Noirmoutier: Restaurant La Marine

Young chef Alexandre Couillon of the Restaurant La Marine won his first Michelin star in 2007, was named Gault Millau’s up-and-coming Grand Chef de Demain in 2008, and ever since he has been making waves on Noirmoutier, the pretty island off the Vendée coast south of Saint-Nazaire. Last year he added La Table d’Elise, a delightful little bistrot, next to La Marine, and it was promptly scooped up as a good-value Bib Gourmand in this year’s Guide Michelin.

I first discovered the terrific Restaurant La Marine when a series of relentlessly dull meals turned me into a renegade houseguest on a beautiful summer day last year. Hugely grateful for the hospitality of my friends and acknowledging that not everyone is as passionately interested in good food as I am, I took myself out for lunch. It was a bit of a drive to get there, but the Vendée is a beautiful département, and with the warm welcome I received at La Marine I had a hunch—correct, as it turned out—that I was going to have a very good meal. Couillon is a superb fish cook, and his menu changes constantly according to the catch of the day, but at that lunch I started with an intriguing medley of shellfish in a odd-sounding but very good bouillon flavored with red onions and raspberries, followed by grilled squid with red peppers and turnips; monkfish with peas, celery, currants and bergamot; and lobster cooked with pine needles and garnished with blackberries, cauliflower and beets. Though I was skeptical about some of compositions, all were delicious, as was a very good dessert of pineapple marinated with lime, lemon and coriander. For a less expensive sampling of Couillon’s cooking, try the Table d’Elise.

Restaurant La Marine Port de l’Herbaudière, 5 rue Marie Lemonnier, Noirmoutier. 02.51.39.23.09. Fixed-price menus €56 and €95. website

La Table d’Elise 02.28.10.68.35. Lunch menus €19.50, €29; dinner, à la carte €35. 

Prices are approximate, per person without wine.

Originally published in the June 2011 issue of France Today; updated in July 2012