On holiday in the Dordogne, I face an annual dilemma. My weekly Any Other Business column ruminates on the financial world with occasional restaurant tips to lighten the tone – and many readers tell me they frankly prefer the menus du jour to the boardroom dramas. My difficulty is that in a single page of The Spectator there’s never space to do justice to both. Last week, I ended up cramming seven restaurants into one short paragraph, a paltry snack where I’d like to have offered a banquet. So here’s my 2025 tour de France, as I called it, at somewhat fuller length, perhaps one of these days to be super-sized into an entire guidebook.
This set of recommendations, I should explain, come mostly from British readers and friends in other parts of France. We’ll get to my own selections towards the end but let’s begin with lovely Catriona Olding, widow of Low Life’s Jeremy Clarke, who tells me the vitello tonnato is excellent at Le Bistrot de Lou Calen in her Provencal village of Cotignac – and she and her daughter ‘ended up in La Tuf bar next door until 1a.m.’.
While we’re in the Provence region, an artist and winemaker friend says La Bartavelle (named after a local partridge) at Goult in Vaucluse is a hidden gem offering rabbit, pigeon and ‘even pike’ washed down with rosé such as La Couloubre from nearby slopes. Or go upmarket to La Bergerie de Capelongue at Bonnieux in Luberon, where the de facto dress code is soirée blanche (all white, men as well as women), the cocktail du jour is a boulevardier and the truffle pizza is ‘uniquely delicious’.
Not all of southern France is so lucky, mind you. A London legal eagle with a hideaway in the mountainous Cevennes emails: ‘This has become a bit of a gastronomic desert’, but the best place within 100 kilometres ‘was and probably still is La Mirande in Avignon, behind the Palais des Papes’ – a grand old place indeed, where I see you can order an eight-course tasting experience for everyone at your table at €195 per head, or go €39 for a simpler menu de la semaine.
We’re bypassing Paris on this tour (though I’ll throw in a quick mention of Le Trumilou, a cheap and cheerful people-watching spot on the Quai de l’Hôtel de Ville) and heading straight to Normandy, where a bon vivant chum tells me Le Drakkar in Deauville is a must for the horseracing crowd who descend for the August bloodstock sales as well as for international jet-setteurs generally. ‘And the black cod is magnifique.’
His other favourite this season is at Veules-les-Roses, a picturesque seaside village discovered in the 1840s by the notorious actress Mademoiselle Anaïs of La Comédie-Française: ‘La Source is a charming new restaurant with the most delicious oysters in Normandy, patronised by chic Parisiens who’ve had the good sense to avoid St Tropez.’
‘Patronised by chic Parisiens who’ve had the good sense to avoid St Tropez’
South-westwards again, to my cousin who’s a Good Life-style smallholder in Charente. Her pick is L’Estaminet du Chateau at Rochechouart, where the more challenging menu choices include carpaccio of pig’s trotter and chorizo in chimichurri sauce. And at last back to the Dordogne, where there’s such a buzz in the best places this summer that’s it’s often hard to book tables — even though my pessimistic French neighbour says ‘La France est ruinée’. But hell, if the going’s a bit tough in the wider economy, what better than a substantial lunch at L’Auberge de la Nauze at Sagelat, one of those places where the giveaway is the line-up of white vans in the car park at midday, indicating that local tradesmen consider it value-for-money good eating. If you like it and you’re brave, the whole place, like many businesses round here, is up for sale.
Finally, further south over the hills in the Lot valley, my housemates adore La Récréation, set in an old schoolyard in the village of Les Arques, where every meal begins with a sharp little bowl of gazpacho. And a last one from me, newly discovered, Le Vinois at Caillac, an oasis of calm among the vineyards of Cahors.
Here lunch was just €19 for fish and a fine apple tart. But the sting was in the credit card terminal, which asked me whether I’d like to add a tip of 10, 15 or 20 per cent, or nothing. In France, service is a matter of pride and tipping isn’t part of the culture, though satisfied diners sometimes slip a small note under the coffee cup. The machine’s question would surely offend traditional French customers, so I’m wondering whether it was programmed only to ask foreign cardholders. Politely I tapped ‘10’, but I hope this is not the start of a trend: if so, I’ll certainly be fuming about it in Any Other Business.
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