Day 12: Michelin-Star Restaurant Degustation Lunch, Angers

Thurs 12 Sept 2024

Today is a big treat for us – a once in a lifetime experience – particularly for Dominique’s significant birthday earlier in the year. We have a degustation lunch at a Michelin-star star restaurant in Angers: Lait Thym Sel (Milk Thyme Salt).

Much more than a name, Lait Thym Sel is an experience summed up in these three words:
“LAIT” evokes gluttony, sweetness and comfort, a return to childhood where each flavor was a caress for the soul.
“THYM” embodies the fusion of flavors, creativity and pep, this aromatic and vegetal note.
Finally, “SEL” symbolizes the raw, the mineral, the intense concentration of tastes.

The restaurant has one Michelin Star for High Quality Cooking and a Michelin Green Star for Gastronomy & Sustainability. It is run by chef Gaëtan Morvan and Maître d’Hôtel Fanny Morvan and “serves up an atypical culinary experience in the form of a series of highly original courses that showcase ingredients from the region. Inventiveness, unexpected combinations (enhanced by spices from all over the world) … the culinary style sweeps you off your feet.”

“Our market gardener is located 50km from the restaurant. We work with fish from the Loire in season, sea fish from the nearby regions of Loire-Atlantique, Brittany or Normandy, and meat from the Pays de la Loire region. Artisanal bread and possibility to take away the bread not eaten to combat food waste. Nature and organic wine list. We are in the process of eliminating polystyrene crates.”— Gaëtan Morvan

It is a surprising experience in many ways. Firstly, we are booked for 12.15 and we turn up at the address to find a minimally marked door – which is locked with a sign to ring the bell to be admitted. We are greeted and led through a dark hallway into the restaurant. The restaurant itself is relatively dark but at the heart is a showcase kitchen fabulously lit by a large skylight window overhead. All of the food is assembled in full view by Gaëton and his team – a very calm environment.

The waiters and kitchen staff (apart from Gaëton and Fanny) are rather surprisingly dressed in corduroy dungarees. It appears that it is a fine food rather than a ‘fine dining’ experience – although to be fair it is an amazing dining experience. The service is something to behold with the waiters perfectly synchronised as they deliver food and drinks to the table – one person for each of us. And although three people deliver the food, seemingly without communication one (a different one each time) will stay to provide the explanation to us. They are all very friendly and much better at English than I am at French. The sommelier is a solo act but lives up to the high expectations as well.

We decide to go all out and choose the 9 course degustation menu with paired wine matches. We start with a special cocktail based on rosé wine with strawberry and floral flavours – and an assortment of ‘amuse bouche’ – before we even start the main menu. Overall it is an absolute delight to the senses with beautifully presented small portions (just as well) that provide layer upon layer of flavours. I tried several things that I haven’t previously liked and found them all to be delicious with the different flavour combinations. Some of the combinations are indeed surprising – but all superb.

And the wines didn’t disappoint either. We had small amounts of each wine so we were still upright and well-behaved at the end. They were all beautiful wines and very well matched. We even got to try a top Savennières wine from the region we drove through yesterday. The surprising combinations continued, for example, for one course we were served a double pairing of a rich buttery chardonnay along with a crisp fruity pear cider so that we could alternate between the two. Our last pairing was a little cocktail made with a local whisky-cream liqueur mixed with yellow Chartreuse (a herbal liqueur from France).

It was a magical 3.5 hour experience. We certainly felt replete at the end and struggled back up the hill for a nap afterwards. Dinner that night was prepared soup from the supermarket.