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Best Charente/Vendée Restaurants... Eating out is a part of the French way of life.   Don’t have a holiday in France without a meal in a French restaurant!  Although there are many unusual French foods (frogs legs, snails, tête de veau etc.) you will find many foods that are a true delight!  The Charente/Vendée have some fantastic restaurants to choose from.
Which restaurant?  Try to find a restaurant that is targeted at French diners (French menus are a good clue!).  Don’t expect to find a fantastic restaurant in the major tourist destinations - here we would recommend something safe and straightforward such as pizza, crêpes etc..
Which time?  It’s often cheaper to eat at lunchtime and during the week.  Sunday lunch is always busy and it pays to book ahead.  In the evenings, don’t arrive too early - 7.30PM is often the earliest you can get served.
Which menu?  Don’t go for à la carte options.  Usually they have the same options as the menu prix fixe and they cost a lot more!  Avoid Menu Touristique like the plague!
 Which wine?  Wine can be quite expensive if you go for named bottles.  But carafes of house white or red wine have usually been exquisitely selected by the restauranteur and are excellent value.  Refer to our wine section for more advice on wines in France.

 Our favourite restaurants in the Charente/Vendée:

    - Auberge de la Court d'Aron
   - Les Chermettes
   - L'Essile
   - Maison Karina
   - Auberge du Moulin
   - Hostellerie du Perigord
   - Pizza Rico
   - Auberge Pontoise
   - Au Fil des Saisons
   - Les 4 Sergents

Let us have your feedback on any you can recommend.

Maison Karina
Les Métairies
16200 Jarnac
(0)5 45 36 26 26

 

Located 4km north of Jarnac, just off D736 in the tiny hamlet of Les Métairies is this hotel with a restaurant open to non-residents. The owners are British, so if you prefer a meal out where language is no problem then this may be somewhere to take the family. We visited with a party of 16 one lunchtime and had the whole restaurant to ourselves. The food and service were first class and over aperitifs we learned how to make our own version of the local drink – Pineau des Charentes (approx one measure of Cognac to five of chilled white grape juice – delicious). Children’s meals are €10 with adult meals ranging from €25-€40. Perhaps foolishly(?) we rounded off our day with a visit to Rèmy Martin which the ever obliging owner of Hotel Karina arranged for us.
Characteristic of Charente/Vendée restaurants and food:

Being very much a maritime region, seafood restaurants proliferate in the Charente/Vendée area, not only along the coast itself but also on the many islands off to the west –  of which Noirmoutier, Ile de Ré and Ile d’Oléron are the largest. Each town will have many such restaurants along the sea-front/harbour and if you are simply after sampling some freshly caught ‘fruits de mer’,  moules-frites,  the regional speciality ‘mouclade’ (mussels in white wine), or oysters from Marennes-Oléron you can’t really go wrong. Over the years we have enjoyed such meals in the small port of La Cotinière on the western side of the Ile d’Oleron; overlooking the incredibly beautiful harbour in St Martin de Ré (on the Ile de Ré); likewise in La Rochelle and further south at St Georges de Didonne and finally in Talmont. Don’t worry - if you have non-fish lovers amongst your party most restaurants will offer a non-fish alternative.
On a more general food note, the marshes in the north of the region produce many specialities including marsh-reared lamb with its unique flavour, eels, ‘mojhettes’  which are a type of white haricot beans, frog’s legs and snails, all of which are worth sampling. Further south the butter of Echiré and Surgères is worth seeking out, and remembering that the area has a particularly high sunshine rate the melons are especially juicy.
External websites offering information on Charente/Vendée restaurants:

- Angela Bird's Vendée pages - not only restaurants, but lots more information besides.		 A splendid set of books on eating out in France is written by Richard Binns.  French Leave Encore has travel advice with details of hotels and restaurant recommendations.  French Leave Finesse contains purely restaurant recommendations.