Hotel Restaurant le Bon Laboureur à Chenonceaux – bizarre Michelin decision

Le Bon Laboureur, Chenonceaux

Founded back in 1786 as a coaching inn Le Bon Laboureur has long been indisputably the best hotel and restaurant in Chenonceaux, whose famous château (Chenonceau) draws visitors from all over the world. Henry James dined there and mentioned the hotel in his A Little Tour of France published in 1884. James was impressed: the cuisine was not only excellent, but the service was graceful. When we are in Touraine this is our nearest fine restaurant.

Recently we have been taken to lunching there during the week when their 32€ lunch menu is available. What a bargain it is! Nominally three courses, you get fine nibbles with your apéro followed by a mise en bouche and then your first course – choice of two dishes. Next up main course – choice of fish or 72-hour cooked shoulder of lamb. A pre-dessert precedes dessert. The bargain lunch menu concludes with a choice of mignardises. My choice is invariably the cherries steeped in kirsch. With the exception of the vegetarian option, the other menus are considerably more expensive.

We have never had a bad experience at the Bon Laboureur the food  – prepared by owner chef Antoine Jeudi – is excellent , the wine list has plenty of interesting bottles  – in early this January we enjoyed a bottle of François Pinon's 1997 Vouvray Sec – reasonably priced and delicious. Fabrice Dagaut and his team offer impeccable service in the restaurant.

Given this quality it came as a great surprise to learn that Le Bon Laboureur lost its Michelin star early this year. Certainly there was nothing from our visits – around three a year – to suggest that its étoile was threatened. From our experiences Guide Michelin's decision to strip Le Bon Laboureur of its star appears bizarre.

In any case we will continue to eat at Le Bon Laboureur. 

Lunch in the footsteps of Henry James

Le Bon Laboureur – long established and easily 
the best restaurant and hotel 
in the popular village of Chenonceaux 

On our last Monday at the end of our recent stay in the Loire we spoiled ourselves by lunching at Le Bon Laboureur in Chenonceaux. Here we were following in the footsteps of the writer Henry James, who was born in America but who spent much of the latter part of his life in Europe. In his Little Tour in France James describes a very comfortable and congenial meal, in his case dinner, he and his companions enjoyed at Le Bon Laboureur:

A Little Tour in France by Henry James
(originally published as a serial in 1883-1884)

Chapter 7

Chenonceaux

Here are two extracts that feature Le Bon Laboureur as it was towards the end of the 19th Century

Extract 1:
'In going from Tours you leave the valley of the Loire and enter that of the Cher, and at the end of about an hour you see the turrets of the castle on your right, among the trees, down in the meadows, beside the quiet little river. The station and the village are about ten minutes’ walk from the château, and the village contains a very tidy inn, where, if you are not in too great a hurry to commune with the shades of the royal favourite and the jealous queen, you will perhaps stop and order a dinner to be ready for you in the evening.'

In between this extract and the one below Henry James describes his visit the Château de Chenonceaux. He spells both the village and the château ending in an x. Today the château is written without an x. Although one might be inclined to think that James made an error in adding an x to the château this may not be the case as some of the pictures showing the château in the past use an x in the spelling.

Wikipedia, as opposed to Wikileaks, suggests that it was Louise Dupin de Francueil, the château's owner during the French Revolution, who dropped the x in order to show that the château was royal. Apparently there are no official papers to confirm this story. However, James was writing years after the Revolution.

Anyway it strikes me as rather strange that in revolutionary times you would want to stress a building's royal pedigree. Instead it seems to me much more logical and more prudent not to draw attention to your splendid château spanning the Cher in case marauding revolutionaries either set up camp there or razed the building to the ground. Anyway what do I know for Chenonceau, however it was spelled, survived the Revolution unscathed. 

 

The church in neighbouring Francueil

Extract 2:
'Venice a year and a half before. We took our way back to the Bon Laboureur, and waited in the little inn-parlour for a late train to Tours. We were not impatient, for we had an excellent dinner to occupy us; and even after we had dined we were still content to sit awhile and exchange remarks upon the superior civilisation of France. Where else, at a village inn, should we have fared so well? Where else should we have sat down to our refreshment without condescension? There were a couple of countries in which it would not have been happy for us to arrive hungry, on a Sunday evening, at so modest an hostelry. At the little inn at Chenonceaux the cuisine was not only excellent, but the service was graceful. We were waited on by mademoiselle and her mamma; it was so that mademoiselle alluded to the elder lady as she uncorked for us a bottle of Vouvray mousseux. We were very comfortable, very genial; we even went so far as to say to each other that Vouvray mousseux was a delightful wine. From this opinion indeed one of our trio differed; but this member of the party had already exposed herself to the charge of being too fastidious by declining to descend from the carriage at Chaumont and take that back-stairs view of the castle.'

•••

Back in February we three were certainly 'very comfortable', 'very genial' and 'the cuisine was not only excellent, but the service (led by Fabrice and his team) was graceful'. I'm not sure that James' 'so modest an hostelry' is still apt. The 21st century Le Bon Laboureur is very comfortable with an airy and light dining room. There was a time was it was a little dark and gloomy but that has long gone. It is true, however, the building is modest in comparison to Touraine's grand châteaux hotels like Artigny and La Rochecotte  but Le Laboureur has a Michelin star and they don't.

