À LA CARTE ❘ TOP TABLES
Because everything here is prepared with as much fresh, seasonal, local produce as possible, the menu evolves constantly, but runs to dishes like steak tartare with squid’s ink mayonnaise; pumpkin soup with lemongrass and coconut milk; grilled pork belly with pickles and pak choi; and hake with roasted carrots, mussels and radicchio rosso di Treviso. Finish with some Maroilles, one of the great cheeses of the north of France; chocolate ganache with caramel and nougatine; or rice pudding with caramel sauce and dried fruit.
Service is exceptionally friendly and English- speaking, and Les Canailles has a superb wine list, including Drappier champagne, lush Corsican Patrimonio from eminent winemaker Antoine Arena, and elegant Pinot Noirs and Rieslings from Christian Binner in Alsace. Reservations essential. 73 rue de Paris, 62520 Le Touquet. Tel. +33 (0)3 21 05 03 03.
www.lescanailles-letouquet.com
TERMINUS NORD
BISTROT LES CANAILLES, LE TOUQUET The stylish seaside resort town of Le Touquet on the English Channel, just south of Boulogne-sur-Mer, in the Pas-de-Calais, has long been as popular with travellers from the United Kingdom as it is with holidaymakers and weekenders from the north of France, for whom it’s a favourite local getaway.
From top: The dining room at Christophe Poard’s L’Ô Dissay; the restaurant is located in the magnificent Château de
Dissay near Poitiers; the chef most recently worked at the Michelin-starred Park 45 at the Grand Hôtel in Cannes
Developed as a resort from 1882 onwards, it has many grand bourgeois villas built in the Anglo-Norman Touquettoise style, distinctive with their steep gabled roofs and half-timbering details. After a dip in favour during the late 20th century, brought on mainly by the increasing ease of access to more reliably sunny Mediterranean destinations, the resort is now enjoying a new wave of interest as younger generations come back here to take long walks on its wide, flat beaches, to play golf, to wine and dine, and generally to relax. Parisians are also coming back to Le Touquet, certainly to some degree due to the fact that this resort town is often in the news as a frequent vacation spot of President Emmanuel Macron, whose wife’s family has a home here.
A sure sign of this new stylishness is the charming
little bistrot à vins Les Canailles, which serves a delicious market-driven menu of contemporary French bistro dishes prepared by chef Delphine Saint-Léger.
In the midst of a very good recent lunch at this long-running brasserie with a recently refreshed but charming 1925 vintage art deco interior, I thought, ‘this must be one of the most reliable restaurants in Paris’. The reason is that I think the same thing every time I come here, and that’s been for a very long time. On a suddenly rainy Sunday morning 30 years ago, my brother and I ducked into this brasserie across the
“BECAUSE EVERYTHING AT LES CANAILLES IS PREPARED WITH AS MUCH FRESH, SEASONAL, LOCAL PRODUCE AS POSSIBLE, THE MENU EVOLVES CONSTANTLY”
street from the Gare du Nord as much to stay dry as we did for anything else. It was lunchtime, but we were only 20 discombobulated minutes out of bed – our sleep alarmingly interrupted by the insistent knocking of the front-desk clerk shouting that we’d have to pay for a second night if we hadn’t checked out by noon. We’d had a very late night on the town.
Now he was heading for Greece to meet friends for a
holiday, and I was hopping on a train back to London in two hours to stay in his flat for a couple of days before I returned to New York. The maître d’hôtel, in a black jacket, with half-rimmed glasses, looked amused as he watched us trundle our rain-dampened luggage inside. Noting the casual glamour of the place, I feared we might be turned away, since I think we looked rather rumpled and pretty obviously the worse for wear. But no. The nice man greeted us, showed us where to stow our bags, ushered us to a table, and then suggested a glass of champagne, an idea that made both of us cringe in the condition we were in.
76 ❘ FRANCE TODAY Apr/May 2020
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