We finally got to have lunch at Chez Jeanne, the restaurant in the Perigord Noir hamlet of La Pomarède made famous by Australian author Mary Moody.
Chez Jeanne has been in the same family since the early 1900s. Mary put it on the map in 2005 with a documentary film and book, "Lunch with Madam Murat", celebrating the establishment's 100th anniversary.
The restaurant is plainly decorated, with marble-look vinyl flooring, pale-yellow walls above a timber dado, cream-painted beams and a white ceiling. Around the dining room hang framed photos of La Pomarède taken at the turn of the century.
And there were posters advertising the just-released 2017 Beaujolais Nouveau.
Wednesday's lunch was alphabet soup, followed by a thin slice of quiche with a side of dressed cabbage, a main of rotisserie chicken, cheese and creme brulee for dessert.
The chicken was served with a garlic/olive sauce, crisp, golden fries (cooked in duck fat) and peas. The petits pois came in a delicious sauce made with their own sweet juice, to which was added tiny pearl onions, bacon dice and a drizzle of duck fat.
A 750ml bottle of local red wine (for four) and a jug of water were on the table and a basket of bread came out with the soup.
Our lunch was a delicious, home cooked meal that could not be faulted.
The place had only one or two empty tables. Most of the diners were retired people, there were some workmen, a young family with twins celebrating a birthday and an octogenarian couple whose walking sticks were propped against the wall. There was a middle-aged man with protruding eyes and a sagging face, like Toad from Toad Hall. He looked around lugubriously as he slowly ate his lunch.
At the end of our repas, we met Sylvie, who has succeeded her mother as the driving force in the kitchen. And then we met the matriarch herself, who featured prominently in Mary Moody's film.
Stooped and worn, she smiled sweetly beneath tired eyes and said, "We adore Australians."
"I am honoured to meet you," I said.
Chez Jeanne is that type of French restaurant now on the critically endangered list.
To eat here is to glimpse a bygone France, where rural and regional communities were serviced by value-for-money, family-run restaurants. It is to experience a France whose simplicity and ease of living now seem to belong to another era.
Our five course meal and wine cost 14 euros a head.
Sounds like a wonderful meal and for only €14 each!
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ReplyDeleteThis morning, before I read your post, I already had my breakfast, so I wasn't too starved!
ReplyDeleteFortunately, you can find this kind of very good, unpretentious cuisine bourgeoise restaurant all over France, if only you're lucky to spot them. They offer good, no frill, simple cuisine, often with local produce at reasonable price.
Most often, les Relais routiers fit that description. If many lorry drivers park their trucks at lunch time in front of them, they must be good. But they might not be open on week ends. I think it's, more or less, a chain of individual restaurants. Here is a Wikipedia link, in French, for les Relais routiers.
Hi Charles-Henry
DeleteWhen I watched the film before coming to France, Mary reported the local Mayor as saying this type of restaurant was rare and getting rarer. So I extrapolated ...Am glad cuisine bourgeoise is still alive and well.
Glad you finally managed to experience this place, Tony. As CHM says, they are all over France, but I think you need to know a local to find out where they are hiding. à bientôt
ReplyDeleteI will seek them out here, I will seek them out there!!
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