Tag Archives: Michelin

Dinner by Michelin: SaQuaNa

28 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Food, France, Normandy

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Once again I am delighted to welcome my mother as a guest blogger, this time to review Alexandre Bourdas’s two-star Honfleur hotspot SaQuaNa.

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Saveurs (flavour), Quality and Nature are the three marks that the restaurant’s chef, Alexandre Bourdas, seeks in his cooking. He is successful. On his website he speaks of being influenced by his mother’s home in Aveyron and his own cooking experience in Japan. Surprising combinations, the melding of what might be considered opposites, mark the experience of a meal at SaQuaNa. This is not comfort food, nor usual French cooking, but it is creative cooking in which interesting flavors are combined carefully, yet hold their own identity.

My husband and I began with a “pascade Aveyronnaise,” a baked crepe with the crunch of crispy sugar as one bit into it. That first taste was immediately followed by the savory taste of fresh chives and the overall flavor of truffle. What a fabulous start! Next was steamed pollack with Gomasio (a salt and sesame seed preparation), turnips, radish, mustards, grilled sardines and frothed olive oil. Sea-bream with Colonnata bacon with fresh almonds, pointed head cabbage, meadow mushrooms and parsley flowers was the following course. Then came veal and button mushrooms which had an emulsion of preserved lemon, swisschard and chervil.

A cake, which was more like a cookie, followed: salted caramel and chocolate, fromage blanc and pineapple sorbet, cream and hazelnut oil. Then a second dessert was served: “cappuccino” of iced coffee, ganache, a cocoa tile, mousse with cocoa butter, toffee, and a choux bun with caramel and whipped cream. Add to the above the little bits and pieces delivered to the table in most two star Michelin restaurants, not ordered, but delightful offerings to further enhance the experience, and you will have a sense of the seriousness and the playfulness of this chef and his kitchen. Portions are individual and small. That is unless you are including some of the most delicious bread known to man or the large bowl of fresh salad. Both are communal and are to be shared by the table.

The staff is excellent. Despite all of that food, they do not rush one. The pace is practiced and perfect and polished. The staff seems warm and welcoming and happy to answer any question put to them.

The restaurant sits on a square, not far from the beautiful harbor, in this stunning port city which is full of 17th century buildings plus a fascinating church. Sa.Qua.Na’s building looks like an old store front, except that there are sun shades resting at various levels. They look not like a mistake but a plan. The inside seems simple, pure, and like the food, full of surprises when you examine its interior closely. The light colored wooden tables look Scandinavian.

There are nods to Asia in the decoration. What is noticed is that the vertical strip lighting serves as a part of the decoration. The colors are mysterious . The tables have been carefully designed so that the marvelous cheese tray can hang off of the end of each table. Essential elements decorate. It feels natural. You notice the quality and thought put into the design. SaQuaNa.

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Dinner by Michelin: Gill

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in Food, France, Normandy

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I’m delighted to welcome a guest blogger to chaumierelesiris today. You may remember that we have been sampling the Michelin restaurants of Upper Normandy. We recently shared a meal with my parents at Gill in Rouen, and I asked my mother–a veteran of many of France’s top restaurants–to review the evening.

Gill is the flagship restaurant of chef Giles Tournadre, the most famous of Normandy’s many famous chefs. Tournadre has held two Michelin stars here since 1990. In recent years has has added to his empire a less formal annexe and a bistro in Rouen, as well as a restaurant in Japan. Has he over-extended the brand, or is the quality still there two decades on? Let’s find out.

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Those who use the Michelin red guide have an expectation that the food, service and environment of the hotel or restaurant will be as determined by its star rating and location. Extremely rarely have my husband and I been disappointed over the forty five years we have used the guides.

Gill, in the lovely city of Rouen, Normandy, is no exception. The food was delicious. My duck was sweet and so fresh, prepared in three ways, and the dessert, Millefeuille a La Minute, was a delicious contrast of textures. Others enjoyed the day’s starter, traditional escargots with garlic sauce, as well as sea bass pan-fried in cider, served with potato and onion marmalade and creamy Calvados foam, and a meringue cake desert filled with red fruit and basil sorbet.

Each course was beautifully presented, with “decoration” that enhanced the flavors of the preparation. Often the delicate placing of a small herb looked as if tweezers had been employed. There is a challenge to a home cook!

Gill has a lovely setting across the street from the Seine. Its building, however, is not particularly attractive. The interior is simply decorated with a monotone scheme, only occasionally interrupted by a small punch of strong color. Floral decoration is limited. The chairs are very comfortable.

The service is excellent. The chef went out of his way to prepare for me a simple seared foie gras rather than insisting that I try the foie gras dish that was on his menu. Whether trying to find a reservation which in our case was under a different name from the one we gave to the hostess, to advising about the menu, to crumbing the table, the staff managed everything perfectly.

