Talvern

My wife and I stayed in Talvern for five nights and had the most memorable stay of my last five trips to France. Talvern is a B and B in the South of Brittany situated in an idyllic restored Brittany stone farm house with charming ambience and exquisite food. This is really the ideal place to stay while exploring the region. The owners, Patrick and Christine were so absolutely wonderful despite our terrible French! Both speak wonderful English and Christine teaches English in the nearby histo...

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My wife and I stayed in Talvern for five nights and had the most memorable stay of my last five trips to France. Talvern is a B and B in the South of Brittany situated in an idyllic restored Brittany stone farm house with charming ambience and exquisite food. This is really the ideal place to stay while exploring the region. The owners, Patrick and Christine were so absolutely wonderful despite our terrible French! Both speak wonderful English and Christine teaches English in the nearby historic city of Auray. The rooms were fantastic and reasonably priced. All the rooms were renovated to luxurious standards, but retained the charm of the farm house that once served the neighboring Chateaux. The rooms had wonderful details like exposed wood beams and stone. We stayed in a very lovely two room suite with an additional spacious bathroom that was very modern and sophisticated, but complemented the charm of our rooms. Our room looked out over the front gardens and we awoke each morning to the view of the sun rising over the neighboring farms! But by far the meals were the best part of the stay, as we discuss below! It was ideal to come back to the B and B every night for the exquisite dinner. This was so much better than hunting around at the end of a long day for a restaurant. We were able to relax in the lovely gardens of the B and B and be rested before dinner.

The B and B is centrally located near many fascinating and wonderful sights easily reached by car-- the medieval city of Vannes, ruggedly spectacular coastline (the Cote Sauvage), the charming town of Pont Aven where Gaugin painted, the Bay of Morbihan, which is ringed by beautiful coastal villages and boat rides to islands in the bay (such as the Isle de Moines) and many neolithic sites with fascinating arrays of large standing stones. We also loved the little town of Rochefort-en-Terre with cobbled stoned streets and squares brimming with summer flowers from every window. The weather is especially good in South Brittany and friends of ours from France advised us that, for this reason, this region is very popular with the French and other Europeans for vacations.

Patrick is a world-class Chef from Paris (he was the head chef for many years at the renowned Laperouse in Paris where you wait months to get a reservation). How amazing it was to be able one of 12 lucky guests every day for whom he prepared breakfast and dinner! Breakfast always included the mouth-watering jams made by Christine. Patrick would surprise us with little treats from the kitchen, like his homemade Financier (rich sweet little breakfast cakes laced with butter!)

The dinners were especially fantastic, all based around the fresh fruits and vegetables from the garden and wonderful wines selected by Patrick. We would barely eat all day just to save room for his amazing dinners. Each meal started with the guests gathering in the dining room for a glass of Brittany cider and conversation about the adventures of the day. Then we would all sit together at one long table in the former farm house kitchen. Patrick served three course meals that focused on the regional and country cooking of France. Appetizers, for example, included chilled tomato soup with fresh herbs, terrine of venison, a clafouti (a rich tart) of zucchini and local goat cheese, Main courses included succulent pork in a creme sauce with sorrel, marlin seasoned with fresh oregano and coriander on a bed of polenta, and a hearty fish "pie" of cod and whipped potatoes that was the most amazing comfort food imaginable! Desserts included a carmelized custard tart of nectarines, a mouth-watering fruit cobbler, and a rich buttery cake from Brittany with sweet succulent prunes.

We must emphasize how wonderfully kind and thoughtful Patrick was for all his guests’ dietary concerns. My wife is allergic to gluten and lactose- which is a tough problem in France, but never for Patrick! He always made sure that she felt as pampered as the other guests with foods that she totally enjoyed. One guest reminded Patrick one night that she was allergic to the shellfish he was serving. No problem for a world-class chef! Five minutes later, out of the kitchen came a piece of salmon with rice in a lovely sauce!

Certainly, the most wonderful was that both Patrick and Christine were so personable and genuinely interested in creating a community for their guests. Each morning at breakfast they would engage in conversation and pull out maps and personal experiences of Brittany to help each of us consider what we’d do that day and at night they would welcome everyone back and engage in after-dinner discussions of the meal, and the experiences everyone had. When we left, we had already made life-long new friends and one dear man from Belgium was in tears as we departed. We will certainly return to Talvern.

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