Exciting visits to our wine suppliers and restaurants, wine bars and wine shops
Here we are again! Each summer, before the grape harvests begin, we try to visit as many of our natural wine suppliers as possible, from all corners of France.
While we are making these visits to our wine suppliers such as the Robinot family in the Loire Valley, the de Moor family in Chablis and surrounds, Tony Bornard in the Jura, Dominique Moreau in Champagne, the Mosse family in the Loire, Renaud Bruyère and Adeline Houillon also in the Jura, Fanny Sabre, Julien Altaber, Carole Schwab and Valentin Montanet in Burgundy, the Milan Family in Provence and many others, we also have to eat, so we will, once again, provide a brief description of all the restaurants and wine bars where we choose to eat and much more detailed descriptions of some of them.
A few days in Paris
On arriving in Paris on the new, direct flight from Perth which took less than the advertised 17 hours, we checked into our accommodation and then immediately headed for our favourite coffee place, namely Dreamin’ Man. When we arrived we found that there are now 3 locations but our favourite in rue Amelot was close to our accommodation so that is where we enjoyed our first coffee in France and our coffees on subsequent days in Paris.
We then headed to the nearby Marché des Enfants Rouges to find a relatively new venue in the market called The Butcher of Paris that we had heard so much about from people who we trust returning from trips to France recently.
The concept of this exciting venue is they source the best meats in France and serve them in simple ways to ensure that the maximum flavour is expressed in each dish. We will provide some additional information about the producers they source their produce from in our longer story about this exciting venue.
On arrival we were delighted to see our friend Melvin Haxaire who we got to know when he worked at 10 William Street in Sydney, now working in this busy establishment. He arranged for us to have the table photographed above and asked if we would mind having others sit at the same table as it was very busy. Of course we indicated we would be delighted with such an arrangement.
We first requested something really simple (or so we thought) – bread and butter. The bread is supplied by Leonie Bakery in Paris which is famous for the quality of their offerings and the butter, which came to the table on a large plate that is totally occupied by a large puck of the stunning, yellow spread that was about as large as a football!
The next dish we were presented with was jambon from the Auvergne, sliced beautifully as you can see in the photo below.
Jambon from the Auvergne – truly stunning
There were many dishes after these two introductory ones. You will be able to see more about our time at The Butcher of Paris when we finish the separate story about our afternoon there. As the afternoon progressed we were introduced to a natural winemaker who took a seat at our table followed by some of his friends. It turned out to be a most enjoyable afternoon.
Next day, after another coffee at Dreamin’ Man, we headed for an old favourite wine bar namely Aux Deux Amis to catch up with owner David Loyola who we have known for many years. We have always loved the food here – his ability to find talented chefs such as Svante Forstop, Mathieu Perez and Mark Maya is legendary and our meal this year was equally wonderful. We had a very tasty lunch with Melvin again and David made sure that the food and wine were exactly what we were looking for.
The wine he chose to accompany the food was Les Gauchers from the Loire Valley which was made from one of our favourite grapes, namely Pineau d’Aunis which is a wonderful red grape with a slight bitterness at the end. The wine was made by Cédric Fleury from the Vendomois region which lies to the North-East of the city of Tours. Both the fermentation and the élevage was carried out in stainless steel tanks. The grape variety (Pineau d’Aunis) came to prominence in natural wine circles partly due to the popularity of the amazing red wines produced by Jean-Pierre Robinot who also lives in this area.
Below is an example of one of the plates we were served at Aux Deux Amis, namely mackerel served with carrots, orange, rhubarb and capers – a delicious dish.
Later that day we met up with our friend Bianca from Tasmania who cooked us many meals there when she was one of the assistant chefs to Tom at the famous pub Tom McHugo’s. Now she is one of the chefs at already famous Le Doyeneé south of Paris where she assists James Henry with the cooking. Our meeting was at the very busy natural wine bar Folderol where we drank a delicious bottle of Tony Bornard’s Le Chardo Gai and tried a number of excellent ice creams.
