Home Sweet Maison

When Lucia Watson, chef and owner of Lucia’s Restaurant in Minneapolis, wants to get away, she heads to Tréguier, a tiny village on the Côte de Granit Rose in Brittany in northwestern France. It is here, an area known for its rugged pink-hued granite coastlines, tranquil beaches, fertile farms, and mysterious moorlands, that Watson and her friends Mary Feidt and Eddie Lewis have found their maison-away-from-home.

Brittany is due west of Paris on a spit of land that juts out into the English Channel. Of all the country’s provinces, it is the least “French.” Fiercely independent, spirited, and loyal to their families and traditions, Bretons share the Celtic heritage of Ireland, Wales, and Normandy. It wasn’t until the fifteenth century that Brittany officially became part of France, an alliance that remains uneasy to this day. Road signs are in Breton (a Celtic dialect) as well as French; Roman ruins and aqueducts are tucked into the far hills; and menhirs, tumuli, and dolmens—giant stone monoliths erected between 4500 and 2000 BCE—dot the landscape. The clear, soft light drew Gauguin and fellow painters of the Pont-Aven School, and later Picasso and Matisse. And, as in Ireland or on the coast of Britain, it’s never too hot, the nights are always cool, and there are no bugs.

Brittany is a food lover’s paradise. In the great salt marshes of the Guerande peninsula, the famous fleur du sel (sea salt) is harvested, and the surrounding bays and estuaries are plumbed for oysters, scallops, shrimp, mussels, and langoustines. In its rich soil grow artichokes, leeks, lettuces, potatoes, and cauliflower, as well as sweet grasses for grazing the cattle, goat, and sheep that produce Brittany’s distinct milk, butter, cheeses, and lait ribot (buttermilk).

Designated a Cité de Caractère (city of character) by the French government, the sixth-century walled city of Tréguier is a port for sailboats, small fishing vessels, and yachts from around the world. Located on the Jaudy River, it grew up around a monastery and served as a capital for the Trégor region. La Cathédrale Saint-Tugdual, built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, stands above the city and is a masterpiece of Breton religious Gothic architecture with a magnificent cloister of forty-eight arches and three spires. It houses the tomb of St. Yves, the patron of lawyers, known for his honesty and defending the poor and outcast. The town’s maisons à colombage (brightly painted houses of wood beams and plaster) from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and hôtels particuliers en granit (residences constructed of granite) from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are fine examples of the region’s character and style.

Watson, Feidt, and Lewis discovered their home in Tréguier thanks to Lewis’s brother, a Washington, DC, resident who owns the home next door. He became smitten with the area twenty years ago and called his brother when the property became available.

Maison de Granit, Watson’s home, is a maison, or town house, while Eddie’s brother’s is a manoir, a slightly larger house with a tower. Located fifty yards from the port, and steps away from the stone towers of the city walls, the traditional structure was built in stages beginning in the fifteenth century. It’s constructed of thick stone walls to keep out the Atlantic storms that ravage the coasts, and the attic is made from enormous wooden beams that are numbered and notched. Each of the ten rooms has its own fireplace. The home’s lovely back gardens, framed by stone walls, provide privacy, quiet, and the perfect place to read or listen to the cathedral bells that chime each quarter hour, as they have for centuries.

In remodeling and updating the building, the homeowners created two separate houses that can be made into one by opening interior connecting doors. Each half of the house has its own bathrooms and full kitchen, outfitted with Euro-sleek appliances. A mixture of centuries, Maison de Granit offers modern-day conveniences, including digital Internet service, amid handsome French antiques.

In Brittany, as in all of France, food is a serious topic. Each town has a weekly market with live chickens, artichokes (as tiny as golf balls or big as softballs), homemade cassis jam, caramels, fresh seafood, and lovely handmade Breton lace. The most popular purveyors travel from market to market—Watson’s favorites are those who sell cheese and sausage. The cheese truck offers a selection of more than 200 cheeses from all over France, and before a customer makes a purchase, the purveyor asks when the cheese will be served, to insure its ripeness and flavor.

Wednesday is market day in Tréguier. After a morning of shopping, Watson buys lunch from a market stall, perhaps sausage, potatoes, and apples sizzled with hard cider and finished with salt and rosemary, or a traditional galette de Breton—a thin, savory buckwheat crepe, the size of a large pizza, that’s cooked on a round griddle, filled with mushrooms, spinach, or seafood, and served in a paper cone. For dessert, who can resist a traditional crepe, laden with chocolate, apples, ice cream, or jam?

