Les Quatre Saisons in Bourg en Bresse

Interior of Les Quatre Saisons in Bourg en Bresse

Dinner at Les Quatre Saisons in Bourg en Bresse was interesting rather than pleasurable.  I felt a little bit like I'd stepped into a 1980s time warp as I don't think the restaurant had been decorated or had a makeover in a good 25 years.

On the other hand the bright yellow tablecloths and blue walls made for a colourful sketch and made up for the fact that my meal seemed to lack any colour at all.

The chef contributed yet more evidence to my theory that chefs cook the food in the colours that they like.  This chef liked brown.  See my sketch of my meal below.

Meal at Les Quatre Saisons in Bourg en Bresse on Saturday 2nd July 2011

The menu was as follows:

• (top left) an Amuse Bouche  I have absolutely no idea what this was!
• (bottom left) Grenouilles a la verre et ciboulettes - I knew what the Grenouillles (frogs legs) were but was less certain of the ciboulettes (chives).  My first frogs legs - quite tasty and not at all chewy
• (top right) Volaille de la Ferme de Valaisant, creme morelles and Vin Jaune - this should have been tastier than it was.  The worst bit was that the fact that there was nothing that made it look appetising - wall to wall bland!
• (Bottom right) I think this was a Tarte Tatin with a very ordinary ice cream but forgot to make a note of the dessert having become totally disinterested in the food by this stage.  Lack of colour is a real turn off for me.  I'd switched my focus to my sketch of the interior which was Bright with a capital B!  You can always tell how good the food is by the relative merits of the sketches of the meal and the place where I ate it!
• (centre) The only spot of colour came with the petit fours!

My own impression was that the restaurant would be fine for people who spoke French well, liked a more traditional French way of cooking food and enjoyed discussing the food.  My French is limited and their English was virtually non-existent.  With no translation on the menu or from the waiter I had a rough idea what I was eating.  It's probably more accurate to say I had to opt for courses where I had an idea of what it was.  I'm not sure a single woman who doesn't speak much French was very interesting as a customer to them.  That's said in the context of having been in other restaurants in France where I've been very well looked after and had an enjoyable time despite the language barrier.

However this was in Bourg en Bresse which is not a tourist destination and it would be totally unreasonable of me to expect restaurants to cater for English tourists.  A shade more hospitality wouldn't have gone amiss though.  More colour in the food would have been even better!

The whole meal (including coffee but without wine) came to €42 which I thought was a bit steep.

What's really odd though is that my two worst meals of the entire trip were a short distance from Lyons which is supposedly the gastronomic centre of France.  Very odd.

I went to bed very much looking forward to my lunch the next day in Gevrey Chambertin in the Côte de Nuits in the northern part of the Côte d'Or, which is home to the vineyards which line the limestone ridge that is at the heart of the Burgundy wine region.

Links

• Les Quatre Saisons, 6 Rue de la République, France - 01000 Bourg-en-Bresse
• Phone 0474220186 | Fax0474211035

More from The Provence Sketchbook (2011)

Lunch at La Maison Jaune, St Remy de Provence

Lunch at La Maison Jaune, St Remy de Provence 29 June 2011
11.5 x 16.5", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

One of the things I really enjoy about France is that you can go into a restaurant - on your own - for a four course meal like the one that you can see above - and nobody thinks you are the slightest bit odd.

However they might look twice when you pull out a sketchbook and proceed to sketch every course before you eat it - but that's what I like to do!

I particularly like going to restaurants with Michelin stars and it's an absolute rule of mine that I'm not allowed to visit France without eating in a restaurant with at least one Michelin star.

Which is how I come to have this post about Lunch at La Maison Jaune, a restaurant in St Remy de Provence which got its one Michelin star in 2008.  (This is the link to the Menus)

This is out of sequence re France but as I said this week I'm trying to get all my sketching of meals posted before I do my review of the year!

Back to 29th June - Sarah and I got up early so we could leave the house at 7am and get Sarah to Marseilles Airport by 9am for her flight home.

And then there was one!

Those who know me well will know that one of my perennial preoccupations while travelling and sketching is with visiting the places where people draw or painted.  That was the grand plan for this Wednesday.  I was to have a Vincent Van Gogh in Provence day with a nice lunch in the middle.

I'd already decided that it was stretching it to try and do both Arles and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in one day so I opted for Saint-Rémy this visit as I'd been to Arles on a previous visit.