There is no valet parking. The Friday night we dined, an opera was in production just down the road, and we struggled to find a spot to park the car in central Rouen (an underground municipal car park was the answer). That aside, Gill is a two starred Michelin restaurant and that says a lot. We look forward to our next meal there.

Dinner by Michelin: Auberge Du Vieux Logis

21 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by in Food, Normandy

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One afternoon last year we bought the Michelin Red Guide. We had finally settled in a corner of Normandy and were starting to explore the neighbourhood. As this is Normandy, to know the food is, in no small sense, to know the place.

Still, we wondered about our reasons for getting this particular guide. We’re in the wander-and-discover school of restaurant-finding, with little patience for deciphering the strange codes of the Michelin men. We’re not alone on this. Once the standard by which western restaurants were judged, the Michelin guide appears to have lost some of its resonance. In our casual culture, where food preparation is entertainment and originality counts, all those painstaking courses, tiresome and pricey wine lists, the gaunt-faced anonymous testers, feel a bit pointless. It’s Zagat, without pretentions to anything beyond the here and now, written by you and me and owned by Google, that seems the flavour of our age.

Fair enough, if you’re in Kyoto or Texas or anywhere that has a home-grown food culture. But if you’re in France, why not reconsider? After all, it’s the birthplace of the food culture that Michelin ratings were invented to measure. What good is the Michelin guide if you can’t use it in France?

And so we let the Michelin men tell us where to go. There are four starred restaurants within a 40-minute drive. Best known is Gilles Tournadre’s two-star Gill in Rouen. Also with two stars is Alexandre Bourdas’s fish restaurant Sa. Qua. Na. in Honfleur. Closer to home are business-smart Jean-Luc Tartarin in Le Havre, and Eric Boilay’s Auberge Du Vieux Logis in Conteville, each with one star.

Cows, Marais VernierChurch, Conteville, NormandyL'Auberge du Vieux Logis, Conteville, Normandy

We started with Conteville because it’s the closest, a 20 minute drive from the cottage. A last-minute booking was easy to make on a Wednesday in mid April. The drive through Marais Vernier was bucolic, the trees lacy with apple blossom and calves the size of large dogs trotting around the fields. Conteville is an attractive village close to Honfleur with a church and a few shops. The restaurant is the biggest show in town.

Auberge du Vieux Logis, Conteville

It’s an utterly traditional restaurant, half-timbered outside and all wooden beams, red curtains and upholstered chairs inside. The preparations were traditionally Norman too, apart from one sashimi amuse-bouche. Our waiter was proud to inform us that all the food we would eat was locally sourced. Only one cheese on the generous tray wasn’t local, and this fact was vigorously pointed out.

There were three set menus which seemed reasonably priced, and we both chose the middle priced option, four courses for just under 60 Euros per head. We started with Coquilles St Jacques scallops and and elaborate and generous plate of foie gras, followed by veal and lamb.  Between the two came a potent, brandy-laced Punch Normand, and after, a surprising Pont-l’Évêque cheese with a pepper caramel sauce. Normally Pont-l’Évêque has me thinking of laundry hampers,  but the caramel offset and transformed the taste and for the first time I appreciated this most local of cheeses. Desert was a moist and deeply delightful tarte tatin crumble.

Auberge Du Vieux Logis, Conteville

There were few diners that evening, and the empty tables and formal-rustic setting could have made for overly attentive service, but it didn’t; the service was perfect and just as attentive as it needed to be. The wine list felt expensive, and brought the overall price higher than we would have liked.

I’m happy to have l’Auberge du Vieux Logis as my Michelin-starred local. It’s a restaurant that’s excellent at what it does, cooking Norman ingredients as they’ve been cooked for centuries, with flair and care and a touch of surprise here and there. (You can see chef Eric Boilay at work here.) The food was rich, and there was too much of it, and that’s a fact I’m going to have to live with if we continue down this Michelin route. I’d like to go to Conteville again: I’m thinking a late lunch after a hearty cycle up from Point-Audemer first.

Five Great Books About Normandy

10 Saturday Sep 2011

Posted by in Culture, Normandy

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Here are five books about Normandy I’ve read and loved. Some are reference books which were helpful to us as we initially explored the region. Others are fiction and memoir. These too have served as reference of course: what, after all, is fiction if not a guide to the possible ways of being?

When we started thinking about buying a house in France, I read everything I could get my hands on: the chic lit novels, the earnest guides to property purchases, A Year in Provence. This last didn’t help much. We are a two-career family, without Mayle’s luxury of time, nor his means.

A couple of caveats. There are significant gaps in this list. First and most glaringly there are not enough books in French. There is also a lack of historical writing, both recent and ancient. I am working to fill these gaps. Please let me know your favourite books about Normandy and France. I’d like to read them, and maybe add them in over time. Finally, there is no particular order to this list.

