It’s a cove on the Emerald Coast, revealed at the end of a dirt road that makes bikes bump, somewhere between Saint-Malo and the village of Lancieux. You can access it on condition that you keep the name quiet: “Welcome to our secret beach, a real marine garden! », comments Breton chef Adélaïde Perissel, planted up to her ankles in a puddle left by the tide.
Blue dungarees, scarf tied on the forehead and sardine bars in the bun, she gleans by hand the sea purslane and the salicornia which will come to slip into the hollow of the Sardines plates at the beach, her restaurant established a few turns away.
In the former first aid station on the beach of Saint-Sieu, Adélaïde (in the kitchen) and Grégory (in the service) Perissel opened their second address in 2018, after years at the helm of the very popular restaurant Les Deux Sardines, in the neighboring town of Saint-Briac-sur-Mer. With their toes in the sand, they have created a happy, epicurean, committed railing, banishing fuss. The regulars call it ” the shack “.
For decor, a large pontoon lined with wood, announced by hollow trunks planted with aromatic herbs and a slate warning that, at the Sardines, one undertakes to “be nice and benevolent”. On the terrace, wood, rattan, bouquets of seaweed and wild grass signed by the local florist.
On the tables, raw crockery modeled by Zoé Bernet, a young potter living in the central street of Lancieux, or by the chef herself who likes to put her hand to clay. Here, everything is played outside, the interior is eaten up by the bar and the micro-kitchen: we have lunch barefoot, we dine in little woolen clothes on the evenings when the mist reminds us of Brittany.
On the plates, the chef and her crew instinctively practice a bistronomy simmered with local products, catches of the day and vegetable finds. The Breton monkfish carpaccio is emboldened with a glycine vinegar and a beetroot cream with geranium, the mussels of the mouclade are slowly smoked in a bell jar, the peas are infused in buttermilk and the almond praline has earthy accents.
In the glasses, no sodas but organic or natural wines and drinks bottled a few kilometers away, to convince the most skeptical to get into the sparkling elderberry. For dessert, no ready-made ice cream but artisanal sorbets and fragrant buckwheat waffles, stars of the house. From 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., a venerable waffle iron swallows cans of batter, up to 60 liters on lucky days.
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