Le Marais: Le Reflet offers 1€ meals for students facing financial hardships

Opened in 2019, Le Marais’ “restaurant extraordinaire” is showing another form of solidarity to help students face worsening economic conditions.

Operating two restaurants in Nantes and Paris, Le Reflet already made a difference by employing about fifteen people with Down Syndrome in its kitchens. Founder Flore Lelièvre is also the president of the association Les Extraordinaires, which works for the inclusion of women and men with intellectual disability to “change the way we look at difference”. Her brother is himself a carrier of Down’s syndrome, which refers to the presence of an extra chromosome.

Le Reflet is one of the two Parisian establishments that are members of the “Brigades extraordinaires” network, a dozen of inclusive French and Belgian restaurants “that employ a majority of people with intellectual or cognitive disabilities”. The second, Les Petits plats de Maurice, is located in the heart of the Saint-Ambroise neighrborhood (11th arrondissement) – it is currently still serving take-away meals.

Meanwhile, Le Reflet – Paris reopened its kitchens three weeks ago with the objective of helping young people that are particularly affected by the economic and social crisis. According to local pastry chef Fabrice, interviewed by Libération, “it was an opportunity to get together again and help all the students who are really struggling at the moment, while showing other restaurant owners that it is possible to do so”.

The restaurant welcomes students in need on Thursdays and Fridays: reservations for 1€ meals for February 18-19 and February 25-26 will open today, February 15th. To this day, the restaurant has served nearly fifty full takeaway meals every lunchtime since it has reopened. These affordable menus do not prevent its teams from cooking local and seasonal ingredients, as they usually do.

With this new initiative aimed at precarious students, Le Reflet joins many local initiatives to help the most vulnerable during the health crisis, which has become economic and social. Food aid, welcome centers, associations caring for people whose lives have been deeply affected: we had listed some initiatives to support of healthcare workers and the most vulnerable following the previous lockdowns.

Le Reflet – Paris

11 Rue de Braque, 75003 Paris
+33 (0)1 42 71 35 97
paris.restaurantlereflet.fr

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