Madame Bovarytakes place in and around Rouen where Gustave Flaubert was born and raised. Charles and Emma Bovary’s first home is in Tôtes, and they later move to Yonville which is based on Ry. Emma famously meets her lover in Rouen Cathedral I have an edition of Madame Bovary designed by Manolo Blahnik, and it has always seemed a perfect partnership between the cobbler  to the Sex in the City girls and Emma, the original desperate housewife.

We have poured over this gorgeous coffee table picture bookby photographer Hugh Palmer, considering the merits of one village over another. Palmer beautifully captures the diversity of Normandy, from the cliffs of Étretat to the lush Pays de Caux farmland dotted with grazing cattle and cider orchards.

There is nothing that comes close to the Michelin Green Guide for its authority and knowledge of the region. You know that if the men at Michelin give an attraction three stars, it will be worth the trip. The alphabetical organization by place name, rather than by region, can be annoying. Normandy is large, and it would be convenient to see what’s near you now. But maybe it’s just reflective of life in France: deal with the weird structure to get to the good stuff.

My mother cooked from Julia Child when I was growing up: not for the children, but when there were dinner parties. Oh the dinner parties. Silver and crystal and cigars and port. Fricadelles de Veau a la Creme. La Tarte des Demoiselles Tatin. I’ve never hosted such a dinner party and it makes me wonder: have I grown up?  In My Life in France Julia Child tells how she arrived as a diplomatic wife in her late thirties. The boat docked in Le Havre, and she motored with her husband to Rouen, where she tasted sole meuniere and fine wine and described it as “an opening up of the soul and spirit for me.”

Tell me that Posy Simmond’s graphic novel Gemma Bovery isn’t a great book at your own risk. Great about the English and the English in France, how we talk to each other, how we dress, and how (we imagine) the French observe us. Haircuts, handbags, home decor: Simmonds doesn’t miss a beat in this sharp comic parody of Flaubert’s novel.

I want to give a shout out to three writers whose words about Normandy and France today have resonated with me. It’s not about Normandy specifically, but New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik’s essays in Paris to the Moon opened my eyes to the pleasures of living with children in France, indeed the pleasures of living with children at all. Humourist David Sedaris dissects the reality of life as a gay American writer in rural Normandy (take that, Emma Bovary!) in Me Talk Pretty One Day. And Judith Warner, who I find perpetually wise, has written beautifully in the New York Times about rural Normandy as antidote to our wired lives.

…in the early evening there is a misty kind of light – a particularly French, grayish, bluish, blackish kind of light – that fills you with a joy so profound that it’s painful. It reminds me of why I live most of my life running around in a snit and obsessing about noisome details, petty insults and minutiae: because to experience happiness – of the most powerful and soul-intimate kind – is also to know that some day it all will end.

–Judith Warner, We’ll Always Have Normandy

A Visit to Jumièges

09 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by in Normandy, Things to do, Travel

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I had never heard of Jumieges Abbey before reading about it in the Michelin green guide, which gives it a rare three stars. Three stars from Michelin means you can’t miss it, particularly when it’s only 25 minutes from your house – maybe 35, if you have to wait 10 minutes for the ferry. The ferry is not much more than a sturdy kind of raft that takes about 8 cars and pops you across the Seine in under 5 minutes, to the delight of our children. While waiting, you can stock up on courgettes and lettuces from the lady who grows and sells vegetables from her house next to the road by the ferry.

Originally built in the seventh century, the abbey was pillaged (how, exactly do you pillage? Can you give me a visual image?) by the Vikings. It was rebuilt and consecrated in 1067. William the Conqueror attended the consecration. An early Benedictine abbot, Robert Champart, became Archbishop of Canterbury. It was an important centre of learning and power for hundreds of years. The abbey fell into ruin after the Revolution, when it was sold and became a stone quarry. The imposing twin towers and skeleton of the abbey remain, open to the sky, and towering over the landscape of the Seine Valley.

The ruins are hyper-Romantic (insert your favourite Byron verse here). It’s extremely photogenic, and serves as a backdrop to performing arts events in the summer. We didn’t expect our children to love Jumièges Abbey, but they did. The wide open spaces, ruins you can clamber about on, and 15 acres of parkland to explore.

This is a haunting, ancient image of a Carolingian man, one of few remaining traces of the monastery that the Vikings destroyed. The best known artwork from the Carolingian period (780-900 AD) are the illuminated manuscripts.

What I have been mulling over is why I had never heard of Jumièges. I’ve been visiting Normandy for years (more on that later). Did it really not get covered in school? Its history is as much the history of England as of France. By some estimates, 50% of our English vocabulary today derives from Anglo-Normand, the language of William the Conquerer’s court. Beef, mutton, lentils, pears, laundry, pocket, petition, endorsement: so much of the food we commonly eat, as well as our names for things of the earth and the intellect, come from this historical exchange between Normandy and England.