September 27-29

Bastide de Capelongue, Bonnieux.

A few weeks before we left on our trip we had dinner with friends Richard and Susan, who had traveled through Provence a few years before. When we asked if they had any advice for us, they asked (in wondrous tones) if we liked to eat. Since we were all devouring lobsters at the time, we answered -- with butter dripping from our chins -- um, yes? They told us about a hotel and restaurant they had stayed at in Bonnieux, the Bastide de Capelongue. And even better, they told us about an auction website where we could bid on a 3 or 5 day stay.

So we did.

We arrived at Bonnieux late in the late afternoon. It was a warm day, and we were quite tired from the frenzied touring of the previous days, and the long trip from Nice through the Gorge du Verdun. We checked in, and found everything as Richard and Susan had said -- a lovely hotel, beautiful and comfortable room, and food unlike anything we had every enjoyed before.


One of the indoor dining areas.


The lower bunk is our room. We could hop over the low wall and walk through the grounds, including the two fig trees nearby in case snacks were required.

I do have photos of our room, but they are temporarily MIA -- that's what happens when you have 2 cameras and switch back and forth for various reasons, and switch memory chips for various reasons, and you haven't reset the clock, so they think it is either another day or another hemisphere. So -- I'll add the interior photos when I find them....

Meanwhile...

The breakfast buffet -- everything from the usual breads and croissants, pain de chocolate, brioche and muffins, to fruits, compotes, ham and prosciutto.

The terrace where aperitifs and hors d'oeuvres were served before dinner.

So here is a rundown of our three extravagant dinners, from my notes. First, though, a few observations. I took no photos. The going rate for dinner for the non-auction-enlightened diners was 250 euros, about $325-340, before beverages. So I did not think it was appropriate to take photos while those at the next table were dropping at least $650 and probably more like $1000 for dinner.

Those of us on the "prix fixe" plan were given menus of four courses or so (even though you will see, we were served many more than that). Others were shown larger menus and apparently had some choice, and more courses.

And it was intimidating. Those of us who, when dining, are often asked if we want fries with that, are unused to the extravagance and complexities of such meals. (If, in fact, "meals" is a fair description.) We're not exactly rubes, but we were given implements more than once that we could not identify or figure out how to use.

Finally, we were intrigued by the other diners, some of which were not hotel guests who happened by for a leisurely bite, and a table of Romanians or some such whose only common language with the wait staff was English. They were served a dish we could not see well but appeared to be scrambled eggs, which required the truffle master -- or whatever he is called -- to approach with a large glass jar of truffles on a bed of rosemary and sage, select one and shave the entire truffle on the diners' plates. All I wanted was a sniff, but asking -- or getting caught trying -- would have been tackier than I was willing to risk. We also overheard a Chinese couple with no French at all trying to figure out what they were being served; as Tom said, try to figure out how they ended up in the French Provencal countryside eating food so foreign to them.

Dinner #1 started with appetizers on the terrace. One was a plate of crudites we would have each night, with carrots, cauliflower and radishes together with a scoop of a creamy, smooth mixture with anchovies, but not an anchoiade. Once we were at our table, we were served our first course, two quail eggs enveloped in a beefy foam. Next came carrots three ways -- steamed (or perhaps sous vide?), pureed and sauced, along with a shot of warm carrot juice. Our "pause" was squash soup with an almond garnish. Then the main course -- a potato gratin and rack of lamb, actually three thin chops served after presentation of the roasting casserole where an entire rack was resting on a bed of rosemary. (We saw this same presentation each night, so I began to wonder if they kept a rack in the casserole just for show!) The next course was a lightly crusted and quick fried fig resting in a warm grapefruit soup, and a tiny jasmine creme brulee. Instead of the fig, Tom had four tiny scoops of sorbet -- strawberry flavored with thyme, lime flavored with sage, celery with fennel, and cantaloupe. Then on to the desserts: cider souffles served in copper saucepans with scoops of ginger ice cream and sugared nuts on top and a giant tuile, followed by a plate of 5 kinds of tiny cookies and marshmallow lollipops. My favorite cookie was no bigger than a nickel, with a fresh raspberry on top, open side up -- the raspberry filled with raspberry syrup.

Dinner #2 began with the anchovy mixture and crudites, plus potato soup with meatballs encrusted with nuts. The first course was mussels persiad, followed by a creamy escargot soup covered with a green, citrusy and salty foam. (The escargots were different from any others we have ever had -- they were large, meaty and very tender, an actual food, as opposed to the rubbery lumps we have had before.) Next was a spinach souffle with three lovely green, herby sauces, served with a "salad" -- a single leaf of lettuce with a drop of vinegar -- and roasted giroffle mushrooms. The "pause" was celery sorbet infused with parsley and pepper. Our main course was beef en croute with a herb spread, with a sauce like a bordelaise but not, potatoes dauphinoise and a green herb salad. My dessert came in three courses: a chocolate soup with floating island and ice cream on top, a lava cake with whipped cream, and another plate of tiny cookies and marshmallow lollipops. Tom had exchanged his sweet dessert for a cheese course,so the enormous cheese cart was ceremonially wheeled across the room for him to choose the four most interesting.

Dinner #3 started with the familiar anchovy spread and crudites, and a first course of melon in a balsamic soup infused with lavender, followed by a crab cake plate with a tiny crab cake, a crab sandwich, one tiny fried octopus, and baby eggplant. We had a repeat of the squash soup as our"pause" before the main course of fish in a creamy white sauce with vegetables steamed with sage. Tom repeated his cheese course while I had three dessert courses yet again -- grapefruit confit with grapefruit sections and grapefruit sorbet, a cup of eucalyptus ice cream with jasmine creme brulee, and a chocolate meringue consisting of a chocolate cookie topped with white cream, topped by chocolate truffles infused with lavender and thyme. and creme anglaise.

For some reason I am hungry, so I'll just go and have some lunch before working on the next post -- what we did in Bonnieux other than eat.