Power Lunching at the French Open Catalina Martin-Chico for The New York Times A START Italian ice cream is one treat at the French Open. SOME people go to the French Open for the tennis; others go for the food. The strongest memory of my first visit to Roland Garros nearly a decade ago does not involve the fate of a match. It revolves around the sweet aromas that hit me as I entered the stadium: the vanilla and butter of a fresh waffle mingled with the hazelnut and cocoa of the Nutella topping. "We're a long way from Forest Hills," I said to my husband, who grew up close to the site of the United States Open before it moved to Flushing Meadows. Wimbledon may have its strawberries and cream. But for 15 days every spring, the Roland Garros complex on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne becomes the place to power lunch in Paris. These days, in this economy, fewer French business executives dare to be caught on television sitting in a box seat and watching tennis balls fly over a net at 4 in the afternoon. But lunch is different. "I have to go to Roland Garros for lunch" signals serious networking and hard work à la française. "I'm not proud to admit that some guys come here only to eat," said Gilbert Ysern, chief executive of the French Tennis Federation. But our signature is that we can offer you a meal as great as any great restaurant in Paris. You know you'll see and be seen. You'll shake interesting hands and have interesting encounters. And the ambience! It's the ambience of spring, of seeing pretty women dressed with flair. It's no accident that Roland Garros is the only one of the four Grand Slam tournaments to be played on clay courts, which traditionally have created a higher bounce and a slower game than matches played on hard courts or grass. It is more important here to keep the rallies going with style and panache than to go straight for the kill. Pleasure comes with prolonging, not concluding. As for the real Roland Garros, he was a record-breaking aviator and inventor who knew how to enjoy himself. On the ground between missions during World War I, he would sip Champagne as he played the piano to drown out the sound of bombing raids. Although never much of a tennis player, he was such a popular hero that France named its international tennis tournament and stadium after him. And lunch at Roland Garros? Like the royal French courts, there is a hierarchy of who eats where and what. At the very bottom there is American-style fast food for the grand public - the general public. As an American, I am embarrassed that the hamburgers and hot dogs introduced last year give a bad name to what can be decent sports stadium fare. In the middle there are respectable venues like a self-service sit-down restaurant. But at the top, the very top, there are coveted dining experiences reserved for the chosen few. On the first day of the tournament on Sunday, I tried both haute-cuisine sites. I started in late morning at the Grand Chelem - the Grand Slam - a group of intimate, temporary tented dining rooms on the fringe of the stadium run by the caterer Lenôtre. The rooms spill out onto a deck with a bar, chaise longues and orchids and palm trees. Here, corporations and private individuals rent rooms or tables for their clients. "All year I'm in nothing but business, and here's my one chance to mix it with pleasure," said Valéry Safarian, head of the Belgian-Armenian Chamber of Commerce in Brussels, who was hosting 10 guests for lunch and tennis-watching at 700 euros a head. About $862 at $1.23 to the euro. I kept an eye on the tennis matches shown on televisions hung from the walls as I sampled the rich fare - a bit too rich for an 85-degree day in an un-air-conditioned outdoor space: duck layered with foie gras and decorated with asparagus and pickled peach slices; beef fillet with stuffed baby vegetables and an assortment of cheeses. The prettiest creation was the dessert: a martini-shaped glass with crunchy chocolate "diamonds" on the bottom and layers of dark chocolate, milk chocolate and raspberry mousse that seemed suspended in air. Guy Krenzer, the chef, showed me his trick: he cut a circle of dark chocolate to fit midway down the glass and layered the three mousses on top, finishing them off with a raspberry and a piece of gold leaf. I asked to see his kitchens, but there were none. Dishes are prepared at Lenôtre's off-site locations and only finished or heated here.