French restaurant’s ‘no Pakistani’ rule lands chef in soup

ISLAMABAD: With coarse-grained pork sausages, blood pudding and fine wine on his menu, Philippe Lafforgue thought he had cooked up the perfect recipe for expats in Pakistan´s capital Islamabad.



But the Frenchman´s refusal to serve Pakistanis unless they were accompanied by a foreigner has landed him in the soup in this deeply conservative country.



It all started with a Twitter comment one evening in December. Cyril Almeida, a prominent Pakistani journalist, complained about a restaurant which refused reservations from anyone except "foreign-passport holders".



Established in October, "La Maison" is a small French bistro tucked away on the ground floor of Lafforgue´s house in a posh, tree-lined area in the heart of the capital.



After being refused a table, Almeida turned to social media, launching a campaign with the hashtag "NoToApartheid."



"It is so obviously offensive and obnoxious... why should a private individual establish a club or an establishment which blocks out the very people of the country it is operating in?" Almeida told.

"All that I have done was to abide by Pakistani law. If I did something illegal, I would have been condemned by mullahs and visited by the police (earlier)," says Lafforgue, who was previously a chef in France and moved to Pakistan to work as a firework technician.

In the diplomatic enclave, a high-security area of the capital which houses most foreign embassies, private restaurants and clubs sell alcohol to foreigners and their Pakistani guests.