We chose the Menu du Marché, which is available only at lunchtime and not on Sunday. At 32€ for three fine listed courses it is excellent value, especially by the time you add in all the extra treats – canapés, mise en bouche, pre-dessert et mignardises – it is more like eight or nine courses!

   Excellent 2010 100% Côt (outside Touraine sometimes called Malbec)
from Domaine de la Chapinière, AC Touraine

First courses:

Tartine de légumes, magret fumé, faisselle de chèvre

Velouté de lentilles, champignons & lardons

Main course:

Epaule d'agneau confite 72 heures, jus d'agneau et crème d'ail

Desserts:

Praliné-chocolat, crème Amaretto

Gratin aux agrumes & ananas, sorbet orange sanguine

Impeccable Sunday dinner@Le Bon Laboureur, Chenonceaux

 2013 Les Cabotines, Montlouis, Ludovic Chanson 

Last Sunday (14th June) we had a Sunday dinner at Le Bon Laboureur in Chenonceaux, which is always consistently good and the service is invariably very professional. We kicked off with Ludovic Chanson's fine 2013 Les Cabotines, Montouis. This sec both confirms that Ludovic continues to make fine wine but also underlines the strength in Montlouis, even though the appellation is quite small. We followed this with the 2009 Philippe Alliet L'Huisserie. It is a while since I have drunk one of Philippe's Chinons and this was very impressive.      

 Langoustines 

 

 A velouté of asparagus with an oeuf mollet

Tartare of dorade et gambas marinées – very good  

 Green and white asparagus with two different sauces

 Pigeon (above and below)

 Conjugaison de ris et tête de veau au présent et au passé,  

jus de veau et sauce gribiche

 Saddle of lamb with a herb crust

 2009 l'Huisserie, Chinon, Philippe Alliet

Lovely rich concentration, soft tannins – impressive   

 pre-dessert

 

 The spectacular omelette norvégienne    

with fraise & vanille icecream 

flamed with eau de vie de framboise

 

le coup de grâce – cherries in kirsch

Where to find an excellent meal on a Sunday night in the Cher Valley: Le Bon Laboureur!

Single menu@51€ on Sunday night plus à la carte

Trying to find somewhere to eat in rural France on a Sunday night is all too often a real challenge. It is even more of a challenge to find a restaurant where the food is excellent, the service impeccable and the wine list has many interesting bottles. Even highly-rated restaurants can be a considerable disappointment on a Sunday night with the reserve team on. 

It is little wonder that Sunday lunch in France is frequently a long drawn affair as it may well not be possible to find a square meal until at least Tuesday lunch time, especially in the winter as many restaurants are closed on Monday as well as Sunday night. An ancien régime! 

Fortunately we are just a ten minute drive from Chenonceaux and Le Bon Laboureur, which is not only open but really maintains its customary high standard both in the kitchen and the service headed by Fabrice. We enjoyed a really excellent and relaxed dinner there on a Sunday evening in mid-March.  
  

Amuse bouche

Velouté de cresson, oeuf mollet et lomo feuilleté à la fleur du sel

(my choice)

Terrine de lapin au foie gras, betteraves colorées 

et vinaigrette acidulée

Apéro and entrée: very fine 2011 Les Argiles, Vouvray, François Chidaine 

Epaule de veau confite, choux vert et rutabagas

(our choice)

2008 Le Vau Jaumier, Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, Gérard Vallée:

less opulent than, for instance, a 2009 but lovely texture 

with fine acidity to balance

Gratin d'ananas et orange, sorbet pomelos

(my choice and a lovely dessert – refreshing and not rich)

Dacquoise praliné, glace 'Guanaja'

(above and below)

Alcoholic cherries à la finale!

Le Bon Laboureur@Chenonceaux: excellent dinner

The long established Le Bon Laboureur in Chenonceaux

We recently had a very good meal at Le Bon Laboureur in Chenonceaux. It has a one star Michelin and is quite expensive, although very good. We don't go there all that often, especially since the value of sterling dropped against the euro a few years back. 

1996 Montlouis demi-sec, Domaine de la Taille aux Loups, Jacky Blot

For the apéritif and the first course we chose the 2001 Montlouis demi-sec. However, maître-d Fabrice very kindly found us a 1996 demi-sec to try instead. It had a lovely evolved honeyed nose with a great balance of honeyed and quince fruit and acidity giving a very precise and clean finish. All in all a lovely bottle of wine and a reminder of how good the 1996 vintage in the Loire is.   

  

Mise en bouche: purée of cauliflower with chestnuts

Crème de champignons et foie gras poêlé
(A wonderful dish, perhaps not shown at its best here!)

Blanc de volaille 

 2006 Chevalerie, Bourgueil, Domaine de la Chevalerie

For our main courses went with the 2006 Chevalierie from the Caslot's Domaine de Chevalierie in Restigné (AC Bourgueil). The 2006 is drinking well at the moment with plenty of soft black fruits and quite light acidity. Attractive now, it may need a couple or more years to show its best.  

 Chocolate dessert: tout chocolat

Pomme d'hiver: including a tarte tatin