The sun was shining. The cafes were full, as were the restaurants. Every table on any terrace was occupied. The number of places to eat in this town seemed to be endless, only surpassed by the number of wine shops.
The charming, historic streets of this medieval town have long been a mecca for wine lovers but on this, our most recent, visit it seemed even more so. Every nationality appeared to be represented – except of course for the Chinese, who apparently were never here in very large numbers anyway. But there were certainly plenty of Japanese, who, when we dined at the ever-excellent Caves Madeleine, represented a quarter of this particular restaurant’s diners with Americans representing another 15%.
But what does this influx of thirsty and hungry tourists mean for the quality of the cooking and the warmth of the hospitality on offer? Well, it may come as no surprise to readers, it all depends on where you live and whom you ask.
The immediate answer from Jasper Morris MW, who has lived in Beaune for 20 years, speaks French fluently and has a wonderful wine cellar, is that the consequences of this horde of hungry incomers is not good. ‘It makes life just too easy for the restaurateur and the chef. They just open their front door and the customers pile in’, he opined.
Perhaps. But this view, in my mind, does not take into account several important factors. The first is that although this volume of customers may make takings reasonably comfortable, there are easier ways of making a living than being open to the unpredictable public at least five lunches and four dinners a week (and each restaurant in Beaune seems to have its own rules as to when it is prepared to open its doors, so it is vital to check in advance).
Secondly, the layout of many of the buildings that have become restaurants makes life extremely challenging for anyone working in this business. The entrances are small. The restaurant itself tends to be in the front of the building and occupies a long, narrow space. The kitchen tends to be at the rear and is perhaps not that much larger than a domestic kitchen. The lavatories and the all-important wine cellar have to be fitted in somehow (I was reminded of a comment from Adrian Murcia, sommelier at New York’s excellent Les Trois Chevaux restaurant, who explained that this restaurant has ‘a typical mid-town cellar’ which translates into ‘small and cramped’ such are rents). But wine does play a crucial part on every restaurant’s balance sheet and this wine-obsessed town seems to attract as many wine neophytes as it does madly obsessed wine enthusiasts.
My final comment on the local gourmet’s views on his adopted town’s restaurants is entirely normal. Familiarity does breed if not contempt then at least indifference. I can get far more excited about restaurants in cities other than London, where I am based, with one or two exceptions. There is an element of excitement and discovery about restaurants that require determined travel that stimulates the brain and the appetite to a level greater than those in your own location.
But there was a definite sense of excitement on our first night in Beaune as we made our way across the square to Ma Cuisine, a restaurant off the beaten track that is popular with visiting wine lovers and which first opened its doors in 1996. Its proprietor is the suitably named Pierre Escoffier and it describes itself on its website as ‘serving food for wine lovers’.
This emphasis on wine is obvious from the moment you step into Ma Cuisine. Inserted into every place setting is a wooden plaque of a famous bottle, a vintage and its producer: Dom Jean Grivot 1999 Richebourg in my case. On all sides there are piles of old wooden wine cases on top of which stand numerous venerable bottles, all empty: not just Meursault and Montrachet but also Ch Haut-Brion.
The latter may come as a bit of a shock but the range on offer here is extremely catholic. There are two whole pages of vintages of Ch d’Yquem back to the mid 1920s. And, as though on guard to protect himself, Escoffier has created a wall of old Chartreuse bottles, green and yellow, to shield his centre of operations. Here, Escoffier and his assistant can hide for several seconds during the hectic service.
There are two menus, both on blackboards: on one side of the usually busy room there is the à la carte menu and on the other an extremely good-value, if basic, set menu at €28. On the night we were there there was a choice of terrine, gazpacho or a chicken-liver salad, followed by a marmite of fish, a chicken supreme with a cream sauce, then a choice of a couple of desserts or a plate covered with two pools of Époisses, an option which Jancis chose and enjoyed.
I and most of our party chose from the other menu. I began with a compote of rabbit, succulent meat supplemented by a salad of pickled carrots, cucumber and lettuce, and followed this with a dish of veal sweetbreads described as ‘à la crème’, that was both original and excellent. Rather than cutting the sweetbreads into smaller pieces, the kitchen here simply sliced them across and into three thin pieces, sautéed them and served them with some pommes purées, covering the plate with diced onions and shallots (see below). Their version of that old staple, fromage blanc, is excellent.
After some angst caused by too many experts agonising over a vast selection of possibilities, we drank well and exclusively from the 2017 vintage: a slightly disappointing St-Aubin from Hubert Lamy; an impressive Meursault Clos de la Barre from Dom des Comtes Lafon; a really good straight Bourgogne Rouge from Roumier; and a lively Vosne-Romanée from Benjamin Leroux, all of which generated a bill of €906 for the seven of us. We walked, slightly unevenly, through the quiet streets of Beaune back to our hotel.
Ma Cuisine is a good example of why restaurants flourish in this town in spite of the difficulties of the layout of the buildings. The kitchen is minuscule with, as my photo below reveals, rows of wine glasses stacked up waiting to be washed once the food service is completed. There is in M Escoffier and his female assistant, the only staff on the floor, an overriding sense of warmth and hospitality that wears a little thin when the service gets hectic. But there is no denying his love of his food, his wine and his customers – and these are the overriding factors that drive individuals to open restaurants.
Over lunch the following day I had the opportunity to ask Morris for his favoured place to eat in Beaune. ‘I will, if you don’t mind, cheat a little because my favourite place is just outside Beaune at a place called the Hostellerie de Levernois, which is Relais & Châteaux. The wine list is excellent (which you can also ask for in their very good Bistrot du Bord de l’Eau, served from the same kitchen) while their cheese selection is fabulous, especially if you are fortunate enough to be served by their restaurant manager who knows all the cheeses by name. He even seems to know the names of the cow, sheep and goat who produced them’, he added with a smile.
Ma Cuisine Passage Ste-Hélène, Beaune, France; tel: +33 (0)380223022
Caves Madeleine 8 Rue du Faubourg Madeleine, 21200 Beaune, France; tel: +33 (0)3 80 22 93 30
Hostellerie de Levernois Rue du Golf, 21200 Levernois, France; tel: +33 (0)3 80 24 73 58
