French cuisine

French cuisine is characterized by its extreme diversity. French cuisine is considered to be one of the world's most refined and elegant styles of cooking, and is renowned for both its classical ("haute cuisine") and provincial styles. Many of the world's greatest chefs, such as Auguste Escoffier, were masters of French cuisine. Additionally, French cooking techniques have been a major influence on virtually all Western cuisines, and almost all culinary schools use French cuisine as the basis for all other forms of Western cooking.

Foreign cuisines

Foreign cuisines popular in France include:

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• Some dishes from the former colonies of France in north Africa, especially couscous.
• Italian food, more particulary pizza and pasta.
• Indian food.
• Vietnamese and Chinese food. Chinese restaurants are fairly commonplace.
• Restaurants offering Japanese dishes such as sushi or yakitori are getting increasingly popular in urban centers, though the majority of the French population probably objects to eating raw fish. Most of such restaurants in France nowadays are actually operated by people of Eastern Asian non-Japanese origin.

As a general rule, foreign "exotic" restaurants can be more readily found in large urban centers.

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