I Drove Through France Looking for the Best Local Cuisine — Here's What I Found (2024)

I always know I’ve arrived in France when I take the first bite of a particular food — usually something simple, like a lemon tart or an almond croissant. Mostly I crave a good jambon beurre. One afternoon last June, my sense of that quintessentially French simplicity was redefined. I was visiting Domaine des Etangs, a resort in a château outside Massignac, a village in the southwest. I’d gone to meet the property’s farmer at his potager, or vegetable garden. When I arrived, a young man in chef whites was leaving with a basket on his arm; less than an hour later, five little plates appeared on a wooden picnic table in the middle of the farmer’s plot. No tablecloth, no formality, just a gourmet meal made from produce that, 45 minutes before, had been growing in the sun.

I was on day four of a 10-day road trip through France, during which I ate everything in sight, and this was probably the best meal I had. Call it “locavore traveling” to the extreme — this in a nation where the idea of eating locally is a bedrock of the culinary culture. I selected places — destination restaurants and hotels with restaurants — that emphasize terroir, as the French call it. To me, this means experiencing a place as deeply as possible through food and wine, as well as interactions with the people responsible for putting them on the table.

The idea for the trip was born out of one of my favorite France memories, from back when my wife and I lived in Paris for two years in the early aughts. One summer, a French colleague invited us for a weekend at his family’s house in Provence. On the first morning, his father took us shopping at a local market. The town center was full of tents and vendors, plus a hundred or so shoppers, as if the entire community had turned out. (The father said this was pretty much the case.) Later, the family prepared a meal that practically flowed from their neighbors’ farms and vineyards — good tomatoes, local rosé, a chicken roasted with garlic. This was locavorism not just as a concept, but as a way of life.

I wanted to replicate that experience — the food, the markets, the sense of really being in a place. Butinstead of Provence, the focus would be on lesser-known parts of central and western France: villages with old cafés, hotels with farms or fishingboats. France is a nation, perhaps more so than anywhere else, where culture is created aroundthedining table. Even there, was locavorism still undeniably part of the culture? Ifso, how was itevolving?

The Countryside

Knowing I’d be tired and jet-lagged after flying from Los Angeles, I planned my first stop to be a short drive from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. Le Barn is nestled in the Rambouillet Forest, in the Île-de-France region, and has the feel of both a family estate and a rustic farm. My room overlooked an old manor beside a glossy pond, next to a row of bicycles guests can borrow. There were horses grazing on grassy fields fringed by dense woods. From my terrace, all I could hear was birdsong: goldfinches, wagtails, Eurasian blackbirds. The airport felt light-years away.

Le Barn’s guests are mostly Parisian families looking for a countryside retreat, plus a smattering of international visitors. The next morning’s breakfast spread seemed well suited to the relaxed weekend vibe: fresh bread and fruit, eggs softly scrambled with chives and cream. Afterward, I sought out the man whose honey I’d spread on my toast. Anton Shapoval — tattooed, shaved head, big smile — raises bees on an organic farm a five-minute drive away. We sat in the shade while he gave me a 90-minute lesson in apian biology. My French is good, but it doesn’t exactly specialize in swarms and hives; I probably caught half of what he said. That didn’t make a difference when we tasted honeys made with pollen from surrounding flowers. My favorite had an herbal taste, almost like anise — and it couldn’t have come from anywhere else.

“Terroir is deeper in the countryside,” Le Barn director Caroline Tran Chau told me that night over a glass of the local red. For her, the word locavore meant relationships, and sharing those relationships with guests. For example, the cheeses they serve at Le Barn are made by an artisan who lives 15 minutes down the road; the produce comes from the property’s own 27,000-square-foot garden, and guests can take foraging workshops with the resident farmer. The idea, Tran Chau explained, was to re-create country living for burned-out city dwellers, if only for a weekend. (She lives near the resort, she said, and driving to work one morning, four wild boars crashed out of the woods and ran in front of her car.) “The countryside is where our grandmothers used to cook chickens from the yard. Literally, the backyard.”

