Gigondas Gastronomy at L’Oustalet

Today’s posting will be heavy on the gastronomy of France. So what’s new? Brigitte is having a bit of trouble adjusting to French time - no surprise - so we had a slow morning and then headed over to Gigondas for lunch.

It’s only a 15 minute trip from Cairanne so we arrived too early and thus took Brigitte on THE walk up to the church and chateau. Everyone we’ve taken on this walk is amazed by the lack of signs of life and how quiet it was. Today was no exception.

Once again, we were the first to arrive at the our restaurant of choice today, L’Oustalet. We’ve been here many times and the cuisine has received raves. Their ownership changed hands four years ago and the prix fixe is a little more costly now at 32 euros for two courses and 39 euros for three courses, but the cuisine was as fabulous as ever.

As we sat on the patio under the plane trees, we drank a very nice Gigondas rose from Domaine les Teysonnieres and had both aperitif nibblies and an amuse bouche of raw oysters - not a real hit with this crowd - before the entre arrived. Don’t ask me what was in the little glasses with the bread sticks, but it was really good!

Dawn and I had a tartare of tomatoes and eggplant in olive oil with fresh herbs and the only photo we neglected to take was Brigitte’s lemon risotto with an emulsion of black pepper and parmesan.

The main course for Brigitte and I was a saffron free range chicken from the Ardeche with roquette and a fricassee of artichokes and potatoes.

Dawn had three morsels of three different local fish done in a bouillabaisse-type sauce with potatoes and aioli.

For dessert, Dawn had roasted figs smothered in licorice honey with the most divine chocolate mousse/sorbet.

Brigitte and I had raspberry macaroon with raspberry sorbet and a little pot of “baies” - blueberries, currants and raspberries in a violet syrup.

We left our table with many marvelous flavours lingering on our palates, then headed back to Cairanne for slow time. Today’s drive was a constant game of “Dodge the grape wagon” as vendange is now in full swing. They are actually forecasting torrential rain for this Sunday, so they may be hustling to get in as much of the ripe harvest as they can before some potential rain damage. Behind the Cairanne co-op we caught this farmer transferring his load to a larger wagon.

One would think that we would never be hungry again, but not so. Therefore chef Guillaume took to the kitchen with fresh girolles (mushrooms) and saucisse de Toulouse with shallot sauce and made dinner. Accompanied by Dawn’s fresh tomato and mozzarella salad with her special Nyons olive oil dressing, it was magnificent! We’ll show those guys at L’Oustalet. Not! But OK!