Lille, on France’s border with Belgium and only a 90-minute Eurostar train journey from London, is a city of two halves.
There is the modern half, visible from the busy Lille Europe station, which has plenty of rather soulless modern architecture, and then there is Vieux-Lille, the old Lille, about 20 minutes’ walk from that busy rail station. This historic quarter is characterised by 17th-century brick townhouses and cobbled pedestrian streets just north of the large central square, the Grand Place, with its distinctive Flemish architecture along Beauregard Row. Almost every other address in Vieux-Lille seems to be a wine bar, café or restaurant.
The architecture reveals a great deal. First of all, it shows off exuberantly the former wealth of the city, when Lille was the epicentre of the textile trade until 1914. And its citizens happily spent what they earned on glorifying the city centre.
The old city has adapted to the modern era successfully. The old townhouses now feature every retail brand imaginable, both independent and global, with the old Art Deco frontage of the former La Huîtrière restaurant which I enjoyed 30 years ago now an outpost of the LVMH empire. The cobbled streets are a pleasure to walk through, despite the crazy ‘slalom’ of car and bicycle traffic but, as in Oxford the week before, the pavements do not seem wide enough for the number of pedestrians.
In response to the increasing number of visitors, a growing number of restaurants have emerged that share certain traits. In the absence of a local top chef of the region – Lille has a single Michelin one-star restaurant – there seems to be no shortage of young, aspiring chefs/restaurateurs. That is highly encouraging.
But in trying to find a proper restaurant where we should dine I also came across two distinctive factors: very few, if any, seem to offer an à la carte menu in the evening; tasting menus seem de rigueur in the restaurants (as opposed to the many more casual places). And the other common factor, at least at this time of year, is the ubiquity of restaurant vouchers as gifts. Every restaurant website I visited seemed to be pushing gift vouchers.
Yet their most distinguishing feature, which became obvious as we walked to dinner from our atmospheric hotel, L’Hermitage Gantois (which I would recommend), is their layout. All the buildings are tall and narrow – not entirely suited to conversion to a 21st-century restaurant where everybody likes to see and to be seen. Each restaurant seems to rely on at least one, often several, flights of steep stairs that link the kitchen to the customers. And how each restaurateur handles this connectivity says a great deal about their attitude to their customers.
It was on our lunchtime walk to the Grand Place that we stumbled across Sympa, an enticing name for a restaurant anywhere they speak French. It is located next to a natural wine bar Le Présentoir and both have tables and chairs outside on the pedestrianised frontage. (Eating and drinking outdoors seems a popular pastime in Lille.)
Inside Sympa, the steep set of stairs on the right were to prove the first of many. Up these was a floor of tables and chairs with slightly more space between them than those on the ground level enjoyed, and two more flights of stairs: one up to the kitchen (and down from which had to come our waiter with up to three main course plates in two hands), and one more down to more tables and the landing stage for the restaurant’s dumb waiter.
What had attracted us, other than the name, was the handwritten menu outside, and then again on a blackboard right by our table. It was brief but well thought out, with highly seasonal dishes that suited the cold, grey, damp weather outside. I chose a pumpkin soup topped with toasted hazelnuts followed by tagliatelle with leeks and cockles. JR had celeriac remoulade and a beetroot tartare with smoked duck and port jelly.
She was happy and both my courses were delicious, the first pungent and creamy, the second copious and packed full of cockles in and out of their shells. But what followed showed definite creativity on the top floor.
Since childhood, I have been a sucker for lemon meringue pie, or tarte citron meringue in Lille, but what arrived, with the requested couple of dessert spoons, was a highly individual interpretation. A round dish, lined with top-quality sweet pastry, filled with a lemon custard and then topped with a piped, creamy meringue that had just come out from under the salamander so it was nicely browned on top. It was terrific.
For the two of us I paid a bill of just €53 which included a few sips of a shared glass of their current beer (craft beers are important in Lille). The only disappointment at Sympa was their cursory wine list. This is somewhere to drink water or beer. I mentioned to JR that we would go next door to the wine bar to make up for this unusual abstemiousness.
JR walked into the wine bar ahead of me to be greeted by a young man wearing an apron and a topknot at the front of what appeared to be an empty restaurant. She asked whether we could order a glass of wine. No, came his prompt response. ‘We are a restaurant’, he proclaimed and so one of the world’s leading wine experts was turned away from her beloved drink one lunchtime in Lille.
That evening the 20-minute walk across Vieux-Lille proved an appetite stimulant and we arrived hungry at our chosen restaurant, Rouge Barre, another tasting-menu specialist, this one owned by chef Steven Ramon. Its wine list was also impressive.
I have always known that one of the hardest things to achieve as a restaurateur is to persuade customers to leave the main floor and to take a table either upstairs or downstairs. They feel they are being led somewhere second-rate, a sort of Siberia.
I had booked in advance and at 7.40 pm, just 10 minutes after the restaurant opened, the ground floor was almost empty. It was eminently possible to see through to the open kitchen at the far end of the building where the chefs were hard at work.
But the three of us were led upstairs to a first floor that was empty other than for a table of three who were obviously well known to the waitress. At this point, I should have asked to be moved downstairs but I did not know that this floor would remain empty – and since we had just come in from a cold night we didn’t initially notice that the heating wasn’t working.
We were shown to a table under an old map of France (on which the Languedoc is marked as the region of asses and donkeys) and shown the drinks list, the menus and eventually the copious wine list. After some discussion – our party comprised two Masters of Wine – the waitress recommended a 2020 Chinon Vieilles Vignes from Domaine des Galuches (€39). It was a wine unknown to us but we were assured that it was fresh and light and would go well with our first three, fish-based courses. It was brought to us by a knowledgeable young man who sang its praises and extolled the age of the vines. But the wine was heavy, unrefined on the palate and a bit tough, even after we had asked for it to be decanted. A disappointment but, like the rest of the wine list, not overpriced.
The five-course menu was far from disappointing, however. What was most striking about all the dishes was not just the artistry but the appearance and surprising textural contrast inherent in all the dishes: the smoked haddock with the cep velouté: the Jerusalem artichoke and tarragon with the red mullet; the turnips with the wild sea bass; and the broccoli and quince with the rabbit (shown above). All were well judged, as were the quantities.
This, despite the wine, should have made for an enjoyable evening. But sitting in a quiet, almost empty, cool room, made cooler when those at the other table went outside for a smoke, was no fun. Another table of three was shown to a table close to ours but they complained about the lack of heating (for which the waitress apologised) and were shown to another table downstairs. I paid my bill of €227 reluctantly, feeling that the restaurant should instead have been paying me.
On our way back, Sympa appeared busy, warm and cosy. I’m sure, with the heating working, Rouge Barre would please many a visitor.
Sympa 26 Rue Pierre Mauroy, 59800 Lille, France. Open Tuesday to Saturday.
Rouge Barre 50 Rue de la Halle, 59800 Lille, France; tel: (0)3 20 67 08 84. Open Tuesday to Saturday.
Every Sunday, Nick writes about restaurants. To stay abreast of his reviews, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