The next day’s drive was the longest of the trip, about four hours. It went by fast — azure sky, yellow sun, and green hills flashing by my window. Maybe I was daydreaming too much: I got lost, despite the GPS in my rental car, so I followed road signs for 20 minutes and wound up in a small town called Chabanais. It was Sunday, so most things were closed, but I found an open café on a public square. A dozen locals were drinking and snacking, so I went to the bar and ordered what everybody else was having: a small beer with a bowl of potato chips, caramelized-onion flavor. Heaven.

That night I stayed at Domaine des Etangs, part of the Auberge Resorts Collection, which is set on 2,500 acres of pasture and woodland peppered with swimming ponds and herds of rust-red Limousin cattle. At first glance, all the countryside opulence was almost too much to absorb. The place has a 13th-century castle for a centerpiece, surrounded by meticulously tended gardens, and a spa housed inside an old mill. Guests can stay in the castle’s suites or book one of six cottages scattered across the grounds. My rooms, suffused with light, occupied a turret. For two nights, I felt like Rapunzel, even if I don’t quite have the hair for it.

I had dinner at Dyades, the hotel’s main restaurant, and afterward I asked Pascal Dufournaud, who was the chef at the time of my visit, what locavore means in today’s France. How much was terroir a part of his cooking? He glared at me as if I’d insulted his mother. “Locavore has always existed in France,” he said sternly. “My assignment is: locale, locale, locale.” He named his nearby beef and pork suppliers as if rattling off the names of his cousins. “But the garden is the foundation of everything. When you see the garden, you’ll understand.”

This was the vegetable garden I mentioned earlier. It’s where, the next morning, I was met at the gate by Michael Villesange, the Domaine’s jardinier, or head gardener — and immediately did start to understand. It looked extraordinary: nearly half an acre, spiral-shaped, with no inches wasted, and all developed according to the principles of organic permaculture. Villesange planted the garden himself 12 years earlier, he explained, and still tills the rows by hand. “The work is very physical. It keeps you in shape.” He laughed. “You know Victor Hugo? Hugo once said there are no bad weeds, just bad gardeners.”

Villesange was no bad gardener. And after my tour, sitting at the picnic table, I got to experience his work as it deserved to be treated: transformed into plates of simple, delicious food. Grilled baby zucchini with a basil mayonnaise. A cup of soupe au pistou, a cream sorrel soup. A small, airy cake dotted with tiny strawberries and raspberries and vanilla cream. Each bite was simple, deep, redolent of theFrench countryside. Maybe profundity is where you find it.

Needless to say, locavorism isn’t exclusive to high-end resorts. For lunch, I tried a tiny bistro, Auberge des Lacs, in nearby Massignac. The restaurant was full of electricians, plumbers, and the local mail-woman. (I knew from their trucks parked outside.) I ordered what they were having: a tartelette of seasonal vegetables, a glass of local white wine, and a superlative lemon tart. When people left, they shouted into the tiny kitchen — Bonne journée! or Merci. Au revoir! — and the chefs responded in kind.

Driving west from Massignac the next day, I pulled over at a rest stop for a coffee. Long-haul truck drivers were eating lunch together in the parking lot: there was a folding table, a bottle of red wine, even a portable television playing a talk show. (I texted a photo to a Parisian friend. She wrote back: “This is very French.”) Inspired, I pulled off the road an hour later and stopped near a field of grapevines. I was just north of the Charente River, next to stone walls that looked 500 years old (and probably were). I sat in the grass, drank a Perrier, and read a book. Suddenly the day felt so much richer.

Heading west toward the ocean, I passed through the heart of the Cognac region, famous for its brandy. At the last minute, I decided to visit one ofthe region’s newer makers, Bourgoin Cognac — partly because I had drunk one of their cognacs the night before, but also because I’d heard that the couple making them were relatively young, a rarity in a region known for its centuries-old traditions.

