Scorpions, beetles on menu at Paris bar

PARIS: At a tiny bar in Paris's Montmartre district, chef Elie Daviron is happy to admit his new menu has disgusted some clients while others need two or three drinks before they can face it.

Amid the guacamole, chicken tikka and chili hotdogs, the young chef is conducting a "gastronomical experiment" with what he calls a selection of "insect tapas".

Grasshoppers, beetles, scorpions and two different types of worm -- sango and silk -- are the latest additions to his fare.

"My personal favourite is the sango worm," Daviron told from behind the bar of the Festin Nu or Naked Lunch, a watering hole in this picturesque northern slope of the Montmartre hill.

"There are two textures.... you have the head and the body which are a completely different taste and flavour," he said.

The body was "sandy" tasting while the head was "crunchy" and tasted a bit like a combination of beetroot and mushrooms, he added.

The 26-year-old from Montpellier in southern France became interested several years ago in the idea of how insects could in future be a common source of protein in Europe.

And after the release of a UN report on edible insects earlier this year, he "realised that people were waiting for someone to do that".

Daviron ordered a selection from a company licensed to import dried insects and set about experimenting with recipes.

The result was five dishes including scorpion with pepper cooked in olive oil, beetle with cucumber, ginger pickle and green peas and grasshopper with egg.

The protein-rich insects are imported from Thailand where they are widely eaten as snacks.

But due to limited demand in France the few licensed suppliers deal only in dried insects rather than frozen or fresh.