WEARING a pink bib, and with the crashing noise of the waves below me on one
of the most beautiful coastlines in France, I'm enjoying the best
bouillabaisse I've ever had.
I'm not in Marseilles, where the typical fish platter is often made for the
tourists, but in Nice, at the Coco Beach restaurant.
Here, the owner, Pierre Quirino, serves me six types of rock fish poached in a
heady saffron stock in a dish with a wonderful layering of flavour, starting
with the sweetened onion; then fennel for a liquorice element; garlic, of
course; tomatoes for acidity, sweetness and colour; and with chilli pepper
and bouquet garni building it all up.
There is also an extraordinarily good aoli, containing barrel loads of garlic,
which I wash down with a good Château Belen that I'd like to get hold of at
the Manoir, but I can't because they don't export it.
I found this place five years ago, when I came to Nice with my son, Olivier,
and, wanting to avoid the tourist haunts, we asked local fishmongers to
recommend somewhere.
It is one of the reasons I love this region, where some of the gastronomy is
as worthy as any Michelin-star experience. I remember discovering Provence
at the age of 14, with its new flavours, seeing fishermen coming out of the
sea with kinds of fish I'd never seen.
The place is so magical, with the drama of the broken coastline, the beaches,
the lazy song of the crickets, the light, the smell (long ago, when I found
that fennel grew wild everywhere, I filled my car up with it and drove back
to England). There is a wonderful joie de vivre, and the 35- hour week is
strictly observed.
The sea and seafood are what it's all about. That was evident from the moment
I arrived at Villefranche-sur-Mer, just along the coast, the night before.
Unfortunately, it was too late to find the fresh grilled fish I'd been
longing for, but not too late to climb the cobbled steps to the old town in
search of a pastis.
It's part of a ritual of mine: when I go to Italy, it's an espresso, but in
Provence, it's pastis. Although it was about 11pm and out of season, a small
restaurant that had been about to close served me a simple meal of cheese
and salad. Vive la France!
In the morning, I had only a few feet to walk to start getting my gastric
juices running as I anticipated the bouillabaisse. My hotel was right on the
scenic harbour and just over the road from the 14th-century chapel of St
Pierre that was decorated by French surrealist Jean Cocteau - also a
gastronome - in honour of the fishermen.
The avant-garde chapel is striking, with images showing scenes from St Peter's
life, candlesticks shaped as spears to catch sea creatures and even the
cross on the roof depicted by four fish.
Outside, I chatted to Villefranche's one surviving fisherman, Jean-Paul Rouy,
who was selling his small catch of the day - just a few red mullet, a
lobster, some mackerel, a scorpio fish and a big john dory. It didn't take
long before he sent me along the quay to visit his daughter's restaurant,
where he produced a photo album with shots of him in action.
Meeting characters like Rouy is part of what makes going to local markets in
France so much fun - as soon as you start talking with the stallholders,
they open up.
That's how I end up later, my finger dipped in a jar of something called
Bagnatrufa from Valentin Max's stall at the market in the pretty old town at
Nice. “It's my mother's recipe,” she tells me of the mixture of courgette,
tomato, olive oil, truffle and herbs that is perfect for pasta.
As I tour this wonderful market, where everything I find is locally made, I
meet fifth-generation producers, their hands gnarled and dirt ridden, and
get a quick lesson on making music with asparagus by rubbing two stalks
together. It's both a song and the truest test of freshness (only the French
would think about making music around freshness - they are truly obsessed
with food).
So am I - I can't resist touching food and tasting it, running my hand over
the texture of the spinach, and buying peas and strawberries for an
impromptu picnic.
Already in April there were strawberries in this privileged climate -
garigettes, which have an incredible taste, and mara des bois. Looking at
the market's magnitude and biodiversity, you can see how the French eat so
well.
At a stall bursting with colour, I add a selection of glazed fruit to my
purchases, a speciality from Nice, which really gives you an ooomph when you
eat it. Fruit isn't the only thing they crystallise in the region, as I find
when I head inland near Grasse.
At a small producer's called Florian, they also crystallise fresh flowers -
roses, violets, jasmine and the green leaves of vervaine. They're like my
grandmother's sweets. In Grasse you get the best perfume made from flowers,
while here, they work with roses as food.
If you like the perfume theme, my old friend Jacques Chibois works with
flowers at his two-star La Bastide Saint Antoine near by. “Perfumers and
chefs - it's the same thing,” he says. “In the past, flowers were used in
cuisine. Take rosemary, which is strong, but if you use the flowers, it's
delicate.” (How true for all flowers from culinary plants - the best I've
found is the rocket flower, with its peppery sweet receptacle.)
I really enjoy eating at his restaurant. He is a great master - this time, I
had a particularly wonderful camembert with a farci of truffle - and his
cellar holds some special Provençal wines, too. A little-known fact about
Provence is that there are some fantastic vin de garde (wine for laying
down) such as Château Rimauresq cuvée R, which I hadn't realised had so much
complexity. I wouldn't compare it with a premier grand cru such as a Mouton
Rothschild, but that could cost ten times more.
The problem with catching up with old friends who are chefs is that each wants
to spoil me by showing either their oldest classic dish or their newest
signature dish and you invariably end up having both. So I'm already feeling
it by the time another friend and chef, Stéphane Raimbault, picks me up for
lunch on my final day.
We head off to an old favourite - St Paul de Vence, a medieval village perched
on a rocky outcrop that attracted Matisse, Braque and Chagalle. Picasso was
also a visitor; he lived near by at Mougins. At one stage, I wanted to buy
his house for a small hotel and museum, but as is the case in life, some
things don't happen.
Over a pastis by the petanque grounds, we chat about how my two passions of
food and art are linked. The artists came for the light, and the food
happened to be just as glorious.
The Colombe d'Or is the best place to eat to feel this. It has a powerful
association with art which has had a huge impact on me at the Manoir. The
food is good and simple and the works of great artists, who over the decades
have paid for their meals in paintings, are scattered around the dining
room.
I love the quirkiness of it, the scale of the modern sculptures in the grounds
and where they are placed - just outside there's a thumb sculpture, and then
you turn your head and see a big fat dove statue sitting on the corner of
the roof (which inspired my 3.5m artichoke sculpture at the Manoir).
A meander through the village's cobbled streets and we're on the twisting road
into the mountains. There is real drama in the wonderful views near the
Gorges du Loup, where grey rock faces rise up starkly. It's only half an
hour between the beach and the mountains, as Stéphane reminds me with a
madcap ride back to the coast, because it's dinner time already.
This is something I'd gladly skip, I've been eating so much I feel like the
dove at the Colombe d'Or, except that we're going to eat in Stéphane's
restaurant, L'Oasis, near Cannes, which is French, but with Japanese
influences. I'm not remotely hungry until the oyster sushi with aquitaine
caviar - frozen juice of oysters and soy sauce - arrives. It is so good, it
leaves me wanting more. And when I spoon up the sea urchin soufflé, which is
creamy but has an iodine taste of the sea, I'm in ecstasy.
Raymond Blanc is chef-patron of Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Oxfordshire
and Brasserie Blanc
