Chez Roellinger: Seafood and the Sea

This was the view from our bedroom in Chateau Richeux, Jane and Olivier Roellinger's inn just outside Cancale, a village on the Bay of Mont Saint Michel. 

I can't remember the last time I went someplace and felt so at home so immediately.  The Chateau, a large stone house dating from the 1920s, with a curl-up-and-get-comfy sitting room, dining rooms looking out onto the sea and gardens filled with fruit trees, has the feel of a house in which children once left their muddy boots at the door and ran up and down the stairs giggling.

When we ran up the stairs, we found apples from the garden on our desk

and a tin of Olivier Roellinger's salted-butter sables (shortbread cookies) on our bed

I had wanted to come to Cancale and eat at Roellinger's for several years, but it never worked out - I always called to reserve just a little too late.  Then Mr. Roellinger earned his third Michelin star and it became even more difficult to nab a reservation ... but I got lucky this year. 

The night we arrived in Cancale, we ate at Le Coquillage, Roellinger's seafood bistro in the Chateau Richeux.  (His Michelin-starred restaurant is in the Maison de Bricourt in Cancale proper.) Sitting by the fire and having a glass of champagne and a few nibbles, like this foie gras over spiced fig jam (the red flower was plucked from the pineapple sage plants in the garden)

we decided on a meal that would give us the chance to taste just about all the seafood the team had in the kitchen that night.  It was called the Menu Grignotage, or snacking menu, and it turned out to be a great choice for us.

Chef Roellinger later told me that the inspiration for this meal was the classic plateau fruits de mer, the large round platters that are piled high with shellfish and are both the specialty and mainstay of seafood restaurants all over France.  In fact, his Menu Grignotage included a plateau, two actually, but the plateaux, or trays, were rectangular and they carried a surprising mix of fish, seafood and vegetables. 

The first plateau held the appetizers and included (in the order in which it was suggested we taste everything)

• Warm Jerusalem artichoke soup with parsley puree
• Warm curried vegetable samosas (The Kid liked these so much that the waiter brought him extras)
• Cancale oysters
• Bouquet (sweet shrimp)
• Bigornaux (like baby whelks), which we pulled out of their shells with pins
• Snapper tartar
• Scallops marinated in soy, sesame, lemon and ginger (a favorite)
• Smoked mackerel and lime
• Potato and lightly smoked cod salad tossed in a mustard vinaigrette (a great combination)

Then came the "main course" tray with

• Calamari with a tomato chutney/jam
• Crabs and clams, almost "casino"
• Scallop brochettes
• Brill (like a turbot) over bulgur with a tarragon mousseline sauce
• Sea bass cooked on a hot stone and seasoned with herbs, flowers and oils, a quiet tour-de-force and the kind of dish you remember forever

Then there was the dessert cart, wheeled around by a pastry cook who looked as though he wasn't old enough to be up so late, but whose eyes sparkled when he talked about the millefeuille.  As much as I would have loved the millefeuille or the tarte Tatin or the cream-filled savarin, I just couldn't.  Michael, Joshua and I shared some profiteroles (the chocolate sauce was wonderful) and tip-toed up the stairs. 

I hated to miss the Tatin, but it was funny that, in being a grown-up and saying no, I had the memory of being a child.  When I was little, I never wanted to go to bed.  There was always one more thing I wanted to do and I was always begging for more time, but my mother's answer was unfailingly the same:  "Tomorrow is another day."  And so, taking one last look at the moonlit bay, I thought "Tomorrow is another day ... and tomorrow I'll be having dinner chez Roellinger again."  It made it so much easier to give up the tart.

Comments

[Mmm]

A google search turns up 2490 hits for Kouing-Amann.
2750 with the same spelling, no hyphen.
244 votes for Kouing Amman.
286 for Kouing-Amman.
1460 for Kouign-Amman.
1510 without the hyphen.
96,700 hits for Kouign-Amann;
and 99,200 for Kouign Amann.
I'm so confused. Will the real caramelized treat please stand up?

[liz]

Good heavens! Living vicariously has never been so good.

[Lesley Chesterman]

Yes, that's it, the Grain de Vanille. Cute little place.
There's nothing quite like a good Kouing-Amann... I wish I had one now!

[Dorie]

Maria, I didn't get the tart, but I was just fine with that -- I had so many other wonderful things.

And yes, Lesley, I did have a Kouing-Amann at Grain de Vanille in Cancale and it was the best of the about 6 Kouing-Amanns we had during our short stay.

[Lesley Chesterman]

While you are there you must, must, must have the KOUIGN-AMANN at that little cafe/pastry shop of Roellinger's called the Gousse de Vanilla if I remember correctly. When I was there two years ao it was HEAVEN!

[Maria]

WOW! Everything looks and sounds amazing! That was the "snacking" menu though?? Sounds more like a feast to me!! I am glad you enjoyed your dinner...and I hope you went back for the tart:)