We also found out that one of our suppliers, namely Sylvain Bock from the Ardeche, was in Paris, so we were able to join in with his Japanese importers for a tasting of his delicious wines before heading to lunch at a wine bar called Mokonuts. It was nice to be reconnected with wines such as his Grelots and Raffut again!
We had eaten at Mokonuts on a previous trip to France, but we were anxious to try it again. We approached the pale blue exterior with eager anticipation knowing that we had booked a table to ensure there would be room for us.
First we decided on a wine to accompany our dishes and we chose a white wine called Pattaya from Vin Noe in Burgundy – a delicious choice made from Chardonnay and with no added sulphites which went well with every dish. Don’t get confused if you see the word Gamay on the back label. Vin Noe is based in the town called Gamay which is in the Burgundy region!
Examples of the dishes include a lovely tomato salad served with mozzarella cheese, string beans and basil.
This was followed by dish of kinmedai (aka alfonsino and sometimes sea bream) crudo served with marigold jus, a fillet of beautifully-cooked pork served with samphire and the famous potatoes from the island of Noirmoutier and followed by a stunning risotto cooked with zucchini and sprinkled with pecorino.
We finished with a slice of strawberry tart enhanced with macerated lemon and some matcha ice cream served with blueberries.
Once again Mokonuts had delivered – it was a beautiful meal!
That evening we sampled the pizzas at Oobatz, the pizza restaurant set up by the same people who run the insanely popular wine bar Folderol mentioned above. We were delighted with the quality of the pizzas here and we also enjoyed the fact that they had an eclectic selection of natural wines such as the delicious Opi d’Aqui Poupoule from the Languedoc, the Partida Creus, LY from Spain and the Patrick and Justine Boujou, Melon de Bourgogne from the Auvergne to name just a few.
The Pizzas are named Un, Deux, Tres etc with Six being the chef’s choice of the night. We ordered Deux which was Courgette and Bufala Mozzarella which you can see below.
Our other choice was Quatre which was Mortadella polpette (meatballs), scattered with mozzarella and basil leaves. It was excellent.
Heading to the far South-West
The next morning we caught a train to Bordeaux where we had hired a car ready for the short drive down the coast to St-Jean-de-Luz where we had a number of bookings at restaurants we have never had a chance to visit before.
When we arrived we soon realised that this was one of the busiest times of the year with a major Basque festival underway.
So, our first meal we had already booked at Petit Grill Basque which is now the province of Iñaki Aizpitarte from Le Chateaubriand in Paris. We knew that given his provenance in Paris with Le Chateaubriand (where only natural wines are served and where some 15 years ago we first saw the names of natural winemakers listed on his famous blackboard) and his nearby Le Dauphin which is where he serves food to Parisians that has its roots in the Basque region.
We ate here twice and were delighted with the food and the wine offerings.
Our first meal started with the local olives and peppers served with beautiful olive oil followed by stunning anchovies cooked on the grill as you can see below.
We thoroughly enjoyed the entire meal, so happily returned two days later to enjoy the dishes we weren’t able to order on the first visit.
One dish that they had run out of on the first visit was a dish of rice and prawns being a Basque dish similar to the Spanish paella. It was sensational with four large prawns served on top of the very flavoursome rice. The waiter explained that before shelling the prawns we should push them down into the rice so that the prawn juices would add an extra dimension to the rice. It was an exceptional dish!
We will have a fuller story about this restaurant on this site soon.
Next door is Chez Maya which is the province of his partner Delphine Zampetti who previously ran our favourite lunch time place in Paris (CheZaline). Since moving to the South-West she has continued the theme of excellent quality take-away items that are very tasty and always interesting!
Saturday was a heavy day for the Basque celebrations in the area. Early in the morning we ventured up the hill to the cute Chixko Smokehouse where you can get a very good cup of coffee.
For lunch we were able to secure an outside table in the sunshine at the very popular central wine bar called Café Belardi where we enjoyed both the food and the natural wines that adorn the wine list.
