The meeting takes place in a brasserie in the 17th arrondissement. The weather is rainy, but the cozy atmosphere of the Parisian café is warm. A green tea ordered later, Emmanuelle Jary watches the plates pass around her. A beef tartare, followed by a veal escalope and a burrata. “You see, we really see that everywhere. It’s the standardization of taste.” Despite its 325,000 subscribers on Instagram and 166,000 on Youtube, the host of the “It’s better when it’s good” account prefers the authenticity of the dishes to the trendy side. Forget them avocado toast and dishes with truffle oil, we’re talking about original recipes here, those that you don’t see everywhere. “You shouldn’t assume what people like. We don’t eat in the regions on Sunday lunch like we eat in Paris,” notes Emmanuelle Jary.
It is on this observation that the DNA of the videos filmed with his partner and director is based. [également mari, mais on n’avait pas franchement envie de rentrer dans le cliché de la « femme de »], Mathieu Pansard. After twenty years of career as a food journalist, Emmanuelle Jary decided to go further with her gastronomic expertise in 2016 and push the boundaries of her editorial work to turn to video. “At first I did it for fun, perhaps with the certainty that I would finally say the things I wanted to say.” This need is intrinsically linked to Emmanuelle Jary’s limitless passion for cooking. “When I was little, when they wanted to calm me down, they put food in my mouth. In an interview, Rocco Siffredi said that sex was the prism through which he saw his life, for me it was cooking.
“Good is always subjective”
A few years and thousands of subscribers later, the 2.0 adventure “It’s better when it’s good” is a great success. However, Emmanuelle Jary did not know the codes of social networks at the start. A personal Facebook account, nothing more. “I just said ‘we’re going to do what I think we should do’.” And added: “Perhaps if, at the start, we had guessed where it would lead us today, we would have been much more afraid.”
Now, for every restaurateur that the critic visits, there are hundreds of new customers who gather near the storefront every week. A chance for this Vietnamese restaurant, avenue de Choisy, which, before the filming, despaired of its customers who had disappeared since the Covid-19 health crisis. Others even choose to avoid the promotion. “They refuse our coming because it brings too many people and they already have a lot.”
On the Instagram account of “It’s better when it’s good”, there is something sincere, without going into the negative as one would expect from an old critic. “Our thing is above all to be a guide to good addresses.” On her account, Emmanuelle Jary only films what she likes. If she doesn’t like a restaurant, she doesn’t film it. It’s as simple as that. But then, how do you know what you enjoy eating? “Good is always subjective.” In reality, when she enters a restaurant, the critic always favors the plate over the setting. “We can be in the South under the bright sun and I prefer something dark with neon lights just because it’s good.” Like the Tour de France which we watch “for the pretty landscapes”, Emmanuelle Jary is now drawing a gourmet map of the different regions. “Whether they are known or not, these are the addresses that I like.”
A new appetizing review
A fulfilled career, reports and great trips. This is already a very complete menu and why stop there when you’re still a little hungry? After the starter and the main course, Emmanuelle Jary would not be the type to miss the dessert in the adventure “It’s better when it’s good”. Still with his partner Mathieu Pansard, the gastro critic decided to adapt his content into a review, the first issue of which appeared in June. “It’s our great adventure,” she sums up.
An innovative, graphic and very appetizing format which combines reports, surveys, good addresses and of course recipes, “the ones you don’t see elsewhere”. Behind this mantra, a bitter taste left by a “salmon spinach quiche” slipped into the second magazine (released in September). “I said to myself ‘never again’. It’s everywhere on social media, I didn’t want it to be in my review.”
The surveys, too, are intended to be innovative. The first issue focused on the poor quality of power at gas stations and train stations. “It doesn’t even have the elegance of being filthy, it’s empty.” The second review of meat consumption. On this, Emmanuel Jary really wanted to shed light on the preconceived ideas seen in the comments of his videos.
Cooking, a social subject
“People have criticized me for eating meat. It’s my culture. If tomorrow it becomes only livestock, I will stop eating it.” But this will not be the only debate on the table: wine, cheese, junk food. Over time, cooking has become a central subject within our society. “It actually wasn’t before. When I was a student of ethnology, my teachers told me “cooking in France is very nice, but it’s not really ethnological as a subject”. Today I don’t think we would say the same thing anymore. There is no more ethnological subject because there are only humans who cook and transform their food.”
In her review, Emmanuelle Jary therefore wants to address all the contours of gastronomy, without ever having to limit herself by the constraints of an editorial. The comic strip in the magazine is the perfect example. Written for years during his travels, the story was shunned for a long time by publishers before being adapted into an episode in the magazine, under the pretty guise of the famous author Christophe Gaultier. It will even soon be published separately – with four unpublished stories – thanks to the creation of Editions du Meilleur. No need to tell you who is behind it.
Emmanuelle Jary does not intend to stop there. No need to leave the table, other formats will be further multiplied. A recipe book – printed in 100,000 copies – was published at the end of September. And, in 2024, “It’s better when it’s good” will offer new short formats where cooking tips and specific focuses on gastronomy will mix. Enough to satisfy the appetite of subscribers.