Hence the plan was to drive north from the airport, across the Crau Plain and the Alpilles to the town of St Remy de Provence where Van Gogh was committed to an asylum in the Monastery Saint-Paul de Mausole in 1889.  He  painted frequently in the vicinity of the hospital in the year or so he was in the hospital.

I wanted to drive across the Crau Plain because this was the place where Van Gogh did so many of his reed pen drawings of the farming of the countryside which I so admire.  I wanted to see if it was as I remembered it and whether one could see its potential for drawings.  Here's an example - Harvest - The Plain of La Crau, 1888 reed pen drawing by Vincent Van Gogh - done while living in the Yellow House at Arles.

Then I crossed the Alpilles - the white mountains which so often feature in Van Gogh's paintings while he stayed in this area eg in the background of his painting of cypresses ( see below ) which he painted while in the hospital

Wheatfield with cypress tree by Vincent Van Gogh
- the Alpilles Mountains form the pale blue background to this painting

View from Van Gogh's bedroom window in the Monastery Saint-Paul de Mausole

No sketches or photographs en route from either of these places as the road was not conducive to stopping - however as you can see I could take photos of the Alpilles from the Monastery.

One of the reasons I chose St Remy was because it was market day (closing at lunchtime).

I visited the Market, took lots of photos of yet more provencal food and flowers, had a lovely lunch (see sketch at top of post), visited the Van Gogh Museum in town and then visited the monastery hospital, St Paul de Mausole where Van Gogh lived for a year after becoming ill in Arles.

I'm going to deal with the visit to the Monastery in another post - so this is all about markets and food!

Here are some of the sights of the market.  Then I'm going to give you the menu for lunch.

La Maison Jaune, 15 Rue Carnot, 13210 Saint Remy de Provence 

Table setting on the Terrace

and so to the tasting extravaganza I had planned for the middle of the day.

I got to sit on a shady terrace with a tiled roof slight breeze in the hottest part of the day as I worked my way through five courses and listened to the market packing up - and then music being played down in the square.  It was very peaceful.

Lunch was extremely leisurely as I sketched, ate and coloured my sketches of the different courses - which were all stunningly good.  These were:

• Mise en Bouche - an appetiser (top left) gaspacho with mint, goats cheese and ham and an egg.  This set the tone for the whole meal given the level of attention given to each item
• Braised artichokes with Lomo Iberico and  air dried tomatoes - a wonderful combination and a chance for me to taste the wondrous loin of the Iberian Pig
• Roast Pigeon with Apricot Chutney Marmalade with a side dish of Fennel and Fresh Almonds - this was beautifully cooked and a wonderful balance of flavours,  Plus since I watched Masterchef recently I now know how fresh almonds are prepared!
• a selection of fresh and aged goats cheeses and ewe cheeses and rhubarb marmalade - I like goats cheese but there wasn't quite enough of a variation for me to make this the same standard as the rest of the courses.  Subtle rather than wow!
• Roasted Pineapple with ginger and vanilla, an amaretto granite and nougatine  This was wow! the variation in the tastes and textures was amazing and provided a deeply satisfying note on which to finish.

I was also rather pleased with the fact that I'd left enough room to get the whole meal on one double page spread.  No mean feat when you don't know what's coming or what it will look like!

You can see the menu proper (below) better on Flickr.  I found the restaurant and service to be excellent.  It was quiet at lunchtime but they apparently get very busy in the evenings.  I think I probably went at the perfect time for me. :)

Links:

• Four go Painting in Provence
• La Maison Jaune, 15 Rue Carnot, 13210 Saint Remy de Provence (location on Google Maps)
• Tel  04. 90. 92. 56. 14 | email lamaisonjaune@wanadoo.fr
• The restaurant is closed December and January.

Note:  Parking is in designated areas and the town is very busy on market day and it can be difficult to find a place to park.  The restaurant is right in the centre of the old town.  Hence if visiting one needs to park up and then walk to the old town - it's not far.

More from The Provence Sketchbook (2011)

Épernay and The Grillade Gourmande

Menu du Terroir Champenois, La Grillade Gourmande
see below for the full menu in French and English!

La Grillade Gourmande, Epernay

I had an absolutely splendid meal on the Thursday night at the La Grillade Gourmande in Épernay, which is renowned as the 'Capital of Champagne', in the Champagne-Ardenne Région of France.

I'd been up since 5.30am, crossed the Channel into France and driven 285 miles from London so I was very ready for a bit of a treat.