For Sunday lunch we had booked at a relatively new restaurant (Elizaberriko Etxeberria) which is a short drive inland from St-Jean-de-Luz to the village of Hasparren. A number of locals had said good things about the food here and when we visited the Web site we saw that the wines were described as low intervention so we were confident we would be able to choose a suitable wine.
We had an absolutely delicious lunch at this lovely venue. As it turned out the chef here is from Australia and his cooking of the local dishes was spot on.
We started with a perfect tortilla shown below:
Next came a beautiful dish of tripe which was amazingly flavoursome.
These dishes were followed by a plate of Gaspacho, a glorious fish dish and then a blueberry dessert where the blueberries had been grilled over coals, and finally a dish called Coq au lait de Tatie Renee which is a family recipe of Eva – one of the owners.
Such a wonderful meal and we are very much looking forward to a future visit.
And we should mention the excellent wine we were offered when we asked for the most “natural” wine that would be good with their food they brought a wine we had never seen before, from a producer we had never heard of, made from a grape variety that we also had never heard of.
The wine was made by Imanol Garay as a white wine from the grape varieties Raffiat de Moncade, Petit Manseng and Gros Manseng. It was a beautiful wine that accompanied the fish and the tortilla perfectly. And we were excited to try a wine made from Raffiat de Moncade because that was the grape variety we hadn’t heard of.
On returning to Saint-Jean-de-Luz we paid a visit to Sardine which is a local shop which sells all types of tins of preserved fish and much, much more. It is well worth a visit.
The Loire Valley
The next day we caught the train from Bordeaux to Tours to begin our visits to Loire Valley producers with the first being to the Robinot family. But on arrival in the early evening we were ready for dinner so headed for Chez Pia where we had a very satisfying meal.
There is a pleasant atmosphere at this small but interesting venue. They have some natural wines and good small plates to enjoy before the pizzas cry out to be noticed.
This is one of the entrees that we enjoyed which was fresh artichokes with thinly sliced pecorino cheese and fresh herbs. It was an excellent dish.
We accompanied our food with an excellent white wine, Exile Blanc, made from Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay by nearby natural winemakers Lisé and Bertrand Jousset.
The next morning we started the day with a very good coffee at Le Petit Atelier which is diagonally opposite Chez Pia. The coffee here is excellent and it has become our favourite recharging place in Tours. They do particularly good pourover coffees here.
Le Petit Atelier, 61 rue Colbert, Tours. They have another venue at: 21 Rue Du Change, Tours
As always the visit to the Robinot Family was an exciting day trying the amazing wines that were ready for shipping.
That afternoon we returned to Tours and headed for a couple of places that we had been to before. One of the first stops was a very good ice cream venue called ATA where there is a very interesting range of flavours and the ice cream is made from organic ingredients which is a great bonus!
That night, we made a revisit to a favourite wine bar, namely Chez Gaster where our meal started with mortadella from Bologna accompanied by butter from Brittany – it was a great start to an excellent meal.
We particularly enjoyed an interpretation of gazpacho which was made from beetroot and cucumber and which was stunning, both visually and from a taste perspective.
The next morning we moved on to Angers to meet up again with the Mosse family. We had a very pleasant day at their winery tasting through their most recent wines and then having a late night drink at one of our favourite wine bars in the world, Le Cercle Rouge, where Joseph Mosse is now a part owner.
Once again, as with each year that we visit Angers we try to drop in to Café Cardinal for a cup of their excellent coffee and also to La Cave Saint-Aubin where the wine selection is natural and representative of both the Loire area and further afield.
Now to Provence
The next day we headed for Marseille taking advantage of the excellent train system in France. We caught one train to Paris and then another to Marseille and arrived in the late afternoon ready to eat.
We always enjoy a few days in Marseille due to the diversity of restaurants and bars and other places of interest including museums, exciting shops and pleasant walks.
On arriving in Marseille we headed for the Vieux Port to find a person who is serving take away bouillabaisse, the famous fish stew served between Marseille and Nice. The reason for our interest is that this dish is normally very expensive due to the rules about which fish must be included and how much fish it takes to achieve the richness required of it.
