People: a flea market with Hanz Gueco

He's a Paris-based chef and artist, he knows how to flea market and oh yes, he knows how to gazpacho

It’s a Saturday morning in Paris, it’s the middle of France’s summer vacation and it’s raining. Hanz is concerned that there won’t be much happening at the flea market. He’s opening a restaurant on Thursday, well soft opening, but yes, opening, and he kindly has me along to his flea market forage where he’s hunting for pieces for the new space. It quickly becomes apparent that Hanz is no foreigner to a flea — perhaps due to his lockdown days buying and selling at flea markets for a bit of extra cash, or perhaps thanks to Benedict Butterwroth, an English chef Hanz once worked with, who would go straight from the kitchen, to a night out, to a flea. La belle vie.

I start to visualise a group of chefs, perhaps a little tipsy, pottering about a flea market, a cigarette and espresso held nimbly in one hand to keep the other free to fondle treasures spread across tables. Hanz breaks my little day dream with a little flea market wisdom: “The more organised the table, the more expensive the th…