Mont-Saint-Michel is now home to an exciting new restaurant, owned by an intrepid French businesswoman.
Ever since 1888, the signature gastronomic emblem of Mont Saint-Michel, the magnificent medieval abbey and fortified islet on the edge of the English Channel in Normandy, has been the omelette.
Thousands of these fluffy, beaten egg preparations cooked over wooden fires have been served at La Mère Poulard, the historic inn founded by Anne ‘La Mère’ Poulard, which has become a photo op in its own right: it’s where Brigitte Macron hosted Jill Biden for lunch after the pair had visited the nearby American and Allied military cemeteries two years ago.
I was lucky enough to first sample one of these legendary omelettes as a 13-year-old boy during the Norman leg of a two-month long trip to Europe my mother had organised after a great aunt she didn’t even know died and left an inheritance that was as wonderful for being plump as it was unexpected. That spring day at lunchtime, the call had come and I’d overheard her say, “Oh my God! Are you sure? Yes, my maiden name was Drake. Yes, Boston. Yes, my mother was Agnes Grant, born in Edinburgh, immigrated to Boston, I think, when she was 18.”
And so on, and when the call finished, she came into the kitchen with a pursed smiled and spoke to the four of us as we ate our sandwiches. “One is never, ever meant to spend an inheritance. And in this case, most of it will remain invested for your university fees. But actually, I am going to spend some of it. We will leave for Europe after Memorial Day (May 30) and return just before Labor Day (September 1).” And so we found ourselves in Mont Saint-Michel, part of the last leg of our time in France before we went to England and Scotland.
The runny omelette had sort of a metallic taste and was ornamented by a few black cinders. Worse, there was nothing inside it: no cheese, no mushrooms, nothing. I (caught up in my own adolescent selfishness and sourness at the time) announced that it was disappointing, and my father responded by telling me I’d just lost my dessert for being rude. Given the beauty and drama of Mont Saint-Michel, it had always seemed a shame that La Mère Poulard was the best it could do gastronomically, so I was thrilled when I heard that one of the most fascinating business women in France, Valérie Le Guern Gilbert, who is president of Mauviel, the cookware company her family had founded in 1810 in the nearby Norman village of Villedieu-les-Poêles, had opened a restaurant in the former firemen’s barracks.
Having met her several years ago, I sent her a note, and she invited me for lunch. “La Normandie is my terroir and Le Mont Saint-Michel has been a fixture of my imagination ever since I first saw it as a tiny girl. So creating a gastronomic experience that this magical place deserves was a challenge I couldn’t resist,” said Gilbert, who, on this misty Saturday morning on the English Channel, was wearing John Lennon sunglasses with black-glass lenses and a cowl-neck Bottega Veneta tunic dress in a grainy charcoal-colour fabric under a black trench coat with chunky black boots.
“Three million people visit Le Mont Saint-Michel every year, so as the department stores and cookware shops where we have traditionally sold our products struggle all over the world, a restaurant where the kitchen cooks with our pots, pans and casseroles and also uses our serving pieces struck me as the perfect showcase for us. Everyone finds our cookware beautiful. But it’s only after you’ve been intimate with one of our pots or pans that a real love story with Mauviel begins, because our tools will give you so much pleasure,” she said with a chuckle. “My job is to create this desire.”
Gilbert asked the globe-trotting chef Jean Imbert to collaborate with her on the project.
“When Jean took over the restaurants at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris, I designed his new cookware and service pieces and we really synced, so I knew he’d be the perfect partner,” she said. “It was obvious that the restaurant should serve Normandy’s best seasonal produce, including prés-salés lamb, from animals that graze on the salt marshes and meadows around Le Mont Saint-Michel; lobster from Les Îles Chausey – it’s the world’s best; mussels from the Bay of Mont Saint-Michel; oysters, locally grown vegetables and lots and lots of salted butter, the world’s best, which is made from the milk of Froment du Léon cows, an ancient breed of cattle from the northern coast of Brittany. The cream from the milk is allowed to mature for a week before it’s churned, which produces a bright yellow butter with an amazing texture. This is the first thing I eat when I get home after a trip abroad – I yearn for it when I’m away.”
Jean Imbert placed Thibault Schach, a talented young chef he’d worked with before, in the kitchen, and Schach’s cooking during my lunch with Gilbert was superb-just the flawlessly executed Norman bistro cooking you might hope to find in such a special setting. Three stand-out dishes were the starter of grilled baby clams with herb butter; the parmentier of sea crab in its own shell, a laboriously made dish of meticulously shelled local crab in a creamy sauce seasoned with a jus of its carcass on a bed of buttery mashed potatoes; and succulent pork ribs for two in a tangy mustard sauce.
“We wanted dishes at different price points,” explained Gilbert, “and in a general way, we wanted the experience of dining at the Logis Sainte Catherine to be comme à la maison [like eating at home], relaxed and friendly and unpretentious.” The chic décor of the restaurant – including objects like a stone head from a statue found in the tidal sands of Mont Saint-Michel is displayed in black steel cages above the tables, which are set with round, hammered copper place settings by Mauviel. And yet for all of this visual wit and richness, the soul of Le Logis Sainte Catherine is that of the type of welcoming seaside auberge that is a wonderful fixture of the Norman countryside. One bit of advice: book as far in advance as you can on their website since the dining room is small and this restaurant is likely to be overwhelmed as word of mouth builds this summer.
6 ruelle Sainte Catherine,
Le Mont Saint-Michel, +33 2 33 89 14 45.
www.lelogissaintecatherine.com
Average à la carte €65.
From France Today Magazine
Lead photo credit : Crédit Instagram : @odieuxboby
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Dining and Cooking