The version served at Turfu (which is served in paper cups for takeaway) is quite good but without that deep, deep flavour profile that we crave. However, it didn’t cost us an extragagant amount of Euros either! Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable start to our visit and reminded us that we need to return to our task of hunting along this stretch of coast including the nearby calanques to find the very best bouillabaisse in France.
Next day, following a very good coffee and breakfast described below, we headed for our favourite restaurant, La Mercerie which you will find very close to the centre of the CBD and which we have dined at on a number of previous visits to this city. This is a professional venue with excellent food and a good wine list with quite a few natural choices. Our meal was, once again, very good.
The next day we had a pleasant lunch at the bakery next to La Mercerie called Pétrin Couchette which has the same ownership. It is a boulangerie and coffee shop where you can buy bread, pastries and sandwiches and coffee to have at the tables outside or to take away. We had a pleasant time at an outside table.
For breakfast we adopted Cafe Pollux this year. It was quite close to where we were staying and not too far from the railway station. We were very impressed with both the coffee options and the breakfast of eggs which we really enjoyed.
We particularly liked the coffee. On the first day we were in Marseille they had a coffee that had been roasted by KB Coffee Roasters in Paris. The beans from Colombia had been roasted perfectly.
For dinner we decided to make it a triple header for the La Mercerie ownership and we enjoyed an excellent meal at their other venue Livingston.
Following our revival weekend in Marseille we hired a car and headed for Saint Remy de Provence to meet up with the Milan family. They are the only wine producer we import to Australia that has a wine tasting centre where people can drop in to “try and buy” their wines.
We spend a pleasant couple of hours tasting through their current wines to decide which wines we would order this year. The offering was wonderful as usual!
That evening we stayed in Saint Remy and walked to a new restaurant on the edge of town called Chez Mesiba.
As we were in Saint Remy de Provence we had to try one of the wines from Domaine Milan so we ordered their Haru Blanc 2023 which is a blend of Chardonnay, Grenache Blanc, Chenin Blanc and Savagnin. The meal that accompanied the wine was tasty and the vegetables and herbs were very fresh and the cooking was good.
The next morning we enjoyed a visit the the local market where there were some excellent stalls selling very nice produce. This included the most amazing display of tomatoes as you can see in the photo below.
By this time we were ready for coffee, so we chose one that was near the market but was also highly recommended by friends who had been there. So we searched for Colette Café in the centre of the town.
This is a very nice cafe with a serious barista making excellent coffees. Both our coffees and the pastries that we ordered were excellent and made a substantial breakfast. 39 Rue Carnot, 13210 Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.
We then jumped in the car and headed for Tavel where we were looking forward to our fourth visit to a restaurant (la Courtille) associated with the superb natural wine maker l’Anglore.
This domaine is run by master winemaker Eric Pfifferling whose wines emerge from his beautiful biodynamically-managed vineyards. We ordered the natural Tavel Vaucrose 2023, which was a rosé made from Grenache, Cinsault and Clairette grapes that matched perfectly with each of the dishes we ordered during our meal.
The restaurant is in the town of Tavel and is housed in a beautiful, large, old building with a stunning garden shaded by ancient trees.
Every time we have been here the weather has been kind enough to allow us to eat outside under these trees. As with each of our previous visits, our meal was excellent and the wine we chose was also excellent.
An example of the dishes is the beef tartare shown below – rustic but delicious!
Each of the dishes that we sampled were excellent and worked well with the rosé. The restaurant is close to the edge of Tavel and is easy to reach with car parking quite close. 208 Chemin des Cravailleux, 30126 Tavel.
We returned to our lodgings in Saint Remy after lunch to work, which involved ensuring that the visits to our winemakers that we needed to make while staying in Perpignan and Sete over the coming week were all booked.
The next morning we had an appoinment at the bank in Avignon, so we arrived in time and parked in the massive car park within the walls which is only a short walk to the bank and also happens to be right next to the building where the permanent market is situated. In here there are some of the best fishmongers in France as well as many other stalls that are well worth visiting.
