Eating Your Way Through France Without Being Trite AF

Dante Pilkington

Recently, I quit my job as a TV Producer, and decided to move to Italy to live in a seaside cottage somewhere very quiet without Wifi to do some “serious writing” because the whole world is going to shit and I need to live my goddamn truth. Okay? 

Flying from New York, because of the Pandemic, I needed to quarantine for two weeks somewhere in Europe before travelling on to my final destination. My plan was to do so with my aunt, who lives in the English countryside for the mandatory two weeks, then fly to Rome and make my way to my “Under the Tuscan Sun” moment.

I flew with my bicycle, saddle bags, and tent, because, aside from lavish meals, I am a cheapskate, who hates paying for rental cars and hotel rooms. Also, I wanted to avoid the Coronavirus-minefield that is Public Transportation, so I unpacked my bicycle on the curb at Heathrow and pedaled the sixty miles to my aunt’s house. 

While I was in quarantine, I got a little stir-crazy and grew squeamish about boarding yet another plane and sharing recycled air with strangers again. I cancelled my flight to Rome and decided to bicycle from England to Italy. This meant bicycling through France.

I have never given a sh^t about France, and I’ll tell you why: Americans love the idea of being around Frenchified stuff to boost their social currency. We equate the Eiffel Tower, berets, and finicky little mustaches with the uppermost echelons of status and class. The same emphasis is placed on French food. In the 1960s and 1970s, Julia Child and Nouvelle Cuisine brought French food into every home and every mediocre steak-house-adjacent restaurant coast to coast.

I have had zero interest in suffering through an uninspired boeuf bourguignon or shelling out too much money to eat snails drowning in garlic butter at some American bistro across the street from the Apple Store in an upscale strip mall. Yes, I am a snob, but I sincerely believe spending too much money on bad food is a cardinal sin. But, just because I am the kind of person who likes to try everything once before I really knock it, I decided to give the whole France thing a go.

Right away France did its very best to charm the pants off me. I pedaled from the Normandy coast to Paris through hayfields full of wildflowers, which gave way to little villages, all made of stone, with cheerful-colored wooden doors and window shutters that matched the flowers in their front gardens—it was all very f#cking pleasant. 

In one of these tiny towns, I stopped for lunch in the only bistro that was open, La Table Du St Hubert in the village of Lormaison. The waiter and owner (who worked the front of the house with his son, while his wife and other son worked the kitchen) told me they had a twelve euro lunch special: either chicken or steak, with a choice of side and dessert. 

Months of vegetarianism went flying out the window. I ordered steak “blu” with fries and a chocolate mousse. It was all simple and fantastic. The family finished cooking my meal, the last of the lunch service, and then ate their lunch at the table next to mine. They found the concept of some American dude pulling up on a bicycle laden with forty pounds of gear, very charming, and they toasted me with some homemade digestif, which tasted like Armagnac. This was my first example of the greatest lesson I learned about eating in France: the tiniest towns in the most out of the way places had the best food. And every time I strayed towards the more conventional, less spontaneous, guide-book cuisine, I was severely disappointed. To demonstrate my point, I will walk you through the best meal and the worst meal I had in France:

The worst meal was surrounded by other tourists in a restaurant in Lyon. I came for the French Onion Soup, which I had heard was unparalleled. But, upon entering a capacious, sterile dining room, I was dubious. I watched as the front of the house staff filed in and out of the kitchen and worked the floor with the precision of an army barracks.

The French Onion Soup was fantastic, to be sure. It was prepared table-side by peeling the molten cheese crust back and pouring this egg and madeira emulsion into the boiling broth. The performance of all this was so formulaic and affected, I felt like I was watching an aging Vegas lounge act perform “My Way” for the ten-thousandth time. Given the venue, I thought ordering something classic would be a smart choice: I had the duck.

I was in a state of disbelief as I chewed. Duck is supposed to be an easy lay-up for the French. “Duck Confit” is as much a pillar of French cuisine as burgers are to the United States and pasta is to Italy. But this duck was overcooked to the toughness of a well-done steak. The duck fat hung off the meat like two things that really did not want to touch at all – it was like watching two people do a hips-out hug after a mutually egregious first date.

Like I said before, paying money for bad food is a cardinal sin. So, before the devil could drag me down to Shitty Food Hell, I left my plate of duck half-eaten, got the check, and made a beeline for the exit.

The best meal I had in France may very well be one of the greatest meals I have ever had. I have forgotten best-friends’ birthdays and names of my ex-girlfriends, but I will never forget this meal. 

