Having intended a day of pre-Christmas shopping with a visit to the Raphael exhibition at the Palais des Beaux Arts.T his plan changed during post-5AS conversation into a full blown Day Out in Lille.

So I was lucky to get the shopping in before lunch, Raphael will have to wait. Booking involved a tense exchange over the telephone (not even my preferred means of conversation in English) with the confirmation on trust. Fortunately the table was ready and I got a G&T while our team assembled.

The room is wonderful. A real bourgeois dining room, straight out of Au Renoir les Enfants. Only without the Nazis. I think. Picture a less Parisian Voltaire (as it used to be), with similarly formal, though slightly less charming, service.

The food offer is classic French so I went for salmon up front and confit de canard for main. The canard was excellent and four of us at table meant we could get a bottle of white up front followed by a beefy Côtes du Rhône with mains. A sprinkling of sides and we were all very jolly old bastards tumbling into the afternoon.

8/10

To see where else I’ve been click on the google map below.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/embed?mid=18qCyiPZih_gzhGG8mwfacnNRWD3b0bo&ehbc=2E312F

Art Food France Food lille