French Restaurant Review: Maurice, Bordeaux

With excellent value-for-money and intriguing dishes, this new restaurant in central Bordeaux is sure to conquer diners.

Overlooking the Gironde River in Bordeaux’s delightful Chartrons district, this friendly, recently-opened bistro expresses the appealing zeitgeist of this young neighbourhood, which is popular because it’s relatively affordable compared to other parts of the city. Easily reached by hopping on one of the city’s natty forest-green trams, it’s a perfect place for lunch (or terrace dining in good weather) before or after a visit to the nearby Cité du Vin, Bordeaux’s popular wine museum.

The bon rapport qualité-prix (good quality for the money) of the lunch and dinner menus also explains the popularity of this place. Dining with a Belgian friend who’s a wine merchant, we started with blood-pudding-stuffed ravioli with oyster mushrooms in chicken jus, a beautifully made dish, and roasted spiced cauliflower with Greek yogurt, cumin and pomegranate seeds, a delicious dish for something so nutritionally virtuous.

Generously served mains include grilled bleakfish with pumpkin, miso and sauce rayu and pork tenderloin stuffed with mushrooms, endive and prunes with garnishes of cocoa nibs, prune coulis and katsuobushi. If the latter sounds dauntingly complicated, it wasn’t, instead being a consistently intriguing dish with a fascinating mixture of layered flavours and contrasting textures. An excellent chocolate mousse with pecan praline concluded this very good meal, and we both appreciated the suave charm of our Château La Gorce from the Médoc, which was excellent value at €26.

Bistrot Maurice, 1 quai de Bacalan, Bordeaux, Tel. +33 07 88 54 52 09.

Average à la carte €35.

From France Today Magazine