Prior to leaving home I'd identified that Epernay had quite a few good restaurants - hence deciding to stay there.  In my Michelin Guide to hotels and restaurants in France, this particular restaurant is listed as a "Bib Gourmand" which means "good food at reasonable prices

I had the Menu Terroir Champenois.  However the only champagne I had was in the sauces.  This comprised an amuse-bouche followed by:

• Foie Gras de Canard au Ratafia de Champagne chit en terrine et configure d'oignon au vin rouge Terrine of duck fois gras cooked in Ratafia Champagne with red wine onion marmelade
• Filet de Bar Grille aux Asperges Verts Grilled Sea Bass with green asparagus Champagne sauce
• Pigeonnea de Champagne dessose cuit en feuillete, jus redoit au Chardonnay Local boned young pigeon with foie gras cooked in flaky pastry case
• Fraises au Poivre Noir au Champagne Rose Strawberries with black pepper and frozen rose champagne

I'd decided to try and see if I could sketch my meals while in France - as I hoped to be having quite a few which were likely to be more interesting than my normal fare at home.

This was the first time I tried out my new strategy. Not knowing what any of the courses were going to look like, I started at the top left hand corner and worked across and managed to get all four courses onto a double page spread of my large folio Moleskine (size A4).

The sketch at the top of the page is a wonderful memory of an absolutely delicious meal!

The sketch below is of the view from my table with Michelin Guide, pencil case and camera at the edge of my table.

The view from my table in La Grillade Gourmande.

I stayed overnight at the Hotel Campanile Epernay - which is actually located at Dizy just north of Epernay.  It's a great hotel for a one night stay when travelling north or south.  I used it again on the trip north.  Very much in the motel style with parking right next to the rooms and a separate central hub which houses reception and the restaurant.  It has wifi and also has a great view of vines right next door.

Epernay - and the Avenue de Champagne

The next morning, before I set off on the "big drive" to Lyon (c.300 miles) I went into Epernay, parked in the same place as the night before - in the car park which is right next to La Grillade Gourmande - and took a look at the Avenue de Champagne.

The Avenue de Champagne in Epernay - looking back towards the centre of town.

The Avenue de Champagne in Epernay is lined with the headquarters buildings (symbolic and otherwise) - the maisons de champagne - of a number of major "names" in the champagne world.  They're up a bit of a hill in the town - which makes sense when you realise that there are a quite a few cellars underneath!  This webpage gives you a bit of a history of the various houses - which enabled me to identify who owned the biggest doors on the street!  You could spend a week there just sketching the maisons de champagne.  I took out my sketchbook and then quickly put it away again having realised the impossibility of doing justice to the task.

Moet & Chandon is there - with the statue of Dom Perignon outside in the car park next to the entrance dates.  This is the information about a guided tour of their cellars.

Dom Perignon is the Benedictine Monk who was a cellar master at Abbey of Hautvillers near the town of Épernay.  His name is now given to a brand of vintage champagne made by Moet Chandon.  There are lots of myths about him but he didn't invent the bubbles in champagne but he did contribute significantly to the development of champagne.

I also spotted Perrier Jouët and Pol Roger. Most of the headquarter buildings appear to be in very large and very old mansions with some looking a bit more business-like than others.

Below is a display of all the different sizes of Champagne bottles which I found in the tourism office which is located at the end of the avenue closest to the centre of town

The different sizes of Champagne Bottles - in Epernay
from left to right
Nebuchanezzar, Balthazar, Salmanazar, Methusalah, Jeroboam, Magnum, Bottle,  Half-Bottle

Friday 10th June

On Friday I drove south to just east of Lyon.  I'll now "glaze over as I rush past the next hotel I stayed at on the Friday night.  Although the room was fine, it had the worst hotel restaurant I've ever eaten in despite the fact it was located on the outskirts of the gastronomic capital of France.  I'll never eat in a hotel that near an autoroute ever again!


Saturday 11th June

On Saturday I set off for Provence - along with an awful lot of other people who also wanted to go south on the A7/E15 otherwise known as the Autoroute du Soleil between Lyon and Marseilles.  Then I turned left at Avignon......

.......drove across the Vaucluse and arrived at Couguieux.

Links:

• See A French Sketchbook - June 2011 for the other posts relating to this trip.
• Four Go Painting in Provence - The Grillade Gourmande, Epernay (for the original and briefer 'on the road' post - written and uploaded while having breakfast on the Friday morning!)