Why do I need to know à la bonne franquette?

It’s important to know so that you don’t turn up to a casual dinner dressed for a black-tie gathering.

What does it mean?

À la bonne franquette – roughly pronounced ah lah bun frahn-ket – means doing something informally, without fuss. 

It’s often used in the context of a meal, where you throw something together and enjoy each other’s company, rather than worrying about cooking something complicated and creating a formal occasion. In English, you might call it a ‘potluck’ meal.

You might hear it over the summer, when people invite friends or family over for a gathering, but don’t want them to come expecting a fancy meal.

According to the writer Claude Duneton, the term franquette developed in parallel to the word franchement (frankly). The expression à la bonne franquette was supposedly created to contrast with à la française (the French way), meaning “luxuriously” and “with lots of arrangements”.

This expression is used by the young and the old alike, and if you are looking for some other ways to describe throwing something together with no fuss, you might say sans chichi. Otherwise, you could also go for en toute simplicité, which just means ‘simply’.

Use it like this

Vous venez à la maison vendredi ? Je ferai quelque chose mais ce sera vraiment à la bonne franquette – Do you want to come over on Friday ? I’ll put something together, but it’ll be very simple.

Je préfère un barbeuc à la bonne franquette plutôt que d’aller au resto – I prefer a relaxed barbecue rather than going to a restaurant.