“We let ourselves eat our Toulouse gastronomy”, says chef Yannick Delpech
The number of fast food outlets is increasing in Toulouse and throughout the Haute-Garonne. KFC set up shop a few weeks ago at the Jean-Jaurès metro exit, a Five Guys opened on rue d’Alsace Lorraine this fall and McDonald’s is to open a fifteenth restaurant in the city, near the Palais de Justice metro station. Are there too many fast food outlets in France’s fourth largest city? Tarn chef Yannick Delpech, notably based in Toulouse with his Sandyan pastry shop, believes that regulation is necessary.
Do you deplore the invasion of these big chains?
I especially deplore the fact that if they are established, it is because there is demand. That’s what scares me the most. There are far too many, and above all, we allow too much to be done. We let our gastronomy be eaten by things that should not exist. I am a consumer of burgers because we are lucky in Toulouse to have a lot of young people who settle down and who do this style of cooking, properly and in the culinary tradition. This is what excites me a little today.
“We let ourselves eat our gastronomy.” —Yannick Delpech
And yet, the new generation has understood the need to eat well. She understood that we had to support our agricultural sector.
Should town halls be allowed to regulate these fast-food facilities?
When you don’t want something to happen in a city, you make sure it doesn’t. There can be fast food of course, there is something for everyone, but it shouldn’t eat up all of Toulouse’s gastronomy. There is much better to do if we want to attract young people.
A word on the cost of energy. Will you pass on the price increase to your selling prices?
Of course, we will come to that. For example, the price of flour has exploded for two years and particularly since January. I have only increased the price of my pastries since last July, I couldn’t cope anymore.
How are you going to reduce your consumption by 10% as the government asks all companies?
I don’t know, apart from going back to the wood fire? (laughs). It is true that all our kitchens are electrically equipped. In the same neighborhood in Toulouse, I have a bakery, a pastry shop, a delicatessen, a kitchen. My ovens work almost 24 hours a day. We will try to find solutions with my collaborators.
The town hall cannot actually oppose installations, explains to France Bleu Occitanie the deputy Jean-Jacques Bolzan. “In France, it’s the freedom to set up business. There are certain areas that we can preempt as we did at Arnaud Bernard. But it is utopian to believe that the City can change everything”.