Farm Dining in France
Two traditions: the mountain ferme-auberge and the great kitchen garden
The kitchen garden, the herd, and a menu that can't be planned far ahead
- Duration
- A long lunch to two nights
- Season
- Ferme-auberges May to Oct; gardens best Jun to Sep
- Group
- 2 to 10
- Price band
- €€ to €€€€
France does farm dining in two registers and both belong here. The ferme-auberge is the old one, a working farm licensed to feed you what it raises, on the high pastures of the Vosges and Alsace or the causses of the Aveyron, where lunch is whatever the farm has and the cheese was made forty metres away. The other is the modern kitchen-garden restaurant, where a serious chef builds the menu outward from what the potager is doing that week, and the garden is not a decoration but the constraint.
What you'll do
- Eat on a working farm with a menu determined by the herd, the season and the weather
- Walk a potager with the person who plants it and see what's about to be picked
- Taste cheese at the age the maker prefers, which is rarely the age the shop sells it at
- Understand the marcaire meal of the Vosges, or the transhumance rhythm behind Aubrac and Laguiole
Pair it with
Champagne. Northern France in one loop, chalk to pasture.
Practical
Mountain ferme-auberges are seasonal and many close entirely in winter. Reservation is essential everywhere and most take cash. A car is required for nearly all of them.
Before you book
- Supply note: this listing needs named partners more than any other in the collection. Route in through the regional ferme-auberge associations and the Bienvenue à la Ferme network for the traditional side, and contract two or three kitchen-garden restaurants directly for the high end.
When it runs
Solid ochre marks peak months. Pale ochre marks months it runs in a quieter form.
