean-approved dress-code, here, if anywhere, would the service be flawless, the food be hot, and the meal satisfactory in every way.

And while everything was delicious, the food wasn’t something I’ll remember, save for the fact that we were dining at Le Bec Fin as 22-year olds. It’s still an experience in over-the-top treatment, whether you spend $15 on a burger, $35 on the business lunch, or $185 (plus $95 for the wine flight) on the Grande Degustation meal. You could be celebrating your husbands 80th birthday or your college graduation with an old friend; regardless of what they think of you, they’ll still treat you with the utmost level of professionalism.

And is that why Le Bec Fin is closing, because we no longer seek such cosseting and luxury? Do we now prefer to get engaged or promoted at the likes of Vetri or Talula’s Table because instead of formality and foie gras, intimacy and local ingredients are key?

When Le Bec Fin is gone, a symbol of Philadelphia’s food renaissance is gone forever. If an exhibit that’s been wowing crowds for forty years was soon leaving the art museum, you’d be sure to check it out, right? So until next spring, regardless of age or income, take the opportunity to tell your neighbors, the babysitter, or the people you baby-sit for that you’ll be dining at Le Bec Fin come Saturday night. And if you want that red Bordeaux with your salad, it’s all yours.

Emily Callaghan is managing editor of Table Matters and a graduate of Drexel University. Her work has appeared in Philadelpia Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer and TheSmartSet.com.

Article photograph from restaurant website, "Eat Drink Philly" photograph from suvodeb, via Flickr (Creative Commons), "Philly" photograph from camardella, via Flickr (Creative Commons).