"You can't ban me from your bistro! It's my chez away from chez!"
— Frasier Crane, Frasier
Want to make your restaurant sound like a high-class establishment serving gourmet French cuisine? Call it "Chez X" (French for "X's Place" or "X's Home" or "At X's"). Related to the word "casa" in various other Romance languages such as Spanish and Italian, it's pronounced something like "shay." Bonus points if X is either a French name or a French-sounding real or nonsense word (e.g., Pierre, Jacques, Gaston). This naming scheme is used in real life also, although it's not known whether the fictional trope or the Real Life convention came first.
This trope is often used ironically, or subverted by being used with a decidedly downscale or inappropriate name. The implication of high quality (or at least pretension) is coupled with the implication of high cost and social anxiety: expect dates or spouses to be tormented by concerns with inability to pay the bill, conform to the Dress Code, or understand the French terms on the menu. Amusingly, the French term is, in French usage, quite informal (as is bistro).
See also French Cuisine Is Haughty.
Contrast Greasy Spoon.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Card Games
- The card game Chez Geek isn't about a restaurant, but "Geek's Place" does describe it well.
Comic Strips
- Dilbert:
- Dilbert and Dogbert once goes to a restaurant called "Chez De Whales", which has a very odd dress code.
- When two office thieves go to raid Dilbert's snack stash, one says "Shall we head over to Chez Dilbert?"
- "Chez Stadium" (see real life below) has shown up in the comic strip Shoe as well.
- Big Nate: Nate's baseball team was briefly sponsored by a beauty salon named Chez Linda. However, the name was misspelled on their uniforms as "Cheez Linda," leading the spectators to believe their sponsor was a cheese company.
Fan Works
- The story title "Chez Empath" in Empath: The Luckiest Smurf isn't about a restaurant, but about Empath being the village cook.
Films — Animation
- "Chez Gusteau" in Ratatouille, though this is justified since the movie takes place in Paris.
Films — Live-Action
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off: The French restaurant that Ferris Bueller and company crash is "Chez Quis", which is a pun on "Shakeys", the pizza chain
.
- In The Blues Brothers, Mr. Fabulous is working as maître d' at Chez Paul (a former Real Life Chicago restaurant) when Jake and Elwood pay him a visit.
- In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Lorelei and Dorothy start dancing at a Parisian club called Chez Louis after getting kicked out of their hotel and running out of money. The act includes the famous "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" number.
- In Love and Death on Long Island the restaurant in the Long Island town D'Eath is staying in is called "Chez D'Irv" (after the owner, Irv).
Literature
- Calvin Trillin called this type of restaurant "La Maison de la Casa House".
- The Baby-Sitters Club: The fancy French restaurant in Stoneybrook is called Chez Maurice.
- There's a cartoon in Simon Bond's Unspeakable Acts, where the chefs of Chez Poubelle note take their ingredients from the restaurant behind them.
Live-Action TV
- "Chez Whitey", the former workplace of Homey the Clown on In Living Color!
- Frasier actually has "Chez Chez". As well as "Chez Henri" and "Chez Quelque Chose" ("chez something").
- Under the Umbrella Tree has one episode where Iggy gets grand ideas and starts up his own "restaurant", "Chez Iggy"... and the only thing he serves, he's embarrassed to admit, is grilled cheese sandwiches.
- "Chez Ray" is the fanciest restaurant in Raytown on Mama's Family.
- Desperate Housewives had a "Chez Naomi" in one episode.
- "Chez Klutz" is the name of the restaurant run by klutzy people who constantly break things and injure customers in The Amanda Show.
- In a fantasy sequence on Saved by the Bell, Kelly buys The Max (where she works as a server) and renames it "Chez Kelly".
- A "Kevin & James" segment of Just for Laughs poked fun at Quebec language laws when Kevin cited the "Chez James" sign on James's hotel room door as violating those laws. A Montreal police officer (the recurring actor who always played the third man in their segments) told them that it was fine (proper names don't need to be translated, for one) and then ragged on Kevin for being an idiot.
- One episode of Touched by an Angel had the Angels running a restaurant called "Chez Tess."
- The Australian soap opera Neighbours plays on this, when a pub ran by Cheryl Stark in the mid-1990s is called "Chez Chez" (Chez, short for Cheryl)
- "Chez Fancee" is the name of the fancy restaurant the Big Time Rush guys go to on their double-dates.
- In Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, when the town believes that the world will end in a few days, Grace closes her cafe and announces the opening of Chez Grace. It's never mentioned what she serves in this restaurant, but it's implied that she wants to serve the upper class New Orleans food that she learned to cook once more before she died.
Music
- The Yes song "Love Will Find A Way" famously has the singer abruptly telling the love interest his choice in restaurant is "Chez Nous"
Radio
- Les 2 Minutes du Peuple: One of François Pérusse's most famous song is "Snack-Bar Chez Raymond" ("Snack-Bar Chez Léon" in European French), featuring the titular snack-bar. Because Pérusse is French-Canadian (and has a huge following in France) this trope more accurately features a lowbrow Greasy Spoon rather than an upscale restaurant.
Theatre
- The action of La Cage aux folles comes to a climax in the restaurant Chez Jacqueline.
