La Cave

[Jonathan Day]

I had meant to dine at La Cave for quite awhile, following recommendations on this board from Steve Plotnicki and Robert Brown as well as a warm writeup in Gault-Millau, which awards it 13/20 and says, in essence, “The welcome and the cuisine convey an equal joie de vivre in this warm and pleasing bistro. A nice wine list and a terrific atmosphere.” (my translation).

But La Cave closes for all of August, and we had not managed to get there on previous trips. The atmosphere that Gault-Millau liked started, for us, with the booking. Instead of the usual “and what time would you like your table?” the reply was “How about 12.15?” – as if we were being invited to lunch.

And it continued right through the meal. The room itself is small but high-ceilinged, with mirrors, cream-coloured walls and part of the kitchen open in the back of the restaurant. The set menu offers a lot of choice, with the options chalked on the wall. The welcome was warm and inviting.

Our starters were not perfect. My wife had beignets of courgette flowers, tasty but a bit heavy. I had a pumpkin soup that the waiter recommended – “very smooth and velvety”. And so it was, but also badly underseasoned. It needed quite a bit of salt to bring the flavour up. Then, it was fine. I thought about asking for a lemon, as well, but this felt too much like going into the kitchen to fix a dish that wasn’t quite right.

Our main courses, though, were excellent. My wife’s duck with green peppercorns was delicious: the outside slightly charred, the inside very juicy, with a great sauce. I had, by far, the best dish of tripe I have ever eaten. Sometimes tripe is heavy and gelatinous. This tripe was tender yet deeply flavoured. The sauce had a touch of acidity that gave it brightness. Saffron potatoes went along with the tripe. They also had lambs' trotters on offer, which I plan to try soon.

The wine list was long and interesting, but we had a busy afternoon ahead. When we asked for a half-bottle, the waiter suggested their house wine, private-labelled “Le Pot de La Cave”, which comes in a 50 cl version. This was perfect: a half-bottle (37.5 cl) is usually not enough, yet a full bottle (75) is too much. 50 cl is a nice solution. The wine was a pleasant red coteaux varois.

Portions both of starters and mains had been generous, and we didn’t feel like dessert, but calissons d’Aix came along with our coffee – a perfect ending. We will certainly revisit La Cave, ideally with arrangements made so that we can sample more of those wines. It is exactly the kind of “old dining” that Robert Brown has written about, and that it is getting harder to find nowadays.

[scamhi]

As a frequent visitor to Cannes, I agree with your accessment of perhaps the most real resto in a town of many tourist type places. The lamb is great as well as the assorted stuffed vegetables. Duck with peppercorns was also delicious.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Oh you made me hungry. Personally, I like the following appetizers the best. The Salade Marcellin which is a lovely salad with some nice slices of avocado (a nice touch for France) and then topped with a good slab of grilled marvellin cheese, stuffed cabbage that is drenched in butter and burnt on the outside, and the scrambled eggs topped with grated black truffle. In fact I could skip the entrees and just have those three things for a meal (providing I could find someone to split the salad with .)

[Bux]

We're just back from a couple of weeks in France. We were Paris, northern Burgundy and the Loire, but one of the things we noticed was how often we reached for the salt. It surprised us most of all because in previous visits to France, it always took a day or two to adjust our tastes to what we felt was a heavy hand with salt.

Those half liter bottles are a very nice size and frequently come in handy. A half-bottle (37.5 cl) is usually not enough, as you note, but what I find is that we reach the bottom of two half bottles faster than we would we reach the end of a single bottle. I'm sure there's some logical explanation. If not we'll have to invent a law explaining how the first 37.5 cl in any bottle goes faster than the second.

I rather expect stewed tripe to be heavy and gelatinous and not only don't mind it, but look forward to it. I think calves feet, pork rind and the like is often cooked with it just to make the dish more unctuous. Of course I only order tripe when I want that sort of thing and have the kind of appetite that will handle it. On the other hand, I can think of several ways in which tripe is served when it is not accompanied by a gelatinous liquid. How was your prepared? Was it a stew like dish.

[Jonathan Day]

I find that I rarely add salt when dining out in France, and I use it sparingly in my own cooking. I heavily salt water for pasta and boiled vegetables, but that's about it. My children, who have sharper taste sensations than I, are quick to notice food that is overly salted, and this has reduced my use of it. And I hate restaurants where the chefs reach for the saltbox to correct a stock or sauce that is fundamentally lacking in flavour.

But this soup needed salt, and just a bit brought the flavour right up.

I know what you mean about unctuous, gelatinous preparations – a properly prepared dish of pieds et paquets would be a good example. At times these are delicious, especially when you can go from the meal to a siesta. That wasn't the case that day, so the lighter preparation was perfect. The tripe had been cut into thin strips. My guess is that it had been sautéed. The sauce was not heavy, with a bit of saffron and lemon in it, and a hint of chilli. Julia Child might have called it “tripe bouillabaisse”. It was not tripes à la mode de Caen, and I apologise for forgetting the exact description that La Cave had chalked on the board.

Whatever it was, it was good.

[robert brown]

JD, that was a great write-up. I am glad you liked La Cave and hope we can spend many happy meals there. My wife doesn't like me to eat tripe, but you made it sound as if they are worth fighting over. I can also recommend the tomato tarte and the saddle of lamb. I have only been once, but you can be sure it will be my first lunch the next time I am in Nice.