Lunch time approached so, because we were relatively close, we decided to have a light lunch and coffee at the nearby Edition Cafe. We soon found the cafe and settled in at the bar in front of the barista. When we explained the type of coffee we liked, he suggested a Rwandan coffee that had been naturally processed using Red Bourbon coffee beans at the Mutovu Washing Station. 3 Place Saint-Didier, 84000 Avignon.
We accompanied the coffee with a lunch of a very fine sandwich of 7 hour braised beef and another of tomato ancienne which fortified us for the drive down to Roussillon to one of our favourite cities in France – Perpignan.
There are many restaurants that we love in this city and we were looking forward to a few days of visiting producers during the day and then returning to Perpignan to enjoy the restaurants.
On the first evening in Perpignan we decided to dine at a restaurant that we hadn’t eaten at on our previous visits. We chose a restaurant called La Famille for our first meal here.
Our dinner was quite delicious enhanced through choosing a wine from Gut Oggau in Austria. The wine was the 2020 Timotheus Weiss which was made from 40 year old vines of Gruner Veltliner and Welschriesling which grow in limestone, slate, gravel and sand.
The grapes for this wine were harvested by hand and partially destemmed before one third of them were fermented on skins for three weeks and the rest were directly pressed. This combination provides extra texture and some colour when the two are combined.
Fermentation occured in 500-litre wooden barrels and elevage was for about 12 months before bottling unfined, unfiltered and with absolutely no sulphur added.
The meal which accompanied the wine was very pleasant and consisted of a number of tapas dishes that were prepared with care and attention and presented with flair. 3 bis Rue François Marie Voltaire, 66000 Perpignan. By the way, if you are unfamiliar with the use of the word “bis” in an address it refers to a property that is sharing a number – in other words two locations at the one address. So “3 bis” refers to the second building at that address.
The next morning we headed out to our local supplier of stunning wines, namely Mataburro where we discussed the wines which had been set aside from the 2024 harvest and how each had been handled in the winery before being bottled ready for export.
That evening we had arranged to have dinner with Nathalie and Théo from Domaine Milan. We had arranged to meet at one of our favourite restaurants, namely Baston which is a fine pizza restaurant with an excellent natural wine list. 72 Av. Louis Torcatis, 66000 Perpignan.
The meal, consisting mainly of excellent pizzas and some very interesting wines, accompanied a long discussion about the Milan wines and how they had been made.
The next morning we headed for a new coffee venue for us as our regular place had just moved to a new location and had not yet opened for business.
Instead, we went to a very nice location with great staff, called Salty Coffee. They had some excellent coffee choices which had been roasted by Tanat in Paris. 3 Rue Lazare Escarguel, 66000 Perpignan.
Our other favourite in Perpignan which has now opened for business at a new location is called Co-working Coffee and is located at 40 bd. Georges Clemenceau, 66000, Perpignan.
One of the enjoyable tasks that we had on this day was to drive to another of our suppliers, this time at La Guinelle who make the most amazing vinegars, primarily from natural wines. It is fascinating to visit this venue (which is open to the public, unlike many of our wine suppliers) and see the trouble that they go to to produce such excellent vinegars. We have written a story about a previous visit to this amazing site which explains, amongst other things how to get there. This is the link to that story here.
On returning to Perpignan that evening we visited Manat again as it provided us with an outstanding meal last year and we were anxious to relive the enjoyment we experienced at this venue. Like nearly all the restaurants we visit they have a wonderful selection of natural wines.
The wine list features one of our producers from this area, namely the wonderful Mataburro natural wines. But there are many, many more such as the wines of Domaine Gauby, Domaine de Riberach, Domaine Laguerre, Jean-Louis Tribouley, Matassa, Maxine Magnon and Fanny Sabre to name just a few. We chose the Fleur de Cailloux from Jean-Philippe Padie, whose vineyard lies quite close to Perpignan – it was delicious.
