Villefranche-sur-mer 2019 - 13 Eating Out

Dear Friends,

After publishing my last post, I was afraid that I had left the impression that we never venture out for a meal.   What a mistake and lost opportunity that would be.  I would also be lying by omission.  So I hope this post will clear up any misconceptions.

Villefranche-sur-Mer has many great restaurants ranging from very casual to very fancy.  Our favorite restaurant in Villefranche and maybe in the world is Le Serre.  It does not have a website, but here is the link to Trip Advisor.  There are many reasons that we love it.  The owner, Sylvie, and the staff we see the most often, Marie, Beranise and Mikado are warm, welcoming, funny people who are great at their jobs.  We are always welcomed like old friends and treated like royalty.

The food is simple but great.  They have lots of different pizzas, most of which are named for various US states.  We cannot see any connection between a particular state and the pizza with the name of that state.  The salads are also great and can be a full meal.

Each day Sylvie plans a 19 euro three course meal.  Every night there are three potential entrées (in France an entrée is the first course as it should be since it means entrance or starter), three potential plats (main courses) and a dessert of the day.  Two of each are the same every night but one of the three changes each night.  The two constant entrées lately have been tomato mozzarella toasts and a niçoise salad.  Last night the third was a tarte fin tomate mozzerella (a tart with fine herbs,

tomato and mozzarella).  The tart was fantastic.  The third choice for a main course yesterday was a vol au vent de la mer.  I do not know how to exactly translate that but it is seafood en croute.  I did not have it so I do not know how it was.  The dessert of the day was a strawberry panna cotta which was great.  In addition to the pizzas and the prix fixe menu, there is a full menu of other items.

We always eat at Le Serre on our first night and our last night.  We also eat there from time to time during our stay.  Here we are sitting outside at Le Serre on the night we arrived in Villefranche, exhausted but happy.

Here are a couple of other pictures of the wonderful food at Le Serre.  

a salad

 a chicken brochette with a zucchini tarte

a beautifully decorated panna cotta 

When we eat out, it is often for lunch.  One of the first days we were here, we met a friend for lunch at Le Mayssa Beach restaurant (trip advisor here).  It was a beautiful day and the restaurant is on the second floor overlooking the water.  Two of us had the loup (usually translated as sea bass) grilled and presented whole but then expertly deboned by the server.

Jane had a crab meat, avocado and tomato salad.

Le Mayssa Beach is right on the waterfront in Villefranche so there is virtually no walking involved which is a problem with a several hour French lunch.  With the need for exercise in mind, we sometimes walk to Beaulieu or Saint Jean Cap Ferrat for lunch.

One day we walked to Beaulieu with the intention of going to a small restaurant we had eaten at before.  Unfortunately we arrived after they had closed for lunch.  We walked to a string of restaurants in the fancy marina and went to L'Atelier d'Emile.  

We ate outside on a beautiful day.  Rather than rewrite the review I wrote for Trip Advisor (here), I will just quote myself.

"My wife and I stopped at L'Atelier d'Emile on a Friday afternoon just before 2:00 pm without a reservation and a little late for lunch. Nevertheless we were immediately seated in a very comfortable outdoor area. 
We both ordered the plat du jour which was "Le Filet de Lieu Noir Roti au Beurre Blanc Boulgour aux Légumes". We were not familiar with the type of fish. The waiter described the dish as a white fish in beurre blanc sauce. The kind of fish is saithe which is also known as coalfish, coley, or Atlantic Pollack. Apparently it can also be cod. In any case it is a wonderful light white fish that is flaky with a great texture. The beurre blanc sauce was fantastic. It had a great flavor yet was very light. The bulgar wheat went perfectly with both the sauce and the fish. The vegetables were finely chopped but still crunchy. They provided a wonderful taste, color and texture to the dish. For dessert we split a "riz au lait de coco aux fruits frais". It was a rice pudding with a not too heavy or sweet milk/cream sauce with coconut and beautiful fresh strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. It was delicious. 
The price was very reasonable particularly for Beaulieu. For two plat du jour, two glasses of house wine, one dessert and two coffees, the total bill including tip was 57 euros."

While this was a big lunch, please keep in mind that we walked about two miles each way for a total of 4 miles just for lunch.

Another day we walked to Saint Jean Cap Ferrat to a restaurant in the fancy marina there, Le Pacha du Sloop (Trip Advisor here).  This restaurant is just over 2 miles from our apartment so once again we walked over 4 miles in connection with this meal.  Actually we walked more than Google Maps would give us credit for since we took the scenic route past the house that used to belong to David Niven.  It is the only house that is actually right on the water without a public right of way between it and the water.  This picture was taken a couple of days earlier when we were out on a boat ride with the couple that we rent from, but that is a story for another time.

We had been to Le Sloop a couple of times before, and it is always good.  We splurged and each had the 27 euro prix fixe menu.  Sorry for the bad photo, but we didn't take it until the end of the meal.

For our entrées,  we split the marinated artichoke salad

and the green asparagus and basil salad.

We each then had the fresh grilled dorade (translated seabream by the restaurant).  It came grilled but whole.

We were left to do the deboning which did not look as great as the way a professional server does it.

The dessert du jour was a raspberry panna cotta with fresh raspberries on top.  It was great but a picture could not do it justice.  Jane did finish with a noisette which is technically a hazelnut but when ordered at coffee time is a small espresso with some warm milk.  The fashion and amount of the milk varies greatly depending on the place and who makes it.

