I don’t always eat in caves, but when I do, I like to make sure it is in the Loire Valley. Because as disturbing as it is to walk over 60 seconds straight into the earth, the feast that lays within is worth it.
The Loire Valley has a number of restaurants in caves because of the “Troglodytes” or people who used to use their environment to its fullest potential by making their homes out of digging into the slopes and rock faces of the landscape. As recent as the 1930s’ people and animals would live together in communities in these natural dwellings for a number of reasons. The first from what I have gleamed is that the caves provided protection from the elements and a comfortable, consistent temperature no matter the season (although I found them to be quite cold).
Today the caves house wine cellars, cultivate mushrooms, and host special restaurants like the one I went to in la Cave Aux Moins.
Firstly, before coming to this restaurant, I had heard that it was a mushroom wonderland. At the risk of being too keen on fungi, I dare say it was. This was my first experience with a restaurant that valued mushrooms the way I think they should be valued. For while mushrooms are quite the supporting player to any dish, really good mushrooms like Champignon de Paris (curiously not from Paris), pleurote, pied bleu and the shi-také mushrooms homegrown in Cave Aux Moins deserve all the glory. Our first course included a galipette, which is a large mushroom stuffed with rilettes and a oyster mushroom served with garlic cream. Both were hearty and delicious like I believe every mushroom can be.
The next thing to come out was the fouace, or “special hot bread” as it was constantly translated into English. It was almost as much of a pleasure to watch the bakers shove the fouace in and out of the furnace from our table as it was to take one, fresh and warm, from the basket the waiters would carry around to each table every few minutes. And there is nothing that comes close to eating that warm pillow of bread or cutting it open and filling it like a pita with salted butter, mogettes (white beans), rilettes, or mushrooms. Always curious, I tried everything but as you could imagine, I spent most of my time loading my fouace with mushrooms.
Naturally, local wines were also served throughout dinner and before dessert and coffee there was also cheese – brie melted onto more of that special fouace.
All I will say is that when I finally emerged from the cave, leaving the aromas and the warmth of the age-old fire oven behind, I felt the need to explain to my French companion the meaning of “food coma.”
