One More Croissant for the Road. Felicity Cloake
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series of low-beamed dining rooms, with windows set in massive stone walls, are politely full, the tables spaced discreetly across a thick carpet, which contributes to the general hush. It all feels expensive (it is), and I’m firmly of the irresponsible mindset that if you’re going to blow your budget, you may as well do so in style, which is why I immediately order the house aperitif, an amber flute of apple syrup, apple cider, apple brandy and a shot of apple and green walnut liqueur for good measure. As a statement of decadent intent, it’s perfect: simultaneously sweet and tannic, fruity and a little bit nutty, and so very delicious with a bowl of papery-skinned roasted almonds that I almost forget about the menu, despite the fact that this hardback tome takes up half the table.
It kicks off with a list of suppliers and their distance from the restaurant, culminating in the jaunty humblebrag: ‘not forgetting the slightly weird-looking vegetables from our vegetable garden – 0km!’
These, and others from further afield, are, I’m pleased to see, unusually abundant in the dishes that follow: my rabbit comes with two different preparations of the (locally) famous carottes des sables, grown in sand and fertilised with seaweed, which, along with a scattering of tiny green leaves, almost qualifies it as a salad in this part of the world. It’s light, elegant and very tasty indeed: modern French cooking at its finest.
Light is all very well, of course, but being in Normandy, we can’t bypass the cheese trolley – and what a feast of softly stinking delights glides over the plush in our direction, crowned by … it isn’t, could it be …? ‘Oui, c’est CheDDAR!’ our waiter announces proudly. I express surprise at finding this black-waxed interloper in one of France’s great cheese-producing regions. ‘Ah, mais monsieur le chef, il est anglais!’ he explains.
Certainly, the Cheddar has been hacked away at energetically for other diners this evening, but nevertheless, I stick to local boys Livarot, a sticky, spicy washed-rind cheese, creamy salty Neufchâtel and an exceptionally powerful Camembert (my general tactic with a cheese trolley is to keep going until the curator starts to look anxious), all of which come in squidgy slabs, rather than slices. Not that I’m complaining.
A lesser person would have regretted also ordering dessert in advance, but not me: and I see away the presqu’îles flottantes, a big wobbly pile of beer-flavoured custard and caramel topped with snowy meringue, without even breaking a sweat. That said, the walk home, moon hanging high above huddled sheep, is silent. Both of us, perhaps, have reached our elastic limits.
Fortunately, we bounce back quickly, because the next morning Nathalie presents us with a breakfast of raw-milk Camembert from the next village (‘It’s the best around here’), toasted on nubbly brown homemade bread with a few slices of apple: I’ll give it to the French, they really get behind their regional specialities.
Powered by cheese, it’s a fast run down to Créances, home of all those sandy carrots (and a few leeks, too, if the enormous mosaic of them on a roundabout is to be believed), where we join the coast road, looking out over vast empty beaches and seas of wind-blown grass that remind me strongly of North Norfolk. There, the rush is to get a good spot outside the pub for a few pints of Wherry and some whitebait; here, I’m quietly nudging the pace to taste what it’s claimed are the best moules frites in France. Not only is it a sunny Sunday, but it’s slowly dawned on me through the drip feed of roadside advertising that it’s Mothers’ Day here, and if I were a Norman maman, I’d be dropping hints about this place from Boxing Day onwards.
The road narrows as we approach the spit of land on which La Cale perches, and suddenly every car that overtakes us feels like a potential rival. At 11.15 a.m., a time when I’d barely be thinking about a mid-morning coffee at home, the beach car park is almost full. I wonder how many of those loitering I could see off should it come to fisticuffs over the last table: a lot of them look quite old, and there’s a fair smattering of infants, so I’m fairly confident of our chances. Perhaps, I think, if it comes to pleading our case, I could pretend to be Matt’s mother.
The restaurant itself, still firmly shuttered, is a utilitarian shed of a place with a rickety collection of mismatched and largely unstable furniture outside. We retire to the café next door for a tense cup of coffee, interrupted when I spot someone emerge from La Cale with a cigarette. The veteran of a hundred ‘no-reservations’ London restaurant queues, I spring into action like a greased whippet, leaving Matt to pay up. Bursting through the doors, I ask one of the young men leaning casually against the counter if they’re open, fumbling with the unfamiliar words in my nervousness. He looks startled. ‘Oui, bien sûr, Madame!’
I race out onto the sandy, and completely empty terrace, and fling myself dramatically over a table right on the edge of the beach, then semaphore frantically at Matt to make haste. After all this, it’s somewhat embarrassing to discover there was no rush at all: though tables fill up quickly, no one else leaps across the decking as if fleeing from a fire and I suddenly feel a very long way from home.
Having ordered at the bar (underneath a cheerful sign assuring clients that all rats have passed a hygiene inspection), we can sit back and enjoy ourselves, making leisurely work of a cold beer and a dozen oysters between us. They’re good, as oysters always are by the sea, plump and cool, with a marine tang answered by the air, but the real treat arrives afterwards: two huge pans of mussels in a heady, wine-soaked sauce with a great dollop of yellow crème fraîche left to melt on top.
The flesh is small and sweet, and we barely pause to pick at the hot crisp fries alongside. Perhaps it’s also the location, seasoned by the wind sweeping off the beach, the smell of the lamb shoulder cooking on the wood fire inside, or the sense of satisfaction as latecomers hang around waiting disconsolately for a table, but I don’t think I’ve ever tasted mussels so good. Here’s a recipe anyway:
Moules Marinières
Such a simple dish, but such a delicious one, with the added theatre of the whole shelling operation, which I never tire of. I like to use Norman cider and drink the rest with it, but if you prefer, you can use a dry white wine as at La Cale. Chunks of baguette or (or preferably and) hot salty fries to mop up the liquid are, however, mandatory.
Serves 2
1kg mussels
4 long shallots, finely chopped
300ml dry cider or white wine, e.g. Muscadet
50g crème fraîche
A small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
Baguette or chips, to serve (or both)
1 Rinse the mussels in cold running water, then give them a good scrub and scrape to remove any barnacles or dirt. Discard any with broken shells, and give any open ones a sharp tap: if they don’t close, throw them away too. Pull out the beards – the fibrous little appendages which the mussels use to attach themselves to ropes or rocks – by pulling them sharply towards the hinge end of the mussel. If you want to prep them ahead, leave them in a sink of cold water until ready to cook.
2 Put the chopped shallots and the cider or wine into a large pan and cook gently for 10 minutes, then turn up the heat to medium-high.
3 Drain the mussels and tip into the pan. Cover and cook until most of them have opened: about 3 minutes.
4 Add the crème fraîche and put the lid back on for 30 seconds to allow it to melt. Add the parsley and shake the pan well to distribute, then season gently and serve immediately, discarding any mussels which remain closed.
Matt professes himself defeated by this point, but having spotted the children on the table next door chasing their oysters down with bowls of the mysterious orange dessert from the market in Cherbourg, I remember some unfinished business. Teurgoule, the man behind the bar tells me, means ‘twisted mouth’ – he purses his lips like a baby given a lemon – in Norman dialect, ‘because it’s very spicy!’ What arrives is a very slow-cooked