At L’Office, time seems to have frozen since one evening in October 2020. In this restaurant located in Paris, in the 9e district, the wooden tables are set, the cutlery carefully placed alongside bottles of hydroalcoholic gel and the bottles of alcohol wisely lined up behind the bar. You would almost expect to see customers show up at any minute for a lunch with friends or a business meeting.
But the visit of the kitchen, in the basement, in the footsteps of the owner, Charles Nikitits, betrays another reality that has lasted for more than six months now: no cook on the horizon, no dish in preparation and fridges. very empty. Like all restaurants, L’Office has been closed since the second confinement announced by Emmanuel Macron, October 28, 2020.
So, for the team of this establishment, part of which met to review this very special year, the time seems very long. If a reopening date is finally set – May 19 – there are still many doubts. “We will only be able to reopen on the terrace, with a gauge and a curfew, lists with concern Mr. Nikitits, in his thirties with a tanned complexion. And for the rest, we will always depend on sanitary conditions ”
“We have the impression of being retired, we have to fight to find activities and to occupy our days”
This constant uncertainty in the face of the various epidemic waves has been the daily life of the young team at L’Office for a year. Who can only hasten now: raise the curtain and welcome new customers, even with a reduced gauge. “We are used to being productive, to moving all the time, but now we feel useless”, regrets Catalina Bravo Barros, 29, manager of the restaurant. At her side, with her back to the pastel green wall, Nina Perrin, a 27-year-old waitress, part-time to be able to exercise at the same time her other profession as an actress and comedian, does not say anything else: “We have the impression of being retirees, we have to fight to find activities and to occupy our days. “
The frustration is all the greater since until Saturday March 14, 2020, when Edouard Philippe appeared on television screens to announce the immediate closure of bars and restaurants, L’Office had found “Its cruising speed”. This bistronomic restaurant, taken over and renovated in 2018 by Charles Nikitits, is fashionable: fresh and seasonal products from his vegetable garden in Normandy, a menu “Refined” which changes regularly and a clientele that is both neighborhood and international.
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