Frédéric and Rebecca Bourgoin started bottling their artisanal cognac in 2015, though Frédéric’s family had been distilling wine for other brandy makers for generations. “From the moment he was two, Frédéric had his foot on the tractor pedal,” Rebecca said, laughing. She showed me a two-story stone house on the property, not much bigger than a shed, where her husband’s ancestors once lived, and where the family cow slept downstairs to warm the house.

The Bourgoins now collaborate with more than 150 chefs of Michelin-starred restaurants. (Their cognacs recently became available in the United States.) Rebecca echoed what I’d heard at other properties: that the concept of locavore dining in France was eternal, but evolving. For decades, people have been leaving their villages for urban living. Now the city folk miss a connection to the countryside and are seeking it out — but still want experiences that feel modern. At the same time, she thought, knowing a place through food and wine, at least for French people, was “tradition, not a trend. It’s naturally the way things work.”

The Sea

France is divided into 13 regions, each with its own culinary traditions — cooking with oil in the south, for example, or cream in the north. Even butters from different places taste distinct. For my next leg, I wanted to experience the country’s coastal food culture. La Rochelle, a small fortified city known for seafood, is located on the Bay of Biscay. At the weekly market, I passed booth after booth selling fresh oysters and spiny langoustines. I dined that night at Restaurant Coutanceau, one of two restaurants run by chef Christopher Coutanceau and Nicolas Brossard, and stayed at their hotel in the city’s old town, La Villa Grand Voile. (Order the oysters for breakfast — trust me.)

That night, my table at the Michelin two-starred Coutanceau overlooked the bay, where a dark sky lashed the sea with rain. Dinner was a multicourse tribute to the same waters. I ate a grilled, smoky piece of mackerel, caught that day, which was served with egg yolk and roe. One course, of roasted langoustine, surprised me: the flavors were so fresh, so intense, that I teared up, transported to an early memory of eating lobster with my grandparents in Maine.

Coutanceau, a dedicated environmentalist who grew up fishing in La Rochelle, told me everything he did was in tribute to the region. Each aspect of the restaurant came from local partners, from the architects to the farmers to the artisans who designed the plates. “In France, like everywhere, when people say locavore, it’s not always the case.” He meant the many restaurants, in Paris but also New York and Tokyo, that fly in ingredients from around the world without regard for seasonality. “Toeat anything at any time, that doesn’t mean anything. We’re here to create a memory for clients that’s like a tattoo.” I told him about my own memory, my lobster reverie, and he nodded. “People sometimes finish their meal in tears. That’s my inspiration.”

Afterward, I took a long walk by the sea. The squall was done. Wet cobblestones were bathed in crooked light. I thought about what Coutanceau had said. How often when I travel do I actually feel part of a place, rather than someone just passing through?

The River

My final destination was the Loire Valley, home to the longest river in France. Istopped at the diminutive Domaine de la Charmoise, home to a family of winemakers. Jean-Sébastien Marionnet, now in charge, walked me through the fields to show what made his wines so special: the oldest vines in the entire country, he said, which survived the “Great French Wine Blight,” when many vineyards were ruined, beginning in the 1860s, by vine-destroying insects called phylloxera. Why were these vines not harmed? “It’s a mystery. We were lucky,” he said, then smiled. “I’m persuaded they don’t want to die.”

The vineyard was a short drive — past cyclists, an outdoor concert venue, a farm stand selling chèvre — from Le Bois des Chambres, a new hotel constructed from the remains of a farmhouse, where contemporary architecture meets rustic chic. The property sits about a stone’s throw away from Chaumont-sur-Loire, one of the valley’s grand châteaux, which overlooks the river. The castle once belonged to Catherine de’ Médicis. Today it draws hundreds of thousands of visitors for a summer garden festival and art program in which artists are invited to install works on thegrounds.

