Restaurant suggestions for the Loire and Bordeaux

[GastroChick]

Hi

My husband and I are traveling to the Loire and then on to Bordeaux for the first two weeks of July. I would be interested to pick any of your brains re. good recommendations that you might have for both high end dining and also more local cuisine.

Presently I am considering booking dinner at Codellian Bages I hear favourable reports about this restaurant. Phillip Etchebest at Hostellerie de Plaisance also seems like another contender, as does Michael Porto from Hauterive Saint James.

As yet I haven't really started researching the Loire but am open to any good suggestions.

Thanks

[John Talbott]

Hi

My husband and I are traveling to the Loire and then on to Bordeaux for the first two weeks of July.  I would be interested to pick any of your brains re. good recommendations that you might have for both high end dining and also more local cuisine. 

Presently I am considering booking dinner at Codellian Bages I hear favourable reports about this restaurant.  Phillip Etchebest at  Hostellerie de Plaisance also seems like another contender, as does Michael Porto from Hauterive Saint James. 

As yet I haven't really started researching the Loire but am open to any good suggestions.

Thanks

←

Excuse me if I'm gratuitous, but checking out prior threads on Bordeaux and the Loire will help assess our members' faves. Me, recently, I loved Le Cape in Bordeaux but haven't been to the St James in quite a long while.

[wkl]

i was in the loire in october 2005 and ate very well at restaurant gambetti in saumur and at auberge des coteaux (just outside of chinon).

gambetti was a pleasant suprise reccommended by someone at the combier distillery in saumur (worth a visit also, for lovely fruit liquers).

auberge des cotaeux was a neighborhood, communal table, kind of place serving well made hearty cuisine.

[daemon]

Regarding the Loire, and Tours more precisely, you won't find nothing really modern like Thierry marx's place, but yet there are some (very) nice places :

I would suggest Charles Barrier restaurant ( 1*) now run by Hervé Lussault for a few years. Very good regional food with a twist of modernity ( IMHO, more interesting than his neigbor and 2* Jean Bardet). bill would be somewhere between 50 and 100€/head.

far more casual, but not to be missed if you are looking for regional yet very well cooked food is Le petit Patrimoine ( 56 rue colbert, tours). I do eat there each time I go to Tours. The 4 courses menu ( Starter, main, cheese ( 4 different goat cheeses, each of them available at 3 or 4 different steps of refining, dessert) is around 20€, with lots of low priced wines, but be sure to book in advance as the place is very small.

Other places including (from expensive to more casual) :

.Les Hautes Roches in Rochecorbon 10mn from Tours, a 1* "troglodyte" hotel-restaurant , troglodyte means the hotel is directly in the Loire slope ( www.leshautesroches.com )

.Le petit mesclun, 8, Place Chateauneuf

.L'atelier Gourmand ( 37, Rue Etienne Marcel, tours)

.Juanita Banana ( (15, Rue Change, tours) : the most modern place of all ( fusion food), but still quite a casual place

....

Enjoy your Trip, it is a beautifull area ( and be sure to visit some winemakers' domains :-)

[Judith Gebhart]

Gastrochick: We have had recent visits to Hostellerie de Plaisance and Hauterive St. James. We visited Cordellian Bages over 10 years ago; so our remarks are far too outdated.

The Hostellerie de Plaisance provided both chateau accomodations and St. Emillion in town rooms which, after the fact, we wished we had booked. We unfortunately booked the Chateau Pavie vineyard rooms. We ate at the St. Emillion downtown restaurant. The chef was talented but hardly memorable. We would never return to the restaurant or the Chateau Pavie's rooms in the vineyard.

Now the Hauterive St. James overnight stay was a designers dream, but the restaurant was not the exceptional fare we once encountered when M. Amat was the chef in residence. The dining experience was certainly good but not exceptional. This destination is probably today, in our opinion, the best of the region. We hope this is helpful. Judith Gebhart

I

[GastroChick]

Thanks everyone for all your recommendations.

Hopefully I will be able to cover a good proportion of your suggestions on my forthcoming visit. I will report back in due course

Gastrochick