French Restaurant Review: Turbulent, Trouville-sur-Mer

This trendy bistro is challenging Trouville’s traditional Norman gastronomy – with resounding and delicious success.

The wilder side of French gastronomy is rarely encountered in this contentedly tradition-bound Norman seaside town with a literary pedigree. This is mostly because both the locals and visitors know that simplicity is always the best approach to the excellence of just-landed fish and shellfish.

With the recent arrival of chef Scott Jarvis, however, the little port has gained a trendy bistro with an irritating name, Turbulent (the chef says that this word was often used to describe him on the report cards he’d bring home from school), where the contemporary French bistro cooking is actually rather good.

Jarvis emerged as a fledgling culinary star after a stint on the celebrity-minting French food show Top Chef, and after a stint cooking at Liquide in Paris, he opened in Trouville in a spare dining room with what he calls ‘a rock-and-roll atmosphere’ last June.

Stopping by recently for lunch on my own, I loved my starter of frog’s legs with merguez and the scallops in a silken sabayon spiked with vin jaune, an audacious but very successful pairing of tastes. The sea snails escabeche with spicy mayonnaise were outstanding as well, and I look forward to returning very soon, because the menu changes weekly.

Turbulent, I rue Durand Couyère, Trouville-sur-Mer. Tel. (33) 02 31 88 56 24

Average €65.

From France Today Magazine