Lucky dip part two - un petit restaurant

"Le Relais de Templiers is one of those old-fashioned country restaurants where you take potluck when you come in. There is no menu, just three courses of whatever Suzon happens to want to serve you that day"

Robert Carrier

The page before my lucky dip recipe was taken up by a loving description of the tiny restaurant where Robert Carrier found the recipe. It is in a little village called Montfort an hour or so out of Nice just off the autoroute to Marseille. The original restaurant no longer exists but in the same spot there now seems to be another one called La Petite Marmite. (shown below). Well I guess Suzon - the cook is now either retired or dead, as the book from which it comes, Feasts of Provence, was written back in 1992.

"the secret dream of every Provençal cook. Its one room contains only five or six close-set tables seating 18 diners, and the front door and windows open straight on to the little narrow street in the town centre. There is a tiny bar (two could stand at it almost comfortably) and a small open-fronted kitchen which, apart from the enormous eleventh-centre chimney where Suzon cooks her long-simmered casseroles and grills her meats and game, boasts only a small 1930s stove, a sink and a rather narrow work surface hidden behind a counter opening to the dining area. This ensures that guests are part of the festivities and that Suzon is mistress of the revelries." Robert Carrier

Robert Carrier often writes of the French cooks who influenced him, Fifine of St.Tropez being the main one, and this book is particularly generous to all manner of French restaurants - each section ends with recipes from chosen high-end Provençal, Michelin starred places, but he also honours the places like this little restaurant in a nondescript village in the south of France. I say nondescript, but that's not really what I mean, because I doubt it is nondescript. It is rare that you come across an uninteresting village in the south of France. They all have something to love. I suppose I really mean not well-known. Not a tourist destination like St. Rémy de Provence or St. Paul de Vence. Not a 'plus beau village de France'.

You could be forgiven for thinking that these places no longer exist but they do. And their near relatives, small but with an actual menu rather than the pot-luck option. We have dined in many in our times of visiting France. Italy too - I shall always remember the ordinary looking restaurant near the railway station in an Italian village that was packed with railway workers. We soon discovered why for the food was delicious. And the pizza restaurant up in the hills in Abruzzo packed with families on a Saturday night.

I am about to contradict myself slightly because my favourite place of all - visited twice - no longer exists. It was the restaurant in the local hotel/bar in a tiny village called Pépieux. The only photograph I could find was from a real estate site which was offering it up for sale. So not a very good one. Anyway, neither time that we visited was busy and the second time we visited it was very hot, so when we went there earlier in the day to book Madame said that it would only be steak - which we were happy with. We turned up and found that we were the only restaurant guests that day - a longish room which we gathered from our hosts at our rented house, was packed for Sunday lunch - a French tradition. Anyway - first course - home-made terrine made from the owner's own pigs. Absolutely delicious. To die for in fact. Second course - instead of the threatened steak we had butterflied lamb deliciously scented with garlic and I think rosemary - my memory deserts me a bit here. And frites, followed by green salad, then a generous cheese platter of local cheeses. At this point grandfather appeared and entertained us with his tales for a while and then the pièce de résistance, bearing in mind that everything so far had been wonderful. Dessert - a massive bowl of fresh, huge cherries on ice. It was so perfect and so very Elizabeth David. I have remembered it ever since and often do the same for dessert for large groups of people.

Another hotel was Le Petit Nice in Les Lecques on the coast. We stayed there for a few nights, so we started out at the back of the restaurant (on the right) and ended up with a window seat. Every night dinner was served here and if you had any leftover wine they kept it for you for the following night. There was no menu. You just had what they were cooking that day. And it was always delicious. And this last time we stayed in a similar place on our first and last nights in France at Le Thoronet. (shown below).

I could go on listing countless such places, from tiny little restaurants like the one in Robert Carrier's book, to the ex one Michelin star place, La Bergerie, in the tiny village of Aragon near Carcassonne - a small hotel restaurant much like the one on the left with even more delicious food. It deserved a Michelin star. None of them were really grand most of them serve delicious food. A few were disappointing, but not many. And if most of them did actually have a menu, they also, almost all, had a plat du jour - the daily special. Most of the most memorable meals of my life, I have to say, were in France, or Italy in such unknown and superficially unremarkable places. I remember them all still. Such is the power of a good meal. So next time you read one of those accounts of romantic meals believe them - they are true and still to be found. So I'll end with Robert Carrier's account of one of his meals at Suzon's. He writes better than me.

"On my last visit (at two-thirty in the afternoon) a delicious terrine de lièvre was plonked down with a pot of little home-made gherkins and pickled onions, a basket of freshly cut bread, a huge block of farm butter and a bottle of Cuvée de Pape de Ste Croix from Montfort. The main course, a steak au poivre à la provençale, the peppered steak fried over the open fire and accompanied by melting golden-fried potatoes, was served with a generous sprinkling of finely chopped garlic and flat-leafed parsley.

A delicious country salad of lettuce leaves and pine nuts came next ... and for dessert, a crème caramel (served in a homely earthenware crock) followed by a crepe à l'orange: two fat folded pancakes, sprinkled with sugar and orange liqueur, and topped with a slice of unpeeled orange."

And I believe there are the beginnings of a move to this type of dining here too. Jill Dupleix recently reviewed one in nearby Hurstbridge - Greasy Zoe's. Must try it though I don't think it's a really good name. Greasy - not tempting.