Le Chat

It may be autumn, but there are gastronomic green shoots springing up all over France these days. In tiny Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire, local residents are purring over chef Laurent Chareau’s Le Chat, a remake of a simple 1950s-vintage village café into a terrific modern bistrot with commendably modest prices. Chareau was previously part of the Parisian culinary avant-garde — he cooked at the Café des Délices with Gilles Choukroun and with Inaki Aizpitarte when he was at La Famille in Montmartre (he’s now at Le Chateaubriand). He changes his menu regularly, but a recent lunch began with poached bulots (sea snails) on céleri rémoulade, continued with beef braised in red wine with anchovies, and finished with chocolate-tobacco ganache for dessert. The wine list answers the question of what you might be doing in this postage-stamp Loire Valley town, since there’s a wonderful selection of bottles from nearby Sancerre and Pouilly-sur-Loire.

42 bis rue des Guérins, Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire, 03.86.28.49.03. €20 per person without wine

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Originally published in the September 2009 issue of France Today.