Saturdays, from 8am

Market day

Chauvigny gets up early on a Saturday. Over 120 stallholders set up across the town centre, and the market square starts twenty-five metres from our door. We open at 8am that day, an hour and a half earlier than the rest of the week: the coffee before the shopping, the pause after, and the full bags you finally get to put down.

The pavement board, Chez Colette in Chauvigny — The board goes out before the customers do, every morning.

Saturday at a glance

The big market: Saturday morning, in the heart of town. Over 120 traders and their produce, one of the most important markets in the department.
The small markets: Tuesday and Thursday morning, food only: local growers, and nothing else.
Us, on a Saturday: Open from 8am, inside or on the terrace.
Breakfast: 9 €, served at your table: a hot drink, a pastry, bread with butter and jam, and fruit juice.
Lunch on Saturday: No set menu: proper plates, boards and dishes to share, from 11am.

Saturday breakfast

Nine euros, served at your table. A hot drink of your choice: coffee, hot chocolate or tea. A croissant, bread with butter and jam, and a fruit juice to finish waking you up. That is all of it, and it is enough to face a morning of shopping.

We are not about to claim we are the only ones open at that hour: the bakeries in the centre raise their shutters before we do, and they are very good at what they do. The difference lies elsewhere. There, you leave with the croissant in your hand; here, you sit down, the tray comes to you, and you stay as long as you like.

Inside if the weather says so, on the terrace otherwise - which is the right seat for watching the market go up before you walk into it. As for pastries, the tray carries a croissant and nothing else: we are not a patisserie, we are a restaurant.

A coffee and its biscuit, Chez Colette in Chauvigny — The coffee arrives with its biscuit. The gilded spoon is the restaurant's doing.

The market in Chauvigny

The market is held in the heart of town every Saturday morning, and it is a big one: over 120 traders gather to offer their produce, making it one of the most important markets in the department. People come from all over the Chauvigny country and well beyond - Poitiers is only 23 kilometres away. It is the morning the town doubles in size, when you run into your neighbours between two stalls and it takes twenty minutes to cover a hundred metres.

Growers, cheesemongers, butchers, fishmongers, local producers and traders, but also clothes, plants, tools and bric-a-brac: Saturday is the full market, not just the food, and there is plenty to discover even if you buy nothing. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings it comes back smaller and food only - the same growers, whose produce turns up on the plate at lunch.

We shop there too, of course. Some of what gets cooked here comes from three streets away, and that is not a figure of speech: the morning market decides what we serve at lunch the following week.

After the shopping, bags down

This is the moment nobody plans for and everybody needs. The bags are full, it is already warm, and there is an hour to go before lunch becomes a question. We keep room for that.

The terrace opens onto the square, under the lime trees. A drink, a coffee, a cold beer, the bags wedged under the table: nobody will ask you to free it up for the service. On a Saturday, as it happens, there is no service to free it up for - see below.

The terrace laid out under the lime trees, Chez Colette
in Chauvigny — Laid early, before the square fills up.

At noon, we share

Saturday is the one day without a lunch set menu. The kitchen switches to sharing from 11am, and let us be clear: this is not grazing. Proper plates, boards, dishes you put in the middle of the table and order as you go, with no need to choose between a starter and a main. You sit down when you like, you leave when you like, and you leave having eaten.

That is deliberate. On market day nobody turns up at noon sharp and nobody holds a service to two hours: people pass, come back, linger. Sharing follows that rhythm; a set menu does not. The produce is what we saw on the stalls that morning, there is plenty to taste between several of you, and it is the same cooking as in the evening, served earlier.

One detail that matters on market day: where many restaurants in the centre shut their doors between lunch and dinner, we stay open right through on a Saturday, from 8am until the evening. You do not have to plan your shopping around a service.

One piece of advice all the same: in a group, on a Saturday, call ahead. It is our best day of the week, and it is also the one where the terrace fills up fastest.

Tuesday and Thursday

The market is not only a Saturday thing. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings it comes back as a food market: smaller, quicker, and quieter with it. We open at 9.30am on those days, and the lunch set menu is very much there: starter, main, dessert, at the table or to take away when the break is too short to sit down. The menu follows the morning market, so it changes every week.

Those are the mornings we prefer for doing the shopping in peace: the same growers and the same produce as Saturday, without the elbowing. Over the year-end holidays, several truffle markets set up as well under the arcades of the town hall. Those have their own dates, announced by the town hall each year.

If you are here for the day, the medieval city and its five castles sit directly above us. We have written down how long each visit takes, and when to eat in the middle of it.