How a Classic French Dish Is Squeezed by Lingering Inflation

At Le Bouillon Chartier in Paris, the recipe for a perfect beef Bourguignon involves beef, carrots, wine, butter and “coquillettes,” a tiny macaroni-shaped pasta. It is cooked for at least three hours. And it must be affordable, so the price cannot be more than 10 euros a dish.

Since 1896, the belle epoque eatery has been Parisians’ destination for cheap French fare. It’s a boisterous canteen with meals that give energy for the day, where someone on a living wage can eat for less than what they earn in an hour.

But rarely in Bouillon Chartier’s storied history has it been as hard to keep costs under control as it is today.

The elements that go into its beef Bourguignon, including electricity for the restaurant as well as wages for the bustling staff of servers and cooks, are 30 to 45 percent higher than they were five years ago, said Christophe Joulie, the restaurant’s owner. And to maintain a steady price for Bouillon Chartier’s best-selling dish (which costs around $10.80), he has cut into the margins of his family-run business up to 20 percent.

“The price of everything that went up essentially stayed up,” Mr. Joulie said one recent weekday at the eatery in Paris’s Ninth Arrondissement, one of three Bouillon Chartier locations in the city. A line nearly two blocks long had formed by 11:30 a.m., when the doors swing open for the lunch crowd. “But our fight is to always offer a decent meal at a decent price.”