Overnight in Lourmarin

In 1992 I spent the summer between my junior and senior year of college as a luxury bike tour guide here in France.  It was a great way to spend a summer and it changed my life in many ways.  I was lucky enough to do the majority of my tours in Provence.  We started in Montelimar and wound our way down to Cassis, with stops in Rochegude, Castillon du Gard, and Lourmarin among other places.  It's such an amazing coincidence that now, 15 years later I own vineyards in Castillon du Gard one of our stop over destinations at the time.  I still see bike tours from time to time in Castillon, many popular companies still stay at the Vieux Castillon, an amazing hotel in the village.  Who'd have ever thought I'd end up back here!

This weekend we celebrated our wedding anniversary with a quick trip to the Luberon Valley, in Lourmarin to be exact.  Back in 1992 it was at the height of the Peter Mayle A Year in Provence craze and everyone wanted to visit this beautiful ares.  Today, it is still a hugely popular destination on the  Southern France tourist route, and the villages have been practically over run with tour buses and schlocky tourist crap for sale at every turn.  Amazingly though, Lourmarin avoided that destiny and is still an utterly charming village, over run with restaurants, mind you, and very chic boutiques, but none of the cheap Provençal table clothes and ceramic "cigales" are for sale there.

As with most of our get aways, it was based around a culinary destination, or two.  We started at La Fenière a Michelin starred hotel and restaurant just outside of Lourmarin.  Reine Sammut is quite famous in the Luberon-Aix en Provence world of cuisine.  She is an expert at sourcing products from the region and show-casing the best Provence has to offer.  We had a wonderful meal based on olive oils from the Mediterranean.  Eight different courses each with an olive oil from a different Mediterranean country; from Croatia to Portugal, passing through Morocco, Greece and of course Italy and Spain. It was a quite a discovery.  The following day we strolled through the streets of Lourmarin, soaking up the autumn sun, simply enjoying the time away from home in such a beautiful setting.  While sitting at the Café de la Fontaine a huge tour bus arrived releasing 50 or so American tourists armed with cameras and guide books looking for a place to eat, and hoping to catch a glimpse of Peter Mayle.  We decided to continue our stroll through the village and come back later for lunch. 

I discovered both La Fenière and Café de la Fontaine thanks to wine négociant Michel Tardieu, who took us there last winter while we were tasting his wines for the new Bettane & Desseauve guide.  Michel is one of those rare people, who having gotten into the wine business my choice rather than by inheritance, loves the best food and wine from any region, anywhere, always searching out the people who are as passionate about their food as he is about his wines.  The kind of person I would look forward to dining with any day.  Café de la Fontaine is owned by a family from Corsica, and they specialize in all things Corsican.  There's a huge wood-fired grill inside where they have a cauldron simmering away with a daily special and where they also grill thick côte de boeuf steaks for their loyal customers.  We started off with a plate of Corsican charcuterie, which included cured ham, several different dried sausages, a piece of grilled figatelli, and even two different selections of grilled cured pork fat.  It was divine.  I know, grilled pork fat doesn't sound very appetizing, just think of it as bacon with out the pink parts  - the best bacon you've ever tasted.  I then had the "cauldron of the day" which was Corsican beans with figatelli stewed in tomato sauce.  The beans were the size of a 50 cent piece creamy and smoky with the tomatoes and figatelli, which is a kind of Corsican grilling sausage.  When it arrived, I thought to myself, there's no way I'll ever be able to eat all of this, but somehow, it just disappeared into my stomach!  Matt had the entrecôte, grilled to perfection with fire-roasted tomatoes and p0tatoes wrapped in foil served with Corsican olive oil and sea salt.  After those two amazing meals, so different, yet so perfect in their own ways, we really felt like we had escaped, even if it was for only 24 hours!   

Comments

[Tim Stephens]

Happy Anniversary! Ours was October 10th. 8 years and counting! She's even picking Cab Sauv with me this Saturday. I really am so lucky! :-)