After our trip to Paris in September, we are heading down to Toulouse to spend a week on bikes riding to Bordeaux, where we will spend three nights. So this is all helpful information. However, I don’t think we will have a car so we may miss Le Lion d’Or.
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I’ll be interested in your Toulouse reports. I expect well go there on our next European trip.
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In Toulouse, do try L’Impériale, in the upstairs part of the Marché Victor-Hugo. It’s the last in a row of other restaurants, which also look quite good.
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Thank you - we have no ideas yet for Toulouse. We are only there two nights, arriving from Paris on a Friday and leaving on the bike ride Sunday morning. And it appears that L’Impériale is only a 7 minute walk from the hotel. So this is helpful!
Here are the Michelin bib gourmand places – https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/occitanie/toulouse/restaurants/bib-gourmand?sort=distance
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Thank you! I will see what I can find out about these places.
Bordeaux is a city where I had better meals picking random restaurants than relying on well known places. To give an idea: I went to Le Petit Commerce and felt rushed and treated like a generic tourist, meaning little explanation given regarding the fish on offer. Brasserie Bordelaise I didn’t find remarkable.
Unfortunately, I don’t know the places where I went as they were written down on chowhound. Below I’ll give some places which are saved by me in my google maps. I would take it easy in Bordeaux, just walk around and see where many French people are having a good time. I didn’t make reservations for these places. Here I also liked the ‘simple’ food, eg a steak with foie gras, fries and a green salad. Once you venture out in the country side, it’s imho more rewarding to seek out specific restaurants and make reservations beforehand. For example at Le Caffe Cuisine in Branne.
- For afternoon outside drinks, I loved Place Saint Pierre. Many students. In the evening this area is also buzzing.
- la boite a huitres - very good simple oyster place in a beautiful part of the city
- L’entrecote
- le bar a vin
- La toque cuivree - bakery
- Les halles de bacalan - food court
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We spent 5 nights in Bordeaux and absolutely loved it. Indeed, as we left we both agreed that it was more enjoyable than Paris. The city core contains many medieval buildings (magnificent gates( and is eminently walkable as almost all streets are pedestrian/delivery only). There’s much to see and eat --as Bordeaux has more cafes per capita than any other city in France. We ended up eating mainly at cafes that looked good as we saw the sights.
We had two meals at Moraju, that featured some garlicky seiches (cuttlefish)
and octopus appetizers
and cod
and pork tenderloin with chiichurri! main
The first morning I started with the Traditional Bordeaux breakfast at Chez Jean-mi
At Le Pet’t Commerce we had superb fish (daurade and maigre)
As a moraju the vegetables were fresh and beautifully cooked. The maigre was also that-day fresh. (You can tell if it isn’t. It doesn’t travel). As at most Bordeaux cafes, they served country loaves rather than baguettes, which I came to prefer.
Complan Terra was a find. Its basically a wine cave with very pretty food, including this pork tenderloin cooked pink as was all of the pork I had in France.
for dinner that night we went to Le Noailles, a very nice brasserie. Nancy ended up with the world’s largest artichoke as an appetizer
and an absolute superb chicken breast (I sedulously avoid US chicken breasts as comparatively tasteless but this … wow!)
while I reveled in duck cooked for 10 minutes..
We spent a day at the Basin’s de Lumbers in the WW II submarine pensant then the Cite du Vin, and in between e each had a salad at the Halles de Bacalan food court. we both had salads with lovely buretta, men with thinly shaved raw beets.
At dinner, Nancy loved here tuna at Bistrot Michel’s
while I decided on a very tasty sausage plate.
Actually, that was the night before. I’ve gotten out of order. On our final night we went to Le Puy Paulin tucked away on the Place Paulin. Nancy had the Basque trout
and a simple salad while I indulged in some mi-cuit foie and sweetbreads in a rich mushroom sauce with lots of fresh vegetables.
I haven’t said anything about the wines, in part because this post has gone on long enough, and more because I neglected to take notes and the itemized receipts, on which I usually rely, almost always stayed with the restaurants. As you can imagine, though, the wines ranged from good to outstanding. I did note down a Puisseguin, a wine from a commune next to St. Emilion (the AOC is formally Puisseguin-St. Emilion) – and only 10 Euros a glass!
The next day we checked out and took the tram to the dock where our Viking Cruise boat was docked. The main city market also was in progress so I managed another Traditional Bordeaux breakfast before lunch on board and a week of lots and lots of good wine.
There are many more details in my blog posts along with lots of photos of the sights of Bordeaux. If you’re interested, you can get them all by searching “Bordeaux” on my Johntannersbbqblog blog, which will also get you a post on the cruise and the villages we visited along the rivers and Cap Ferret.
Thanks to all who offered tips for our trip.
I’ll try to get a post up about our brief continuation to Paris soon. It was a busy year for travel, though, and I’m way behind.
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