The Anti-McDonalds

I need a movie tie-in to keep this on-topic, so I'm going to move Super Size Me to the top of my queue...

There. Now I can point you to The Anti-McDonalds (yes, it's in France):

BRYCE, a lanky 17-year-old with short, spiky hair finished his plate of bull stew and polenta, looked up and smiled.

“That was good,” he said. “I reckon this must be one of the best restaurants in town.”

Sitting next to him at a long, formica table yesterday, his teenage classmates nodded in approval. They are pupils at the Lycée de L’Empéri in Salon de Provence, near Marseille, where they enjoy what are widely described as the finest school dinners in France.

“The food here is really exceptional,” said Germaine Roche, a philosophy teacher, who was tucking into a leek soufflé. “It’s a pleasure.”

As her colleague Pascal Simon poured himself a glass of Côtes du Rhône to wash down his cassoulet in the staff canteen, Dominique Valadier, the school chef, walked up. He was triumphant. “I went past the McDonald’s opposite the lycée and it was empty,” he said, beaming.

Food budget per pupil? $2.20.