Standout moments from nearly 20 years of writing about travelling and eating around France include meals in legendary restaurants and the joy of a shared dinner at a chambre d’hôtes. That said, there’s a venue that can’t be underestimated as an opportunity to enjoy France’s culinary delights: the car boot picnic.
Standing under the shade of an open car boot, I have discovered some products so delicious they didn’t make it as far as a gîte kitchen or dining table. It might have been a chunk of comté so fruity it didn’t get beyond the car park on market day. There was the punnet of gariguette strawberries bought from a farm in Brittany’s Plougastel-Daoulas, famous for its microclimate. My family and I each took a bite and stared unbelievingly at each other – the sweetness was off the scale.
“Have they dipped them in sugar water?” asked my husband.
“I think this is what strawberries are supposed to taste like,” I replied. We scoffed the rest in the queue for the ferry at Roscoff.
Then there were the jars of Chantilly cream. In the town famous for the crème de la crème (and lace and horse-racing), we did a workshop at the Atelier de la Chantilly, learning how to make the perfect batch by hand from Bernard, a member of the Brotherhood of Chantilly Cream Whippers. We took away two jars, safely stored in the car’s plug-in cool box. Later that afternoon, en route to Lorraine, we stopped at an aire (roadside picnic spot) and spooned the cream over bowls of mirabelle plums and raspberries for a decadent picnic as motorhomes and Lycra-clad cyclists whizzed past us on the road.
Two weeks into that same trip, our car boot became a makeshift dressing room as we prepared for a much more sophisticated meal. After a swim in the Alpine Lac du Bourget at Aix-les-Bains, we brushed off the sand and each retrieved our one remaining clean outfit (it was our last stop on the road trip before a gîte with a washing machine) and I tried to spruce myself up with makeup in the sun visor mirror before ambling up the elegant drive to the restaurant at Hotel L’Incomparable.
As we stepped on to the terrace, the panoramic view of the lake made my heart soar, and soon chef Antoine Cevoz Mamy was treating us to his ingenious twists on dishes made with lake fish, such as freshwater lavaret served with a pop of yuzu and slender carrots flavoured with cumin. I wasn’t surprised when he gained his first Michelin star a few months later.
The Michelin Guide, synonymous with French cuisine, was launched more than a century ago, with the original purpose of encouraging people to venture further afield in their new motorcars (and wear out the company’s tyres). In the past few decades, it has also become a byword for extravagance and high-end dining, but there are ways to use the guide on a budget.
The lesser Bib Gourmand rating system has pointed me towards many an excellent meal, and the lunchtime menu du jour offered at one-star establishments can be startlingly good value. Meanwhile, many multi-star chefs also operate more casual dining establishments that are very affordable.
In Roanne, north-west of Lyon, I booked a table at Le Central; it’s in the house opposite the railway station formerly occupied by Maison Troisgros, which has held three Michelin stars longer than any restaurant. The Troisgros family moved the main restaurant to chic new premises in the nearby village of Ouches in 2017 and opened Le Central, a sophisticated brasserie serving modern twists on French classics. The fillet of salmon with beurre blanc sauce and chives was sublime. The most delightful moment, though, was spotting Pierre Troisgros – one of the two brothers who put the restaurant on the map, and who died at the age of 92 just a few months later – dining with friends in the corner.
On the other side of the country, on the Île de Noirmoutier off the Atlantic coast, a meal at La Table d’Elise, Alexandre Couillon’s bistro next door to his three-star restaurant La Marine, lingers in the memory. The delicate dishes, such as tender asparagus and mussels adorned with stripy beetroot sliced so finely it was transparent, showcased the island’s exceptional produce. It was a superb introduction to this wonderfully foodie destination: the Atlantic coast island enjoys a microclimate where ozone-infused air and seaweed-fertilised soil and salt pans are a boon for potatoes and other produce.
A trip to a market on Noirmoutier saw us scooping up boxes of bonnotte potatoes and gargantuan custard tarts called flans maraîchins. Later that week, we cycled through the salt pans, the evening sun reflecting in the many rectangular pools, and slurped oysters just metres from where they were grown – it was my dad’s first platter, enjoyed at the age of 74.
Sometimes you need a helping hand to discover a city’s food scene, to find the locals’ favourites rather than the tourist traps. In Toulouse, Jessica Hammer’s excellent Taste of Toulouse tour introduced us to the exceptional produce on offer at the Marché Victor Hugo, such as top-notch charcuterie and a “Paris-Toulouse”, a violet-flavoured riff on the Paris-Brest choux pastry dessert, as well as enticing patisseries and a fromagerie nearby.
In Bordeaux, student Chloe, from tour firm Do Eat Better, led an excellent day which saw us wine-tasting, biting into heady rum-infused canelé (caramelised cork-shaped pastries) and a great lunch at Berthus.
In Paris, a cheese tour and tasting with Jennifer Greco from Paris By Mouth spirited us to every region of France through the incredible flavours of her expertly chosen cheeses, matched to superb wines throughout.
The best tour I’ve found, however, was not the usual urban stroll. Under the bright sunlight of Brittany’s Emerald Coast, I squelched around in muddy sand exploring the oyster beds at Cancale with Ostreika Tours. At low tide, the oyster-growing racks stretch out towards the horizon for half a mile (at high tide, they disappear under the sea) and former oyster farmer Inga Smyczynski revealed the fascinating world of les huîtres: how they’re grown and their history in this area. We finished with a platter from the beachside oyster market, slurping them back and throwing the shells on to the beach where they help to steady the shifting sands.
As well as having excellent markets and food shops, the French are experts in celebrating their local specialities, and there are weird and wonderful festivals throughout the year in every corner of the country. In Roscoff, Brittany, a party is thrown in honour of the region’s gently flavoured pink onions each August, La Fête de l’Oignon (24-25 this year). It celebrates the history of the Onion Johnnies, the armies of door-to-door onion sellers who toured Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries and gave rise to the Brits’ stereotypical image of the Frenchman: beret, Breton striped shirt, onions draped over the handlebars. The festival is a wonderful glimpse into local traditions, with onion-string-plaiting contests, fest-noz (a kind of Breton ceilidh) dancing, and the delicious speciality galette-saucisse (sausage in a buckwheat pancake with confit onions on top).
French food festivals can be wildly ambitious, too. Take the Fête de l’Omelette Géante in Bessières near Toulouse. Every Easter Monday, the Knights of the Global Brotherhood of the Giant Omelette (there are six other such festivals around the world – it’s like a twinning association of giant omelettes) crack 15,000 eggs and make an omelette in a four-metre frying pan to feed 2,000 people. It was surprisingly delicious, too.
The best party I’ve found, though, was the Fête de la Figue in Solliès-Pont, east of Marseille. The Gapeau valley is perfect for growing figs – locals say the sprawling trees love having their feet in water and their heads in sunshine, so the River Gapeau and the Provençal sun do the trick. There is a market and parade, tastings and walks through the fig orchards, and the opening night was one hell of a party. A four-course meal, each dish made with figs (a fig salad, beef daube with figs, cheese with figs, fig tart), is served to lines of tables in the fairy-lit village square, with candles shining out from the church windows and door. The band played and locals danced into the early hours.
Carolyn Boyd is the author of Amuse Bouche (Profile Books, £18.99), out on 6 June. To pre-order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
• This article was amended on 26 March 2024. An earlier version said that Roanne was north-east of Lyon when it is north-west.