While I was engrossed in writing this post, Jane reminded me that it was almost 2:00 pm and that we had not eaten lunch yet.  I remembered that we had no bread so we were forced to go out to lunch.  We just walked down to the row of restaurants along the quai and went to Trastevere (Trip Advisor here).  We had a simple but good lunch.  We split an Italian salad (lettuce, tomato, mozzarella, parma ham, melon and parmesan)

and a neapolitan pizza.

Unfortunately it took very few steps to get to Trastevere, but fortunately we took a nice walk along the beach this morning.  Such is life in Villefranche.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Villefranche-sur-mer 2019 - 12 Dinners at Home

Dear Friends,

We are back in Villefranche for a three week stay.  The weather has been perfect, and we are enjoying ourselves immensely.  We fill our days studying french, going for walks, lamenting the state of the world (particularly Trump and the Republicans) and shopping for our dinners.  We eat most dinners at home.  Virtually any dinner requires a stop at the butcher, the baker, the green grocer and a seller of wine.  The wine is the easiest since you can buy wine that this quite good very inexpensively almost anywhere.

We love to buy our wine at Chez Marie-Claire, our favorite boulangerie/pâtisserie.  Most boulangeries/patisseries sell bread and pastries and maybe a few extras like pieces of pizza, pre-made sandwiches and chocolates.  Marie-Claire does all of that plus eggs and wine.  Unfortunately Marie-Claire is getting older, probably well into her 80s.  She is open from 7:00 am until 12:30 pm and 4:30 pm to 7:00 pm most days.  In the summer she takes one day a week off and in the winter she takes two days off.    Normally that is not a problem because she coordinates with her arch rival, Patrice, who runs the other boulangerie/patisserie in the old town so that one of them is always open.  Unfortunately, in the winter there is one day when there is no boulangerie/patisserie open in the old town.  You can't really plan ahead for that problem because you need to eat the bread and pastries the day they are made or they are just not as good.

There is a boulangerie/patisserie just up the hill from the old town whose products are just fine.  But, it is modern and once you get your purchase your contact with a real person ends.  A machine tells you how much you owe, you put your money in one slot and your change comes out another slot.  It is incredibly impersonal so we only go there in a dire emergency, like needing a fruit tart for dessert when the Marie-Claire and Patrice are both closed.

The real problem is that these small shops are disappearing all across France.  As I said Marie-Claire is quite old with no obvious successor.  Bernard, the green grocer, is also quite old with no hope for a successor.  Pascal, the butcher, is not too old and from time to time his son helps out in the shop.  So there is hope there.  Patrice is not too old and wants to continue working but after many years of renting the same spot in the middle of the old town, her landlord is trying to throw her out and replace her with yet another real estate agency.  There are already way more real estate agencies in and around the old town than any other type of business.  We have joined with many locals in petitioning the mayor to intervene, but it is probably a lost cause.

On the bright side, there is a new focacceria in the old town.  He sells great Italian cheeses and salami along with a few pre-made Italian dishes and sandwiches.  He is young, and we try to frequent his store often in hopes that he succeeds.  Any conversation with him is a combination of Italian, English and French.  His English is worse than our french, and we speak no Italian.

The only issue with our method of provisioning for dinner is you really need to see what people have before deciding on your meal.  Bernard is the least reliable in that regard.  First, his hours are sometimes a little random and second, his inventory varies dramatically from day to day.

So here are some examples of our dinners at home so far this trip.  At this point, these will just be repeated.

In this meal, you see steak cooked perfectly on the gas grill on our balcony accompanied by a sauté of mushrooms, onion, leaks and garlic, a baked potato with crème frâiche and of course and steamed artichoke.

We do vary our steak meals. This one is accompanied with haricots verts and roasted baby tomatoes.

We don't just have steak.  On this day the butcher had some lamb chops so we got them.  Also there were no haricots verts so we got some flat Italian beans and big tomatoes instead of baby ones.

We don't just have red meat either.  Here we have a pork chop with flat Italian beans, red peppers and a sauté of carrots, mushrooms, onions, leaks and garlic.

We also have chicken.  Here we have a boneless skinless chicken breast grilled to perfection on our gas grill.  We put mustard on the top before cooking and then only cook from the other side.  Apparently the green grocer was out of green vegetables this day.

Some times we have more simple fare, but what could be better than an omelette with créme frâiche, sautéd ham and a fresh baguette with blueberry jam.

Sometimes we even eat vegetarian.  This simple pasta with tomato sauce and fresh burrata from the new focacceria with a sauté of zucchini, baby tomatoes and onions was even better than it looks.

You may have noticed the presence of a potato on the plate virtually every night.  Potatoes are plentiful here and very good.  We get one medium size baking potato for the two of us.  We then cut it in half lengthwise.  This approach permits us to maximize the amount crème frâiche per bite.

What I have not shown are the desserts.  We have not taken pictures of the desserts.  It would be too mean to show them to you.  Most of the time we split a pastry from Marie-Claire that looks particularly good that day - a religieuse (here), an eclair, a fresh fruit tart, etc.  

So we eat very well, but I have averaged over 11,000 steps and almost 28 flights of stairs a day since our arrival.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal