Roanne is about an hour and a half’s drive west of Lyon airport. It once prospered as the hub of the canals that supplied Paris, and then as a centre for the textile and engineering industries.
The latter are now in decline, while the canals are now predominantly used for pleasure. But the wealth these historical associations engendered, together with the rich agricultural countryside that surrounds Roanne, have left one indelible mark: the Roannais really enjoy their food and wine.
The slopes of the Côtes Roannais provide good, inexpensive wines, and the more famous vineyards of Burgundy and the Rhône are not that far away. Charolais cattle graze in the lush fields, which also provide produce for the city’s Friday market.
It was into such welcoming terrain that Jean-Baptiste Troisgros opened his restaurant in 1930. His sons succeeded him, winning their third Michelin star in 1968 and creating their renowned dish of escalope of salmon with a sorrel sauce. This plush restaurant with rooms is now in the hands of chef Michel, Pierre’s son, and his dynamic wife, Marie-Pierre, who have built on the success of the original restaurant and created two new and very different places to eat well.
LE CENTRAL, ROANNE
58 cours de la République (+33 4 7767 7272, troisgros.fr)
Described as a café/epicerie or grocery shop, Le Central is distinguished by shelves of delicious ingredients to cook with and walls hung with black and white photos of this casual restaurant’s many producers and suppliers from round about.
There’s also a stunningly good value menu that included on our last visit a blue cheese soufflé, risotto with ceps, and frogs’ legs with ginger and garlic. I left, however, with one particularly strong image. On the counter, behind which the chefs were working, was an old, dark red Berkel weighing machine next to a perfectly round glistening tarte tatin. They seemed to exemplify precision and taste, two principles of the best French cooking.
AU FIL DU VIN, RIORGES
254 Rue de Saint Alban, Riorges (+33 4 7771 2430)
Perhaps no other restaurant reveals the passion for food and wine that the Roannais exude as well as the small Au Fil du Vin, which Christian and Henriette Thinard opened in Riorges, on the outskirts of Roanne, when both were in their late 50s, after his engineering business was forced to close. They cook together, while Christian buys and recommends the wine. As a result, the menu is full of local specialities at great prices, with a three-course menu under €20. No one will leave here hungry.
PIERRE CLARISSOU PATISSERIE, ROANNE
52 Rue Jean Jaurès, Roanne, (+33 4 7760 7204)
Pierre Clarissou, having learnt his trade in the rest of France, has returned to Roanne to open a state-of-the-art patisserie in the heart of town. It boasts glass fronted windows in the rear, where it is possible to watch the chefs in their immaculate white hats hard at work, while at the front there is a small café and glass topped containers filled with all kinds of exquisite cakes and pastries. Clarissou’s range of chocolates, cakes and sweets is stunning. The quality is equal to that of any top patissier in Paris but, happily, at half the price.
LA COLLINE DU COLOMBIER, IGUERANDE
Iguerande (+33 8584 0724, troisgros.fr)
For ten years Marie-Pierre Troisgros scoured the countryside nearby for somewhere that could be converted into a comfortable auberge or inn serving good food. Her main criterion was that it would not be too grand. Eventually she found a set of former farm buildings close to the small village of Iguerande, a 30-minute drive to the north of Roanne, which she converted into a series of bedrooms with a restaurant attached.
One bedroom has its kitchen and bathroom in the circular former dovecote. Three bedrooms are in ‘cadoles’, ultra-modern, semi-circular structures that look like igloos but have uninterrupted views across the countryside, and the restaurant, Le Grand Couvert, was once where the cattle spent the night but now boasts as striking an interior as any in Paris or London. Their €35 dinner menu is excellent value and includes a wonderful pot-au-feu, the classic dish of boiled beef with root vegetables, that tastes so much better than its description implies.
Nicholas Lander is restaurant critic of the Financial Times
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