Troisgros restaurants - a report, Part I

[JamiesMum]

A few weeks ago I had the great fortune to eat at two Troisgros family restaurants: Le Central and Le Bois sans feuilles. I will say at the outset that whatever I write could never do justice to how lovely this family and their restaurants are, but I’ll give it a go.

I’ll delineate the background info, in case you prefer to skip over that!
[SENTIMENTAL BACK STORY]: Five years ago I suffered an unexpected, extremely traumatic, life-changing medical emergency, and it’s a miracle that I survived and am still walking around. We’ve always celebrated the anniversary of this in a small way, but late last year, I remarked to my husband that we would be in France around the date this year, and perhaps we might do something special to mark 5 years. He surprised me at Christmas with reservations for dinner and an overnight stay at Le bois sans feuilles, the Troisgros restaurant and hotel just outside of Roanne. As we were planning our trip, we realized that friends of ours live about 90 minutes from Roanne, so we invited them to have lunch with us at Le Central, the other Troisgros restaurant (and the site of the original restaurant, I believe). [END SENTIMENTAL BACK STORY]

We arrived for lunch at Le Central just after noon on a Saturday and the restaurant was fairly bustling. We decided to go with the “Joli menu”:

The “mange-doigts” included a delicious bite of falafel, warm and perfectly spiced - a fantastic first taste that made me really excited for the meal ahead. That’s a weird thing to say about a tiny falafel ball, but it’s true! The “bouillon de confiance” was a vegetable broth (I think this is one of the family’s classic recipes) and was, honestly, one of the most delicious things that I ate on my entire trip. It was hauntingly good. So good that I thought about asking if they could make me some for dinner that night (I refrained from this). For starters, two of our party had the cream of asparagus with poached egg and two had the striped bass. I didn’t taste the striped bass, but it looked really good (it might have been a crudo). My husband and I both had the salmon and our friends had the beef as their main. While I am technically a pescatarian, I will admit that I was kind of salivating over the beef.

We also tried both desserts; I had the strawberry “arlette” and the others had the gorgeous chocolate cake with cassis sorbet. I’m not sure why I didn’t get to taste this because it looked incredible.

We had been looking forward to tasting some Roannaise wine, and asked the server to make a recommendation. He brought us a bottle of 2022 chenin from Domaine Sérol and also a glass of something red (unfortunately, I can’t remember what) for one of our friends. We really enjoyed the wine and actually just learned that Sérol isn’t too hard to find in our hometown.

In all, a perfect springtime Saturday lunch. I’m going to end this post here - with a promise to write up our Troisgros dinner later today!

[JamiesMum]

Instead of creating a new topic for Part II, I’m just going to reply to my first post.

The Troisgros restaurant in Ouches is about a 10 minute drive from Roanne. We checked in and were immediately given a mini-tour of the main buildings (restaurant, bar, breakfast room, library, lounges) and the other buildings (smoking room, changing room for pool), as well as the gardens, pool, lake, meadows, etc. It’s a gorgeous property. I hadn’t properly twigged that they have a pool and regretted not bringing a swimsuit. If you come, do leave a bit of time for a wander.

We had a long walk around the lake, admiring the cows and horses, and then made our way to our room, where we were shortly greeted with a snack: a pitcher of a refreshing drink that was a combination of mint iced tea and berry juice, and a plate of chocolate raspberry biscuits/cookies. We were told that we could make our way to the dining room any time between 7:30 and 9:00 that evening. I thought that this was such a lovely touch! But weirdly, it made me kind of nervous - I asked what would happen if everyone showed up at the same time - the server laughed and said that that wouldn’t happen. We would normally eat at about 8:30, but we wanted to be sure to see the dining room when it was light, so that we could see the sunset and experience the room in different levels of darkness (the walls are floor-to-ceiling glass), so we went down about 7:45 (yes, there were other people already eating!).

As we entered the dining room, we were immediately taken into the kitchen, where we got to chat with César Troisgros, who was lovely, very soft-spoken and welcoming. He got very animated when we discussed growing mushrooms. It was a bit odd being in the kitchen because it was absolutely silent (and also pristine white!), even though there were loads of people working - and clearly service had already begun. After a few minutes, César walked us out to our table. The dining room is gorgeous - it really does feel like you are in the middle of a fairy woodland (sorry, I don’t have a great photo of the dining room that doesn’t have a lot of other diners in the background). We were presented with the menu (11 courses) and after we’d perused it for a few minutes, someone came over and asked if we “were okay with it” or if there was anything that we didn’t like or wanted to change. This sort of made us laugh because we definitely wanted them to cook whatever they wanted for us - but again, this was so thoughtful - and it would definitely be helpful if you had neglected to mention that you hated, say, asparagus or St. Pierre .

We started with a glass of champagne to go with the 4 amuses, our favorite being thin slices of turnip filled with something a bit spicy and peanut-y. Delicate and refreshing. I’ll add that I thought the food in general ran a bit on the acidic side, which I personally love.

As we were enjoying the amuses, Michel Troisgros, César’s father, came out to say hello. He’d heard that we were celebrating the anniversary of my medical crisis and had loads of questions, which I thought was very sweet. He ended by saying, “I’m so glad that you are alive and celebrating here with us,” to which I could only respond that it was indeed a very good place to celebrate being alive. Dorky, but true.

I won’t rehash each of the 11 courses, but standouts for us were the “bouquet” of asparagus, crayfish with absolutely gorgeous gariguette strawberries (the most strawberry-ish strawberry I have ever encountered), and St. Pierre served with an almond satay sauce (the server left us an extra pot of the sauce with a knowing smile). We also saw the next table being served a duck that looked amazing (alas).

I’m a little embarrassed to say that I stood up and asked the cheese person to describe every cheese on the cart for me (which he graciously did). I picked 5, but my husband kind of went crazy and picked 7 (yikes!). After we had our cheese selections, the sommelier suggested a red wine for us based on what we had selected - I’m sorry to say that I didn’t take a photo of the label (I’m the kind of person who literally forgets the name of a wine one minute after being served it).

We finished up in the dining room with 3 desserts (there were 2 listed on the menu, but they made me an extra one with a little note about our celebration) and then we took our coffee and final sweet treat on the patio, a quiet end to a sublime evening.

I’ll end by saying that I don’t really care about Michelin stars or other rankings. I’ve been to 3-starred restaurants that I thought were just okay, and unstarred restaurants that were incredible, so I stopped buying into the star system long ago. But it is so, so obvious that this restaurant is run by a group of people who love what they do and are great at it, and I know that I will remember it for a long time.

[digga]

@JamiesMum

[SENTIMENTAL BACK STORY]

This is EVERYTHING. Thank you for sharing that context. Glad that you lived to tell the tale (and share your awesome meals with us).

[onzieme]

Thank you for your excellent report. It makes me anticipate even more my visit this coming autumn.