Le Bois is also home to Le Grand Chaume, a domed restaurant that looks like a Modernist circus tent. It’s headed by chef Guillaume Foucault, who, like Coutanceau, finds the evolution of locavore culture in France problematic if it doesn’t insist on being seasonal and sustainable and supporting a system of local producers. “What’s vital is to be part of the community. The word for it in French is holistique.” (I explained, over a very good glass of Sauvignon Blanc, that the term worked well in English, too.)

My last meal was in nearby Blois, at Fleur de Loire, a restaurant inside a centuries-old building by the Loire. Its chef, Christophe Hay, an icon of modern French cuisine, scoffed when I brought up the idea of locavorism. “Pure and simple, it’s marketing. I’m not a locavore chef. I’m a terroir-ist chef.” I made a bad joke about him being a terrorist and he laughed, but was basically in agreement with the other chefs I had talked to. He only serves fish from the Loire River and local mushrooms that are in season. At the same time, he loves to travel. He showed me a small garden behind the restaurant full of peppers and herbs, even fruit trees, that he’d brought home from South America and Southeast Asia. The plan was to grow them himself, there in the Loire, and see how they influenced his cooking. “I’m a little bit the Christopher Columbus ofcuisine.”

Dinner was a pageant of dishes and wines, bread carts and cheese carts — an almost silent orchestration of local tastes. I drove back to my hotel feeling deeply nourished, nutritionally and emotionally, as much from my conversations as from the food. In the little village below my hotel, Chaumont-sur-Loire, a party was under way: a rock band was playing beneath strings of lights and dozens of people, young and old, were dancing. Two hours later, through the window, I heard the revelers walking home, singing. I realized that I may never know France like someone born there would, but that each visit places it deeper in my heart. The next morning I returned my rental car in Tours and took a high-speed train to Paris. There was only one thing left to do: eat a good jambon beurre.

Île-de-France

Le Barn

About an hour outside Paris, Le Barn is a refuge in the heart of the Rambouillet Forest with abundant opportunities for cycling, hiking, and horseback-riding.

La Serre

La Serre, the restaurant at Le Barn, has a menu that emphasizes seasonal produce — much of it grown on the property.

Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Domaine des Etangs

Surrounded by tranquil ponds, Domaine des Etangs is a 13th-century château transformed into a resort for the 21stcentury. Kids will love the vast game room in the castle’s attic.

La Villa Grand Voile

A short walk from La Rochelle’s old port, La Villa Grand Voile, an 18th-century ship-owner’s mansion, has chic, contemporary interiors. The courtyard contains a small but inviting swimming pool.

Auberge des Lacs

Auberge des Lacs is a hidden gem in the center of tiny Massignac. Sit outside at lunchtime and order the three-course menu du jour.

Dyades

Dyades, the restaurant at Domaine des Etangs, serves traditional dishes with modern presentation. Book a tour of the restaurant’s organic garden before your meal.

Restaurant Christopher Coutanceau

Restaurant Christopher Coutanceau, an ode to the sea, serves specialties such as sole and sea urchin. Even humble sardines get the star treatment.

Bourgoin Cognac

Bourgoin Cognac is a family-run operation making unique cognacs. Inquire ahead of time for a tour and a picnic in the vineyards.

Centre-Val de Loire

Le Bois des Chambres

A blend of rustic and cutting-edge, Le Bois des Chambres has garden rooms with separate bedrooms in huts raised on stilts. The hotel lacks air-conditioning, but night breezes are cool.

Fleur de Loire

Fleur de Loire is a Michelin two-starred restaurant overlooking the Loire River. Chef Christophe Hay oversees an open kitchen that deploys elegant dishes that don’t feel fussy.

Le Grand Chaume

Under a rounded thatched roof is a playfully modern interior. The contemporary French cuisine at Le Grand Chaume is inspired by the Loire Valley.

Domaine de la Charmoise

Domaine de la Charmoise is a family-run winery with asmall tasting room. Theirvines are said to be the oldest in France.

A version of this story first appeared in the September 2024 issue ofTravel + Leisureunder the headline "Grass Roots."