The wine was made from Grenache Blanc, Macabeu and Vermentino near the village of Calce and the grapes benefit both from the biodynamic practices in the vineyard and the soils that are comprised of marl, limestone, clay and shale. Fermentation is, of course, carried out with the indigenous yeasts that come in on the grapes. The wine was aged in old foudre and stainless steel (half and half).
The meal was as delicious as last year and we thoroughly enjoyed a rice dish which is popular on the French side of the border with Spain on both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic sides of France (we tried a similar dish in Saint-Jean-de-Luz described above).
This is the menu item as described above which essentially is rice with cockles and crayfish juice. If you read our 2024 story then you can read about other dishes served here. 3 Rue Cité Bartissol, 66000, Perpignan.
The next day was devoted to our newsletter which requires a lot of work, and planning for the next phase of the trip which was to visit producers in the Languedoc, which also takes some planning effort.
Dinner was at Yegg, which we also described last year and was once again very tasty.
The following day we headed for our next stop which was the seaside town of Sète.
On arrival in the late afternoon from Perpignan following concerns about fires that were burning in the proximity of the A9 freeway, our first stop in Sète was the small but exciting shop called La Crèmerie at 3 Grand, Gd Rue Mario Roustan where we always head to restock our cheese supplies. The quality of the offerings here is very high and the cheeses are always treated with care by owner Marie-Anne Gros.
That evening we tried a new place that we hadn’t visited on previous visits to Sète, namely Nossa Bar à Vins at 25 rue Pierre Semard, 34200, Sète. We were attracted to this venue as they advertise on the outside of the restaurant that they serve natural wines as you can see below.
After visiting Axel Prufer and Wim Wagemans in the town of Bedarieux the next day to discuss the wines that were likely to be available soon we had lunch at a small central restaurant in the town of Bedarieux called Rue de la Glacière that is run by Ute Zwanzig who is the wife of Axel and which serves delicious food and very delicous ice creams.
We need to clear one thing up straight away. Don’t look for the ice creams in rue de la Glacière, that is where Ute lives and the name she has given to her restaurant and ice cream shop. Look instead in the central Place aux Fruits where you will see a large ice cream cone outside their ice cream shop.
We have now visited this venue twice since it opened and we have been regaled with stunning ice creams made from fruit grown by Ute and her friends.
We returned to Sète for a pleasant drink at one of our favourite bars namely Cave au Vin Vivant at 6 Rue André Portes. They have a very good selection of natural wine on display along the left hand wall as you walk in. They also have a few tables outside for the smokers!
After our visit to Cave au Vin Vivant we dropped into another favourite, namely Paradiso at 1 Quai de la Résistance. The reason is that they make the best tielles in the town. Tielles are an octopus pie that are the specialty of this town, which were created by Italians who migrated here over 100 years ago. They are a beautiful treat.
(We also love the bar that our friend Marie-Sophie has set up called Pimpant at Grande Rue Mario Roustan, but it was closed on the two nights we were there, namely Tuesday and Wednesday.)
Having completed our visits in the Languedoc, we then headed up the A75 to the Auvergne, once again stopping at the spectacular Millau Viaduct to take even more photos which we do every time we cross over this visually spectacular construction. The added bonus apart from admiring the bridge is to visit the cafe which is run by the Michel Bras restaurant and sells a special “cornet” designed for this location which is a delicious snack before continuing the trek to Clermont-Ferrand.
On the first night here we headed straight to the relatively new wine bar/restaurant established near the centre of town by the amazing chef cum wine importer Harry Lester. It is called Le Comptoir Central des Bazars. We can absolutely recommend this lovely place to anyone who seeks out delicious food and interesting natural wines that have been carefully chosen by Harry. 9 Rue Lecoq, 63000 Clermont-Ferrand.
Each day they have a different special. It might be Rumsteck et Aligot which is rump steak accompanied by the locally famous potato dish which is a mashed potato dish where the local cheese along with cream and butter and some garlic has been mixed in to create a tasty elastic version of mashed potatoes.
