AFTER SERVING steak and frites for more than 20 years, Chez Gerard has finally added a new dish to its menu: Le takeover.

IN 1914 E Brunet, chef to the Duke and Duchess of Roxburghe, translated L Saulnier's Le Repertoire de la Cuisine into English and condemned us to 50 years of French menus.Thus in the Sixties anyone faced with a box of Dover sole could riffle through its pages and find 338 helpful suggestions. The index runs all the way from Adrienne - "Fillets, folded and poached, coated with Polignac sauce, garnished with soft roes and tartlets filled with crayfish tails cohered with Nantua sauce" - to Yvette - "Same as Sole Crevettes, glazed, slice of truffle".

YOUR article "Mmm, placenta puree..." (18 January) reports on Channel 4's proposed cookery show about the preparation and eating of the human placenta. This is loathsome, and what next? The pleasures to be derived from a terrine of aborted human foetus?

This week's highlights on Carlton Food Network include:

First it was their haute couture, now it's their cuisine. Will foreign upstarts alter the flavour of French cooking? Adam Sage on the great Parisian food row

FULHAM ROAD; 257-259 Fulham Road, London SW3. Tel: 0171 351 7823. Open Mon-Fri 12-2.30pm and Mon-Sat 7-11pm. Two course set lunch, pounds 18.50. Average a la carte pric e, pounds 35 without wine. Major credit cards, except Diners, accepted

There's Roquefort in them thar hills. Ray Kershaw gets stuck in

KASSOULET; 127 Ledbury Road, London W11 2AQ. Tel: 0171 792 9191. Open for lunch Mon to Fri 12-3pm and Sat and Sun until 3.30pm, and for dinner Mon to Sat 7-11pm and Sun until 10.30pm. Average price per person, pounds 20. Credit cards accepted

The timing is perfect. The Conservatives crash to disaster in Wirral South, the general election looms, and suddenly London has its first political coffee house.

Mary Dejevsky counts the cost of Gallic cheer and celebration

Food & Drink: Fish has never looked so good - in 12 easy stages Gordon Ramsay shows how to prepare a colourful piece de resistance for the dinner-party table

A dash of Gallic charm bodes well for diners, writes Keith Botsford

Arjo Wiggins Appleton, the troubled Anglo-French paper- making and merchanting group, yesterday announced the sudden departure of its chief executive, Alain Soulas. He has been replaced by Philippe Beylier, who has been in charge of the group's successful merchanting division and will now be based in the UK.

At last, something of which Rumpole might approve. Lunch is apparently still regarded as an important part of the lawyer's job. And though they drink less than they did three years ago, most lawyers consider it to be either beneficial, or at least standard practice, during lunch.