Ketchup is canceled
And no one's talking about it.
About a month ago, my boyfriend and I had dinner at Eel Bar. In case you haven’t heard of it, Eel Bar opened in June 2024 and by that fall, the restaurant had made it on The Infatuation list of NY’s best of the year. Located a few blocks from Dimes Square, Eel Bar has the vibe of a cool kid who doesn’t have time for you. It’s not accommodating because it doesn’t need to be, and if you think the menu’s weird, you probably shouldn’t be there anyways. We’d heard of the restaurant’s roquefort burger with anchovies (that’s what I mean) and were already excited to order it with a side of fries before we’d reached our table. We picked a few other items from the menu and placed our order. The fried mussels arrived (incredible) and a few minutes later, the waitress brought our fries.
With mayo.
Now, I’ll concede that Eel Bar describes its food and wine as inspired by “the Basque country and Southern France” and that the menu does indeed list “French fries with mayonnaise” as an item. That being said, as someone who’s fully from France, I can tell you with full French confidence that fries with mayo isn’t French. It’s Belgian. The fact that I find mayo to be one of the most repulsive condiments that’s ever existed is beside the point; the hill I’ll die on is that if you’re going to serve fries, you better at least have ketchup in your kitchen.
Which is why when the waitress—who was younger than me because I have now reached an age where I tend to be older than restaurant staff which is unfortunate but we can talk about that another time—came to check on us, I didn’t ask whether they had ketchup, but if I could have some. Instead, I got a deadpan stare.
Waitress: We don’t have ketchup.
Me: Wait, really?
Waitress: Yeah (pause). Sorry. Anything else?
Not that she cared.
As soon as she walked away, I looked to Nick, my only eyewitness. I was in total shock and also a little embarrassed by how appalled I was but caring about being cringe is cringe. (Thanks, Bentham's Bulldog.)
“They don’t have ketchup??” I said, feeling like a parent on a college campus tour whispering “is that really what kids are wearing these days?” But then I thought, of course they don’t. Eel Bar’s the sophomore who decided ketchup was gauche after he came back from his semester abroad in Barcelona (and that’s bar-THE-lona to you).
We moved on. I could handle one write-off.
A week later, we left an event in Greenpoint and decided to try Chez Ma Tante. (Am I subconsciously trying to influence my American boyfriend? Possibly. Moving along.)
We got there, I went straight to the bathroom and in the meantime, Nick ordered chips and aioli. (Do we eat a lot of fries? Yes. Again, moving along.)
Somehow, the combination of fries and aioli is even stranger to me than fries with mayo. Aioli is for escargot. Everyone knows that. Anyways, the waiter seemed friendly, so when he brought our order, I asked for ketchup. I internally smiled because it hadn’t been that long since the Eel Bar incident, but the vibes in these restaurants are so different that I didn’t think this was a long shot. Chez Ma Tante is a thirty-something who knows how to host and has you over for backgammon every Friday night. Of course Chez Ma Tante would find ketchup in the back of a pantry for their guest.
Except they couldn’t. And, this time, the waiter seemed…sad? Like actually sad. Like not-okay-sad. Like he was CBS and I’d just asked what happened to Colbert. “Yeah, we don’t…we don’t carry ketchup anymore.” Then he walked away.
We ate our bare fries in silence.
***
I swear I had no idea Cafe Mado was French when we went there for brunch last week. A place that serves a hashbrown sandwich for breakfast? And yet…apparently nothing screams France nowadays like a basket of fries with herbs de Provence and a side of aioli.
We sat at the bar in the greenhouse watching the bartender prepare house-made jasmine sodas. He looked content. He seemed chatty. Of course he did – Cafe Mado is like a bubbly neighbor who shows up at your doorstep with coffees and pastries on moving day. Cafe Mado is the person you wish you were if only you had more time.
“So, I have a question,” I asked him. I tried to mask my concern with curiosity. “What happened to ketchup?” The bartender looked at me for a moment and I held his gaze, but then he just shrugged. No explanation, not even “it’s the tariffs” or something about supply chains. He just proceeded to shake an icy cocktail next to his ear. “Here you go,” he said to our neighbor. Then he walked away.
We stuck to aioli. Strike three.
***
By that point, I’d decided the ketchup boycott was a result of New York’s French restaurants trying a little too hard to be French. “I swear to God, everyone in France eats ketchup with their fries. The rest is just not a thing,” I ranted. “I believe you,” Nick said. Nick’s the kind of person who’s patient enough not to roll his eyes even if the situation calls for it. Lucky for me, we were heading to the motherland the following week.
We met my mom and brother directly from the airport and found them sitting at a terrasse on a slanted sidewalk, enjoying a rare sunny October day in Paris. Once we’d settled next to them, we contemplated the menu. Oysters, terrines, cheese plate, pâté, niçoise salad…“You should get the burger!” my mom assured us. Nick looked at me, utterly confused. Of all the French options on the menu, how was that her recommendation? “People eat burgers for lunch here, it’s really good,” she pressed. It takes a lot of energy to argue with a French mother, and we were jet lagged. Plus, I’m not gonna lie, I saw this as an incredible opportunity. Here, in my home country, I would finally prove to myself, my boyfriend, and the world, how French people really ate fries. For France!
A few minutes later, the waitress brought a bottle of room-temp water (bliss) along with a burger and fries. I asked for ketchup, évidemment. “On n’a pas de ketchup,”[1] she said. And as she walked away, I heard her mumble: “What is this? America?”
[1] We don’t have ketchup.
Cackling