One of life’s greatest mysteries is just how French women manage to stay so thin. Is it the creepy-sounding waistline reduction creams that the huge selection of pharmacies in the country advertise in their storefronts? Maybe it’s the discreet trips to the bathroom after a meal. Or dieting. So années 80. And so années 90. Perhaps the crise économique and the high cost of living (ah, but the grocery bills!) mean that Parisian women are managing to stay trim in 2009. Not necessarily.

The ‘Zero Complex’ menu has recently been introduced in ten selected hotels under the Concorde Hotels & Resorts umbrella, including five in the French capital. In collaboration with nutritionist Gérard Karsenti, M.D, each chef has created a three-course menu using locally-sourced ingredients which means that you can enjoy fine dining without giving a second thought to why and how les Parisiennes remain so slender. Whether you’re pretending to work and lunch simultaneously in Geneva, or staying out of the midday sun on the Côte d’Azur, the ‘Zero Complex’ menu offers gourmet fare which promises to deliver a starter, main and dessert for 800 calories or less.

We tried out the menu at the Brasserie Lutetia, one of the Left Bank’s most famous culinary institutions. The brasserie attracts a daily stream of well-heeled tourists and affluent regulars; actors, actresses, sugar daddies and sugar babies, bonus-boasting businessmen and crisis-exempt executives, none of whom seem to furrow a Botox’d brow at the menu’s calorie-rich offerings of pommes frites or crème brûlée. And especially not at the chocolate tart with chantilly cream…

The restaurant is an upscale version of the traditional brasserie parisienne, designed by Slavik and Sonia Rykiel, the grand dame of everything chic, stylish and Left Bank, no less! An art deco symphony of chrome fittings, leather banquettes, enough mirrors to satisfy even the most indulgent narcissist, and the clincher; huge bay windows. For the unacquainted, the Brasserie Lutetia is perfectly situated at the crossroads of the boulevard Raspail and the rue de Sèvres, and just an elegant step away from the shopping mecca of the Rive Gauche elite that is Le Bon Marché. Thus dining at the brasserie means you can be entirely sans complexe about people-watching as well as the food! And eating at such a chic establishment means that the flaneurs of St Germain should be eyeballing you after all.

The ‘Zero Complex’ menu at the Brasserie Lutetia has been created by their resident gastronomic wizard, Philippe Renard, who proves that waist-friendly food certainly doesn’t have to be any less complicated than the other gourmet delights on the menu. The entrée of asparagus with jus de riquette (a gallic cousin of rocket, for non-foodie readers) and tomates confites was light and pretty in presentation. The formule’s main course consists of organic Irish salmon with seaweed accompanied by a pearl barley risotto and spring vegetables; creative, modern French cuisine. Bravo Monsieur Renard! Mean old Marie Antoinette may have said “let them eat cake”, but she was obviously not someone who had to wear a bikini very often. Coming in at just 158 calories (no more, no less), the formule’s dessert is a concoction of strawberries, rhubarb and carrot served with a kicky ginger-honey sauce. Unfortunately the 800-cal experience doesn’t include any naughty-but-necessary glasses of wine, champagne, cocktails or anything else alcoholic so you’ll have to stick to mineral water unless you’ve invested in a slimming black one-piece… And maybe some of that cream the pharmacies are flogging.

And if you are a European jetsetter sans complexe, you could be trying a selection of fresh fish from Lake Geneva accompanied by seasonal vegetables with mustard butter for lunch before dining on teriyaki chicken kebab and peaches poached in verbena in Marseille. We may have worked out how French women manage to stay trim. It must be the Zero Complex menu combined with the possibility of dining all over Europe. However we fear that this would, naturellement, require a private jet. Now where did those sugar daddies get to…?

+33 (0)1 49 54 46 76

http://www.lutetia-paris.com

You can also try the Zero Complex menus at the following restaurants:

La Fayette Restaurant – Hotel Concorde La Fayette, Paris

Brasserie du Louvre – Hotel du Louvre, Paris

O’40 Restaurant – Hotel Montparnasse, Paris

The Terminus Café – Hotel Concorde Saint Lazare, Paris

Yin Yang Restaurant – Hotel Villa Massalia, Marseille

Le Relais – Hotel Martinez, Cannes

Le Padouk – Hotel Palais de La Méditerranée, Nice

Vertig’O – Hotel de la Paix, Geneva

Le Faubourg – Hotel Concorde Berlin