History and philosophy

We moved from Paris to open Au Bon Manger in Reims in 2008. Aline worked in fashion in Paris for more than a decade, and Eric worked in public radio and music publishing for over thirty years. We had always loved and spent all our money on food and wine, and especially those made by hand, on a small scale, with a passion for quality and truth to materials. Eventually, we decided that we wanted our work to focus on what we loved—and so Au Bon Manger was born. Our friends in Paris said we were mad to do it.

At the beginning, we focused on stocking only food and wine made in France, by hand. We wanted to support the reinvigoration of responsible agriculture through artisanal businesses. We always and only worked with small-scale producers because we never tasted anything good, anything with real energy, made in enormous factories at industrial scale.

In the 15 years since we opened Au Bon Manger, we’ve come across passionate producers of wine and food from beyond France. We realised that we don’t really care about where something is made — what we care about is the feeling and the taste of things made by hand, with passion, and with a focus on truth in materials. This is the thread that runs through everything we do at Au Bon Manger.