I rode through the interior of the Var, which is a hilly, forested region in Southern France populated by medieval hilltop villages. I camped almost every night I was in France, so the only sit-down meal I would have each day was lunch. The window for lunch-time in France is only from noon to two, with last seating at one-thirty. 

It was already one-o’clock, and I was about five miles from the nearest town, Esparron. 

I told myself, “Okay, whatever restaurant is open in this town, even if it looks like a total dump-hole, that is where I am eating lunch.”

There was a little sign at the turn off for Esparron that said, “Bistrot École” with an arrow pointing up the hill into town. Not only was it the only restaurant in town but it was also the only business that served food. I know this, because I got an inadvertent tour of this miniscule ancient village as I pedaled up all its winding cobblestoned streets. And then, I rounded the corner onto this sun-drenched courtyard of a renovated school-house done up in white and pale-blue. 

Bistrot École looked completely incongruous with its surroundings. I would not be surprised to find this hip little bistrot in a quiet courtyard in a fancy neighborhood of some aged and expensive European city like Barcelona or Rome, but not here. I was dozens of miles from the nearest highway and well over a two hour drive from the wealthy, touristic parts of the Cote D’Azur.

I arrived shirtless, sunburnt, and drenched in sweat, riding a bicycle smeared with grime from the road. I put on a stained t-shirt and had the audacity to ask for a seat. 

Instead of chasing me out of the courtyard with a broom, the owner, a statuesque black woman, carried a table and chair to a part of the courtyard where I could sit in the shade and keep a watchful eye on my bicycle. She then carried the chalkboard menu over to me and explained each menu item to me in fluent English (my French is, how you say, f#cking awful). 

I ordered the gazpacho, the steak tartare (because if I’m going to eat meat, I am going to eat meat), and the apricot mille-feuille. 

Gazpacho is usually too cold and too acidic for my liking. The blended garlic and raw tomato usually makes for flavorful but harsh bedfellows, especially served icy cold, but this gazpacho was balanced. I mean balanced, not as in middle-of-the-road mediocrity, but as in a perfect equilibrium of flavor—a Buddhist study on the umami of a tomato. The tomatoes were so fresh and ripe that they were more sweet than acidic and the liquid of the soup was creamy without dairy. The soup was not cold, but cool—the exact same temperature of a tomato fresh off the vine. Each flavor flowed into the next like ocean waves on a day without wind. The same went for the tartare. It had the simplicity and freshness which I have only tasted in expensive sushi. But what outshone both these dishes was dessert.

Typical mille-feuille, as I understand it, is flaky filo-dough-esque pastry layered with custard and topped with frosting. This mille-feuille kept with the rest of the menu’s flavor aesthetic. The flakiest pastry dough I have ever tasted, entirely on its own, then split in half lengthwise and spooned in fresh whipped cream and homemade apricot jam; three simple elements done exactly perfectly. It was a dish beyond reproach.

The entire meal cost twenty-one euros. I left fifty euros and then hit the road. If I eat a meal that brings you to orgiastic tears coupled with the enthusiastic great service that stems from true pride, I don’t leave 25% of the pre-taxed amount. When the food and service is formulaic and rigid, I tip like a CPA. When the food is art and served with pride and something akin to love, I tip like a Medici. And if you like to eat as much as I do, so should you. 

At the bottom of this article, I will include some of my favorite things that I ate while cycling through France and where I had them, including my meal at the Bistrot École. But, I caution you only to use my list as a jumping off point. Because, the truth is, French food is usually good and occasionally great. And France, from Normandy to Nice, is really f#cking pleasant. So don’t read guide books and don’t scour “best-of” lists, read the open road: if you see farmers drive their tractors to a café at midday, that’s where you’re eating lunch; If you see truck-drivers pull over at a bistro as daylight starts to fade, that’s where you’re eating dinner. Plan as little as possible and take to the back roads and the tiny towns no one has ever heard of and eat and eat and eat.

Puff pastry filled with bechamel and ham
& raspberry eclair

Puff pastry filled with bechamel and ham
& raspberry eclair

Jeandre - Le pavé de la halle, Milly-La-Forêt

Rognons du Veau Aux Champignons

Le Bistrot D’Abel, Lyon

Fresh Melon

Everywhere at mom-n-pop roadside
fruit stands in late-July, France

Tartelette de Linz aux Framboise

Boulangerie Alais, Bonnieux

Gazpacho & apricot mille-feuille

Bistro L’Ecole, Esparron**

Quiche aux poireaux

La Grillotine Habibi, Fayence**
**businesses owned by POC women**