You might also find dishes such as Poulet roti or Pintade sauce diable or dozens of other daily specials depending on what is good at the time.
We have some more photos of the food in the longer story about this restaurant, however just to make your mouth water here is a photo of the terrine that we enjoyed on the first night here.
The wine wall also has many treats which made it very difficult to choose which wine to accompany our meal with! On the first night (we ate here for both dinners and breakfasts for the time we were in Clermont-Ferrand), we chose a wine from the Jura made by a young woman who has started making wine in that region. Her name is Marie Bourdon and she is based in Arbois. The wine was from the Arbois appellation and the name is Vinyle 2022 which is a Chardonnay made from grapes grown in the Arces vineyard which we are familiar with as another producer whose wines we import also has a plot within this vineyard. It was delicious!
The next morning having once again visited the Comptoir for breakfast, we caught up with the wonderful Mito Inoue who we have been working with for many years. She now has a small but productive vineyard not too far from Clemont-Ferrand.
We love her wines even though they are quite expensive. After visiting the vineyard and learning about how she manages the vines and makes her wines, we had a lovely picnic on the banks of the local river accompanied by one of her delicious red wines.
The next day we headed for Lyon, but we hadn’t yet been to our favourite venue in France for a short break from the vineyard visits, namely the hotel La Chassignolles which we have been visiting every year at least once and sometimes two or three times to enjoy the food prepared by a chef chosen to cook the food for a season. They also have a brilliant selection of natural wines in their well stocked cellar.
Once again the lunch was delicious and it was good to again catch up with Poppy Saker-Norrish who now runs the place.
We then headed on to Lyon to catch up with friends and to try some of the interesting places that had popped up sinced our last visit there. On the first night we enjoyed a meal at Odessa Comptoir which is a cool establishment serving interesting food and excellent wines.
In fact, there is no doubt about the type of wine they offer as it is proudly displayed on the outside wall:
We started by ordering a bottle of Ratapoil white wine from the Jura which matched very well to each dish we ordered. They had many interesting wines including a Chapuis and Chapuis Aligoté, a Philippe Brand Sylvaner and a Barouillet Semillon to name just a few.
We had some interesting dishes including a very tasty ancient tomato salad where additional flavour was provided by grilled peaches. Another dish was grilled chicken topped with the same ancient tomatoes – very enjoyable.
The next morning our caffeine levels were restored at our favourite coffee venue in Lyon which was only a few doors along from Odessa Comptoir, namely A Boite a Cafe.
That evening we were anxious to try a restaurant called Micro Sillon. About ten years ago we used to visit a restaurant called Sillon every time we passed through Lyon. The food was amazing and the wines were all natural.
Well this restaurant closed when the chef moved to South-West France to open a restaurant there. He has now returned to Lyon and has opened Micro Sillon in the centre of the city. It has a pleasant square outside with tables under the trees.
It was wonderful to experience his cooking again and to enjoy the wines which you can drink there or take away.
Here are some examples:
You can see some of the wines that were available on the night we dined there including Domaine Valette, Sylvain Bock, the Jura master Ganevat, young south-west up and coming guru Imanol Garay and Nicolas Carmarans to highlight just some from the blackboard – there were many more on the racks inside.
The food was wonderful and you will soon be able to read about it in the full story we will publish on this site soon.
After Lyon we headed for the Jura and for lunch at a new restaurant in a tiny village of Grozon a few kilometres from Arbois which is where we were staying. The new restaurant is the Auberge de Bellevie and the chef is an Australian.
The meal here was excellent and very reasonably priced as you can see from their lunch menu from the day we ate there.
It was great to be back in the Jura and lunching on a Jura wine! After lunch we drove the short distance to Arbois and started our round of visits with each of the producers that we import from this amazing region.
That evening we enjoyed a light dinner sitting outside next to the beautiful river that flows through the centre of Arbois at the restaurant run by one of the leading wine producers in the region, namely Bistrot de la Tournelle owned by Evelyne and Pascal Clairet. We had delicious food and one of the Clairet’s lovely wines.
