Autour de l’Âtre – Introduction

On our 2024 trip to France we drove from the Savoie after visiting winemakers in that area to the Jura – which is always an interesting drive as the scenery is spectacular and the roads very good.

However, on this occasion we diverted in the southern Jura as we had not spent much time in that area with most of our producers being from the mid to northern area around the town of Arbois.

We had heard about a relatively new restaurant near the village of Val-Sonnette which was doing some interesting cooking and that had some interesting wine so we booked a table for lunch at Autour de l’Âtre on our way through as it was relatively close to the main road to Arbois.

Autour de l’Âtre and it is on the outskirts of the village. When we arrived we were seated outside in an old orchard for pre-lunch snacks.

Prior to sitting at the outside setting we had a look inside at the open kitchen and the fire with an impressive pulley system which we learned later from the chef had been modelled on the one which were familair with from Philippe Bornard’s fireplace!

As the meal progressed most of the cooking was carried out on the fire.

We then headed outside for the first couple of dishes.

Some of the dishes that we were served included the following.

The meat had been cooked slowly over the fire inside (see above) and the slow cooking made it incredibly tender and tasty.

You can see below that the dessert looks spectacular and tasted as good as it looked.

And after the meal had finished we returned to the sunshine outside and enjoyed a very good espresso and tasty mignardise to finish.

One of the things we really enjoyed here was that the chef cuts the comte cheese at the table in very thin slices, just like it used to be done at Saturne in Paris.

You can find out more about this interesting restaurant and check their opening times here.

We have included this venue in our story about places we eat in France outside Paris here.