La Cantine – Introduction
In the many years that we have been visiting the city of Beaune in the middle of Burgundy we have narrrowed down the restaurants we visit to a very small number. The reason for this is that many of the places in the centre of the city cater for the lowest common denominator of tourists who flock here for the wine tastings and vineyard visits.
We normally stay for a couple of days to visit our wonderful producers in this area. At night we always enjoy a meal at the restaurant cum bottleshop Caves Madeleine or the restaurant cum epicerie La Dilettante.
What has been difficult is finding a good place for coffee and breakfast in the morning or a place for weekend lunch. Well, on our most recent trip we solved both of these problems with some new places that have opened since our previous visits.
We have written elsewhere on this site about the new restaurant in Savigny-les-Beaune which is only a short drive from Beaune. It is called Le Soleil and is open at the weekend so that you can enjoy the clever cooking of Laila Aouba and Svante Forstorp and the wine selections of sommelier and owner
Lola Taboury-Bize. This is an experience not to be missed!
The other new venue that is wonderful is La Cantine which is just outside the centre of Beaune in rue Colbert. Here you can have a decent coffee roasted by the enthusiastic staff of Clandestine Coffee in Poligny in the Jura. We got to like their coffee at the many natural wine salons that we have visited where they are often the coffee providers.
The cooking at La Cantine is very good and not tricked up. Rather, the chef is confident enough of his cooking to present the food simply. You can see from the accompanying photo of an omelette we had on one of our visits that simplicity is paramount but the taste was delicious! The butter that was provided was also very good as was the bread!
They also have a range of sweet treats available and a short lunch-time menu. We can without hesitation recommend this venue!
We should also add that eating at La Cantine also provided us with access to another new venue, namely Epicerie Paysanne which is a new shop selling very good organic produce. Many of the vegetable items on the La Cantine menu are sourced from here as were some excellent figs on one visit.
You can find out more about La Cantine at their Web site here. La Cantine is also one of our recommendations in our Great Eating in France Outside Paris article on this site.
