The first episode of the Netflix TV show Emily in Paris plays to the stereotype of French people’s love for long, leisurely lunches. The title character looks on wistfully from a distance as three colleagues cluster round a table groaning with delicacies and wine. A later episode further emphasises the importance of lunch to the French when Emily is told that her formidable boss Sylvie has decreed that food in the office is înterdit.
Not everything in Emily in Paris is an accurate reflection of French culture—though, despite the complaints of French critics, it is closer to reality than you might think. But the French really do like to build working and personal relationships over lunch, rather than eating a sandwich tout seul at their desks.
