Restaurant Agnès Sorel@Genillé closes its doors

 Restaurant Agnès Sorel@Genillé

 

One of our favourite local restaurants, the Agnès Sorel in Genillé, closed its doors about a fortnight ago. The food was extremely good and very good value for the quality, while the wine list, although short, was carefully chosen with a good selection of Loire wines. We will certainly miss it and Nicolas and Estelle Petit, who ran it. 

I guess the closure of the Agnès Sorel underlines the difficulty of running a quality restaurant in a backwater like Genillé. Whether anyone will ever take over remains to be seen or is this the end of a restaurant that has been in Genillé as long as we have been in Epeigné – now more than 27 years?

The menu holder now empty

Through the reflection you just see the empty restaurant 

with the tables and fittings gone

Agnès Sorel@Genillé: high quality and excellent value!

 

Thursday evening on our return from the Central Vineayards we ate at the Agnès Sorel in Genillé. This is certainly one of our favourite restaurants in the area as it offers very good food at great value.

The three of us took the entry menu@23 euros – entrée, main course, cheese or dessert with a mise en bouche, which was a delicious velouté de ceps. For first course I chose the seasonal interpretation of oeufs en meurette – poached eggs on a base of sliced ceps with a rich red wine and shallot sauce. Excellent! Main course of a fricassée of Géline de Touraine. The Géline is a type of chicken, which is traditional to this area but which ceased to be popular in the 1950s and was declared extinct in 1977.  The Géline fell out of favour because it needs 120-130 days to reach maturity, whereas ordinary chickens only need 90, so it seemed no longer economic to rear the Géline. Fortunately in the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a gradual Géline renaissance and the race was reintroduced. It now features on the menus of top restaurants in this part of the Loire. 

To finish I chose the raspberry clafoutis, made with raspberries from the restaurant's garden, accompanied by a raspberry sorbet. The raspberries were nicely sharp and refreshing. 

Raspberry clafoutis (foto CRM)

To drink we had the 2009 Choisilles from François Chidaine. This is a blend of old vines from various parcels and Choisilles is the local name for black flint. Being 2009 had good weight and went well with the oeufs en meurette – better than our red – the 2010 Les Quartiers, Bourgueil from Yannick Amirault, which clashed a little with the sweetness of the shallots. However, Les Quartiers was fine with the Géline.

Estelle and Nicolas Petit's restaurant is highly recommended!     

  

 

Restaurant Agnès Sorel@Genillé

2010 Noble Joué, Rémi Cosson

We were so impressed with the Restaurant Agnès Sorel in Genillé (under new ownership – Nicolas et Estelle Petit – for just over a year) when we ate there in December that we went back with friends last night. We had an excellent and very enjoyable meal. The three course menu at 22€ is extremely good value.

We kicked off with a bottle of the 2010 Noble Joué (AC Touraine Noble Joué – a blend of three Pinots: Noir, Gris and Meunier) from Remi Cosson in Esvres-sur-Indre  – a delicate shade of pink, an attractive balance of ripe red fruits and refreshing acidity. Made a very good aperitif and went well with the smoked salmon and gravalax that most of us chose. CRM went for the aparagus soup, which was delicious.

Chapeau! beautifully presented aparagus soup   

Main course was a choice of sea bream or nine-hour cooked belly of pork – two of us chose the fish and two the belly. The belly was excellent and was well partnered by Yannick Amirault's medium weight 2008 La Mine, Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, which is drinking well now but can be happily kept for a few years more.

We finished with CRM choosing the crèpe wrapped around a baked apple, while I went for the gauffre (waffle) with blackberry purée and icecream – a fitting finale.