Video Games
- Simcity 4 has Chez Eyler, a very small, exclusive, and fancy high-wealth restaurant. A "Chez Fancy" will be referenced by Sims, but cannot be found.
- Kingdom of Loathing has "Chez Snootée"
- River City Ransom has a "Chez Walle's".
- The Interactive Fiction game Kissing the Buddha's Feet has a restaurant called "Chez Merde". Merde is a French word that isn't too pleasant. It means "shit".
- The last restaurant in the Wii game Order Up! is called "Chez Haute". It's not exactly a French restaurant, but the food you cook and serve is typically high quality. There is a condescending French waiter working there, though.
- There was this game on Cartoon Network's website called Chez Bugs, which was essentially a poor man's Diner Dash with Looney Tunes characters.
- And of course, in Diner Dash itself, the penultimate stage in the first game is a fancy-type restaurant called "Chez Flo".
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner: In "Date Nite", Homestar refers to a certain "Chez Perez", pronouncing "chez" as "chezz". Later in the cartoon, the diner "Marshmallow's Last Stand" becomes "Marshmallow's L'est Stand".
- "Chez Monyou" from Looney Tunes Intro Bloopers, mentioned whenever Sam or another character asks about lunch at the end of each episode.
Web Comics
- "Chez Elmo's" from The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: "Frogs and Snails — We Deliver!"
- The Last Days of FOXHOUND: The restaurant Liquid and Naomi go to in this strip is called "Chez Monieu".
- Poison Ivy Gulch: Mayor Sidewinder visits one of these only to learn that they serve disgusting entrees.
Western Animation
- "Chez Pierre's" from Daria.
- Hey Arnold! has two restaurants across the road from each other — the more affordable "Chez Pierre", and the very expensive "Chez Paris". This has lead to confusion in one episode when Helga won a free dinner at one but accidentally went to the other.
- Kim Possible has "Chez Ron" and "Chez Couteau" as two restaurants, the former only existing in the episode "Two to Tutor", while the latter is shown several times.
- In the premier episode of Doug's ABC run, their favorite hangout, the Honkerburger, was bought out and turned into an expensive French restaurant called Chez Honque. Doug tried to take Patti there on a date once, only to discover neither of them could afford anything on the menu.
- The Simpsons:
- Parodied with a restaurant aptly named "Chez Guevara". They started off selling Argentinean cuisine, but switched to Cuban in the mid-1980s.
- There's also the episode in which Marge takes up bowling. One of her dinner suggestions is the "Chez Pierre", but this suggestion is rebuffed by Patty and Selma, who insist on going somewhere "fun" — the Singing Sirloin.
- Phineas and Ferb: After a rather unsatisfying dinner at a trendy new restaurant (which leads to them waking up starving the next morning), Phineas and Ferb decide to open their own - "Chez Platypus", which quickly becomes the new hot spot in town.
- On CatDog, Cat once took a date to "Chez Pastrami".
- In "Dan Vs. The Fancy Restaurant", Dan and Elise plot to take down "Chez Puree" for different reasons. Dan wants revenge because Chez Puree closed down his favorite sandwich shop, while Elise wants to take down the restaurant for its expensive and meager portions. Chris has no grief against the restaurant, but is caught up Dan and Elise's plan.
- While not a restaurant, in one episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy the Eds open a sauna called "Chez la Sweat". Ironically, they did open an actual restaurant in a later episode, but it was called "Ponce De La Ed" rather than this trope.
- Jimmy Two-Shoes: In the Restaurant-Owning Episode "Chez Beezy", Beezy pisses off the head chef and owner of the restaurant Chez Garbonz, leading the chef to Rage Quit and dumping the restaurant on him. At Jimmy's prompting, Beezy takes it over, renames it Chez Beezy, and tries running the restaurant himself (albeit with Jimmy doing most of the work).
- Woody Woodpecker: In "Wally's Royal Riot" from The New Woody Woodpecker Show, Wally Walrus is the snobbish owner of Chez Wally that doesn't serve anything or anyone common, and Woody is the common woodpecker who, after being kicked out for no other reason, cons his way to free food with a few disguises.
Real Life
- Many a New Yorker has joked about sampling the fine cuisine at "Chez Stadium" (a pun on Shea Stadium, most notable as the former home of baseball's New York Mets).
- Applies, of course, to countless restaurants in France, but is somewhat subverted in that these are often simple, "family" restaurants. This naming technique also applies to many bars, often with a "beauf", low-class name such as "Chez Ginette", "Chez Bébert".
- The Strasbourg winstub (traditional Alsatian restaurant) "Chez Yvonne" has counted an unusually high number of politicians from France and elsewhere among its clients despite not being a luxury restaurant by design, including the likes of Charles de Gaulle, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Jacques Chirac, Helmut Kohl, Gerhard Schröder and Boris Yeltsin.
- Alice Waters' world-famous "Chez Panisse".
- Want to make your favorite fast food place sound classy? Use Chez + mascot's name. Use a French form if you can! McDonald's is now Chez Renaud. Jack in the Box is now Chez Jacques. KFC is now Chez le Colonel.
- This naming scheme has become so ubiquitous that its French associations are often completely ignored, leading to restaurants with names like "Chez Kimchi" (a real Korean restaurant in Australia.)