Next morning we had a coffee and pastry at the wonderful patisserie in the very centre of Arbois at Chocolaterie Hirsinger where everything in the shop looks totally wonderful.
We then started our visits until the compulsory break at midday where everything stops for the lunch break. This is when we head for Bistro de Claquets, our favourite lunch place in the Jura which is always packed with winemakers, so it is always wonderful to see so many friends here enjoying the delicious food.
More work in the afternoon and then dinner a couple of doors down from Claquets at a relatively new restaurant called Circus. The food here is excellent and it is always packed out at night. The service was very good and the food very enjoyable.
As a side issue, when we are in France we always speak French when we arrive at a restaurant or any other venue as we regard it as the polite thing to do even though our command of the French language is mediocre. After a while the waiter asked us if we would prefer him to speak English which turned out to be very good. When we complimented him on his command of English, he said it was because of the two years he had recently spent in Australia!
After we had visited each of our producers in the Jura we headed for Burgundy to attend a wine salon and to visit our proucers. We always stay in the central city of Beaune as it also has some nice restaurants to while away our evenings and sometimes a lunch.
At this stage we were still in Burgundy and we had been looking forward to visiting Aaron Ayscough’s bar and restaurant in Chagny ever since he opened La Cave du Centre. We had met him on a number of occasions over the preceding years throughout France, especially at natural wine salons and natural wine bars. So we booked here on our final Sunday in the area, and we were so glad we did.
We loved the venue from the minute we saw the wooden facade looking out onto the street in central Chagny.
It is relatively small with some of the space including the left hand wall as you walk in devoted to the display of his excellent selection of natural wines. Immediately we could see that we would be more than happy with the wine selection on display.
We liked the look of the offerings that included tortilla, anchovies, salad de fenouil, gulyas, ratatouille, yaourt au miel and peche avec chevre frais.
To drink, Aaron recommended a Fantasie from La Liquiere in the Languedoc and then an Ouverture Aligoté from Arnaud Chapuis which were both absolutely delicious.
We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon here and will certainly return on future trips.
Towards the end of this visit to France we had an unexpected visit to a restaurant that wasn’t on our list of potential lunches. We had driven from Beaune over to Saint Romain to have a coffee at one of our favourite coffee places in France only to find it was closed as the owner, Matt, was attending a function at Chassignolles, one of our favourite places in France as we mention earlier in this story.
As it was approaching lunch time and we were parked outside the only restaurant in Saint Romain we decided to look on the Internet to see if we were likely to enjoy a meal there. The menu published on the Internet looked interesting but there was little information about the wine. However, the first thing we noticed as we entered the dining room were posters from the most famous natural wine cartoonists which were prominently displayed around the room.
This almost seemed incongruous in such a setting but a glance at the two wine fridges sitting prominently in the corner of the room next to the table we had been assigned to resulted in us sighting a wine from Jura producer Tony Bornard with the fox symbol displayed prominently on the label.
So the meal was very good and the choice of natural wines was interesting – we hadn’t expected to be drinking a Bornard Jura wine for lunch! You can read a fuller description of our meal at this venue on this site here.
We then headed to the north of Burgundy to visit our producers in that region including Alice and Olivier de Moor, La Petit Empreinte (the domain of Mélissa Bazin and Romain de Moor) and La Cadette (the domain of the Montanet family).
On our way there, once we had past the town of Avallon we kept a close watch out for the tiny village of Blannay where we wanted to pay a visit to a “wine shop” that we had seen a sign to many times as we have been driving past but never had time to visit. This time we did.
The sign to this establishment is very rudimentary as you can see below.
We soon found the entrance to the venue.
The sign on the gate was very specific it says “sonnez fort a la cloche” which means “ring the bell loudly” – so we did!
The owner soon arrived and asked if we were familiar with natural wines, because that is all he sells. When we pointed out that natural wines were all that we drank he was very happy to show us downstairs.
His basement is quite large and there were a huge range of wines available.
