La Salamandre, Pauillac
On a frenzied wine tour through Bordeaux it’s nice to take a relaxing break for a long lunch, and you could do much worse than stop in Pauillac during your Medoc leg.
La Salamandre, looking out directly over the river is charming, top quality, well presented, and has a great wine list.
A glass of Sauternes with my foie gras du canard was only €3.50 and a half bottle of a superb Entre-Deux-Mers with my moules frites, €17.
The foie arrived with an unannounced buddy in the shape of a small glass of extremely fruity but nonetheless bone dry white wine. Both wines worked well but mine was obviously the better choice.
Moules frites, served in an ironically shell shaped dish, was fucking enormous. A big drain on my constitution, not just due to the sheer number of molluscs, but also the weight of the Poulette sauce.
The atmosphere is posh bistro, and the clientele on the July Saturday that I visited, almost exclusively French. Â I think this is because the English and American tourists prefer to snack for lunch whereas the French like to roll up their sleeves and properly exercise their jaws, both gastronomic and gossip muscles getting a solid two hour workout. Â Vive la France, eh!
For petit francophile moi, all of this makes a blend of components to equal Château Latour (also on the wine list but not at a price I can afford). But if you have even 1% of Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension, most of the first growths were represented at prices that more resembled retail UK, than City Banker rip-off.
L’addition was less than €30 per head.
While yourself away a couple of hours shooting the breeze over fantastic, but far from overpriced food, and a wine list to match. But only if you in a French frame of mind, and you have a couple of hours to burn.
La Salamandre
15-16, quai Léon Périer
33250 Pauillac
Bordeaux
France
T: +33 (0)5 56 59 24 87
W: www.lasalamandre-pauillac.com