“Everything is so very fresh,” says Watson of the market food. “The artichokes are picked and the oysters harvested the day you buy them. I’d hardly call making dinner cooking. Everything just tastes naturally good. On a summer night, when it stays light until eleven, we linger over supper in the garden. But during those dark winter months, we huddle near the fire for casual dining. Come morning, we run across the street to the bakery for fresh croissants in our PJs while the coffee is brewing.”
In addition to the weekly market, Tréguier has several crepe restaurants and patisseries, as well as a butcher shop, bakery, and tiny fish store, where you can order a platter of oysters and pick them up later, semishucked and on a tray of ice.

For supper at Maison de Granit, Watson might prepare fresh oysters with lemon, boiled artichokes with butter, and chicken roasted in cider with potatoes and a salad, followed by a cheese course—a must—and finally, an apple tart or chocolate mousse for dessert.

Apples are Brittany’s staple—they fill crepes, tarts, and other desserts, are braised in meat dishes and stews, and are the source of the famous hard cider everyone drinks at lunch. They’re also the main ingredient in pommeau, a mildly sweet apéritif that’s sipped before a meal, and eau de vie, an apple brandy consumed after a meal (Normandy has a similar spirit, calvados). “We finish every supper with eau de vie,” Watson says, “especially in winter, to take off the chill."

The best way to see Brittany is on foot, bike, or horseback, and its 800 miles of coastal paths offer a variety of terrain. The rugged coastline has thousands of inlets, which made it a prime area for illegal landings and smuggled goods in the mid-1800s. Soldiers and customs officers walked these paths day and night to protect the area. Now they are protected sites, developed for walkers and hikers, with clear markings and detailed information.

The numerous coastal islands offer plenty of opportunities for exploration. Île de Bréhat, a charming island with a picturesque lighthouse, is a short ferry ride from the mainland. Walk the six-mile trail and take in a puppet show in the tiny town. The Sept-Îles archipelago is a well-known bird sanctuary, where the rare Atlantic puffin struts its plumage.

Brittany’s beaches are also great for walking, but beware the legendary tides, which are so dramatic the beaches can expand from a quarter mile to three miles wide, depending on the moon. In the summer, sunbathers flaunt bright beach umbrellas and candy-striped chairs while the brave plunge into the invigorating cold water.

Brittany also offers plenty of opportunities for relaxation. The area’s gardens are lush with roses, palm trees, and thick hedges of rosemary and hortensia, an enormous many-colored hydrangea. Formal gardens, including the one across the river from Watson’s home, offer glorious respite. The region is also the birthplace of thalassotherapy, a type of spa treatment using the ocean’s brine and sand. The town of Perros-Guirec has a renowned thalassotherapy center, as well as heavenly beaches surrounded by rose-hued granite rock formations.

NEED TO KNOW * Getting There: Northwest Airlines flies to Paris via Detroit or London. From Paris, book a TGV train ticket for a three-hour trip to Guingamp. Rent a car and drive twenty minutes to Tréguier. * Where to Stay: Maison de Granit can be rented for a minimum of six nights. Other furnished houses and apartments can be rented through Gîtes de France. Full-service housing is available in nearby Paimpol through Le Relais Brenner. * Where to Eat: For breakfast, pick up croissants and pain au chocolat from one of Tréguier’s several patisseries. For lunch, the crepes at the outdoor markets are a must. In addition to Tréguier’s bustling market, visit the ones in Lannion and Paimpol. For a more formal meal, check out Auberge du Trégor, a lovely family restaurant in Tréguier. * What to Do: Not too far a drive from Tréguier, Saint-Malo is a gorgeous sixteenth-century town of charming walls and trellises where the tides gallop in and out. Throughout the year, the little towns along the coast host festivals celebrating their gastronomic specialties. Most recently, Watson took in the market at Saint-Quay–Portrieux, known for its scallops and its Fête de la Coquille Saint-Jacques (April 14–15). The city of Carnac displays some of the greatest vestiges of megalithic artifacts, offering a glimpse into ancient rituals, ceremonies, and astronomy. * Resources: Check out brittanytourism.com. Once in Brittany, stop at the tourism office for information about the towns’ market days, festivals, walking tours, museum hours, and anything else of interest.

Beth Dooley is a Twin Cities writer and coauthored the cookbook Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland with Lucia Watson.