My wife and I visited Tours, France, for the weekend to visit the Loire Valley wine region, specifically AOC Vouvray and AOC Chinon. We arrived on Thursday night and left Sunday morning. We stayed in the center of the old town. Below are the best restaurants in Tours that we had time to discover.
Le Petit Patrimoine
I picked restaurant Le Petit Patrimoine for our first night because I was searching for “local” Lorie Valley cuisine. They market themselves as “Country Food Restaurant,” so I expected and experienced akin to an Italian trattoria. Imagine my surprise when we walked in and discovered a chic, trendy Lorie Valley restaurant.
Le Petit Patrimoine is small but mighty. They make trendy cocktails that everyone seems to order. My wife and I were not interested in cocktails but in the wine. So after selecting our meal, we selected a Lorie Valley light red wine from Chinon. AOC Chinon reds are made with Cabernet Franc and come in various styles, ranging from light to medium to full-bodied. We also ordered a medium Chinon. AOC Chinon red, drank a glass, and took the rest back to our Airbnb.
To begin with, we shared the “Tourangelle,” a pie filled with confit pork belly and local goat cheese. For the main course, my wife chose the butternut risotto with chestnuts and tarragon oil, while I ordered the steak with local goat cheese sauce. Both dishes were excellent.
For dessert, we shared the local cheese plate, which included four goat cheeses from the Lorie Valley, see the picture below.
After the cheese plate, we ordered and shared the brioche perdue topped with cacahuète praline, vanilla, and macadamia nut ice cream, because it looked so delicious as it passed by our table.
Ambiance and vibe: 4
Wine by the glass options: 4
Presentation and plating: 4
Yummy quotient: 4
Dessert quality: 5
Bonvivant365 score: 21
Address: 58 Rue Colbert, 37000 Tours
Phone: 02 47 66 05 81
Restaurant Les Arpents
Restaurant Les Arpents is not in Tours; it is in Amboise, but in my opinion, a must-try if you are in the area. They have a variety of menus from which to choose. My wife had the “Menu dijur” and I had the “Chef Surprise Menu.”
We each started with a glass of sparkling wine from the Lorie Valley and were served an aperitif: shortbread flavored with Breton curry and a red beetroot puree.
As an “amuse-bouche,” we were both served a tuna tartare with celery textures.
As a starter, I had squash in different textures (royal squash, spaghetti squash, squash pickles, and squash waffles).
As a main course, I was served beef and carrots, including roast hanger steak, confit beef cheek, confit carrots, and creamy carrot sauce, see the picture below.
And for dessert, our signature treat is our own lemon tart. See the picture below.
Ambiance and vibe: 4
Wine by the glass options: 4
Presentation and plating: 5
Yummy quotient: 5
Dessert quality: 5
Bonvivant365 score: 23
Address: 5 Rue d’Orange, 37400 Amboise
Phone: 02 36 20 92 44
https://restaurant-lesarpents.fr/
Les Halles de Tours
After lunch, my wife went home to take a nap, while I continued my culinary adventure at Les Halles de Tours. Les Halles de Tours is similar to the other market halls we have visited in France, except for Rouen, which is essentially just a fish store, a cheese shop, a small butchery, and a vegetable shop all under one roof.
I “bellied up” to the “Le Comptoir Saint Kerber,” oyster bar, and ordered six number 3 oysters, as they have sizes 2 and 3 available, see the picture below. In France, oysters are ranked from 000 to 6— the smaller the number, the larger the oyster. Oysters labeled as threes are considered medium-sized.
The oysters are sourced from an oyster farm in Cancale, located in the Brittany region of France, near the stunning Mont-Saint-Michel. Cancale oysters are renowned for their distinct salty hazelnut flavor, see the picture below.
In France, oysters are typically served with fresh bread and butter to complement the dish. When I tasted the butter, I instantly recognized it as Bordier Butter, a culinary icon from Brittany.
The unique terroir of the region greatly influences the flavor profile of the cream used to produce this butter. I asked the shop owner where I could find this butter in Tours, and he directed me to a nearby cheese shop just a few meters away.
I decided to buy all they had—seven blocks of Bordier Butter. As I write this post, I’m currently carrying them back with me on the train to Bordeaux.
Bollywood Masala
My wife didn’t want to go out for dinner since we had a big lunch at “Restaurant Les Arpents,” so I wandered our street in search of something to take away.
Rue Colbert, originally built to connect the old and new parts of Tours, is lined with a variety of cuisines, including French, Thai, Indian, Lebanese, Syrian, and even Napoleonic pizza, among others.
While exploring, I discovered Bollywood Masala, a small Indian restaurant. As soon as I walked in, the enticing aroma caught my attention, and I decided to order two dishes: a shrimp curry and a lamb curry, along with basmati rice and garlic naan. I requested both curries to be made extra hot, see the picture below.
When I brought the dishes home, they turned out to be just what I needed. Both curries were perfectly balanced with the right blend of spices, texture, and body. I drank Vouvary sparkling wine with the food, which provided a welcome change from French cuisine.
52 Rue Colbert, 37000 Tours
02 47 66 01 10
La Table Ronde
We spent the entire day in Vouvray and Chinon, exploring these two wine appellations. It was a long day, and since we were leaving early this morning (I’m currently on the train from Tours to Bordeaux as I write this post), my wife preferred not to go far from our Airbnb. I found La Table Ronde located just 1 minute from our Airbnb front door. At the time of this post, Google gives it a rating of 4.8 and TripAdvisor a 4.7, so I decided to give it a try.
To start, we ordered the “Egg mayonnaise with miso served on a bed of tomato tartare and Iberian cebo ham.”
For the main course, my wife chose the “Yellow chicken in puff pastry with truffle, accompanied by peas, chanterelles, baby potatoes, and morel sauce.” The yellow chicken gets its vibrant skin and meat color from being fed corn, whereas white chickens are typically fed wheat and cereals (French: Un poulet jaune ou un poulet blanc), see the picture below.
The dish was beautifully presented, see the picture above. However, the “truffles” turned out to be “truffle oil.” We couldn’t determine whether the truffle oil used was derived from real truffles or was synthetic. Most truffle oil is not actually made from truffles; instead, its primary ingredient is often a chemical created in a laboratory to mimic the aroma of truffles, specifically synthetic 2,4-dithiapentane. Regardless, the dish would have been better without the truffle oil.
I ordered the “Beef Filet à la Normande” for my main course, which was served with café de Paris butter, pepper sauce, homemade fries, and an arugula salad with Parmesan. Traditional Normandy beef comes from castrated male cattle of the Normandy breed, aged between 30 and 48 months. The steak was incredibly tender, the sauce was average, and the fries were soggy.
For dessert, we shared the chees plate.
Ambiance and vibe: 2
Wine by the glass options: 3
Presentation and plating: 4
Yummy quotient: 3
Dessert quality: 3
Bonvivant365 score: 15
Address: 126 Rue Colbert, 37000 Tours
Phone: 02 47 64 25 88
https://latableronde37.eatbu.com/?lang=en