Dining at the Oldest Restaurant in France

Rouen is one of those French cities that I could keep coming back to. The historical significance and the charm of its half-timbered buildings make it one of my favorite stops in my travels. No need to visit any museums or churches, I’m perfectly fine just walking around and soaking it in. This charming city, immortalized by Joan of Arc’s martyrdom and Claude Monet’s masterpieces holds a special place in my family’s heart. Rouen is where my future wife and I first experienced a real French dinner in one of the oldest restaurants in Europe.

We arrived in Rouen in mid-August of 2001 after exploring Paris for about a week. We planned to make our way into Normandy to visit Mont Saint Michele. Rouen was a place the two of us were both interested in visiting for the story of Joan of Arc. Danielle was already pretty deep in her study of monastic life and I also wanted to see the effigy tomb of Richard the Lionheart’s…heart, located in the Cathedral.

Who doesn’t love half-timbered houses? I love how Rouen is a mix of new and old, how you can walk past a modern looking bank and then around the corner you are in the High Middle Ages. France in general is great for window shopping, but in Rouen, the historic buildings often house modern boutiques and fast food joints on the first floor. In one of these shops, Danielle fell in love with these French sneakers that were really popular over there in 2001. To me they looked like uncomfortable old bowling shoes from the 1910s, but she tried on a pair and I’m pretty sure she still owns them today.

Eating on the Cheap

Contrary to popular opinion, you can’t live on cheese and baguettes for weeks at a time. On my past trip in 1996 I did visit a French restaurant but stuck to appetizers and wine. On this trip with Danielle, it’s not like we didn’t eat in French restaurants, we just kept to the cheaper entrees and lots of free bread. This is when Danielle discovered her love for omelette frites. Funny how adding fries easily turns breakfast into a pretty good dinner.

However we found even cheaper eats in France in the form of Turkish street pizza, Syrian couscous, and a variety of pressed sandwiches. I discovered the cheap and sinfully good “Grec” sandwich – the French equivalent to the Doner Kebab. Danielle had eaten cheese sandwiches for the last two meals while I continued my Grec addiction in Rouen, scarfing one down before we headed to a lively bar for some drinks.

Drinking with Rouen Locals

On this warm summer evening among Rouen’s historic buildings we found a place that had outdoor seating and ordered some drinks. We originally sat by ourselves but when ordering another round at the bar I met a local couple: Mathilde and Cyrille. They heard me speaking English and we introduced ourselves before I invited them to our table outside.

We talked until after midnight and covered a lot of ground. From the Bush administration (this is almost a month before the events of 9/11), unemployment, favorite sitcoms, and of course food. They were aghast at some of our cheap food choices and insisted that we don’t leave Normandy without trying real French food. To this day we both remember Mathilde’s humorous admonishment:

“It is not a meal unless you need a knife and fork.”

Oldest Restaurant in France – La Couronne

The following day we took in the sights before finding our restaurant in the historic Place du Vieux Marché, famous as the sight of Joan of Arc’s execution. Thanks to Google StreetView I was able to revisit where we ate: The legendary La Couronne. The establishment has been around since the 14th century, originally as an inn, and today it is the oldest restaurant in France. An incredible list of celebrities have dined here over the centuries and inspired Julia Child to focus on French cuisine.

We didn’t know any of this at the time, but it was old, had an amazing menu, and was perfectly situated among the half-timbered houses of Place du Vieux Marché. It was an obvious choice. We didn’t have a reservation so we couldn’t eat inside, but there were plenty of tables available outside in the square.

Our 4-Course French Dinner

Too bad this dinner took place before it was the norm to take pictures of your food. If only Instagram existed back then. Before anything, we got started with a carafe of rosé wine and a couple pieces of the obligatory free bread. Then, for the next two and a half hours we, for the first time in our young lives…we dined.

Entreé: She had a fresh green salad while I had a salad of curried local haddock. La Couronne is known for showcasing local seafood so I was curious to see how they do one of my favorite fish. I think it was cured or smoked haddock and it was a vibrant curry yellow. I’m pretty sure I haven’t had anything like that before or since.

Main course: Danielle had just started eating seafood and was rewarded with a perfect piece of salmon, along with pasta and vegetables. I could not resist trying their locally raised beef tenderloin with Bearnaise sauce. Trust me, it was a good as you are imagining right now.

Cheese course: This was pretty exciting for us since we never experienced and entire part of the meal just for cheese. Out came a chest of incredible looking cheeses from Normandy. I still remember how good that Camembert looked. We chose that one and two other local cheeses that had us rolling our eyes as we slowly savored each bite.

Dessert: To finish off this memorable experience we had coffee and dessert. She chose fruit sorbet with raspberry sauce and I chose crème brulée.

Place du Vieux Marché: Dining in the Shadow of Martyrdom

Maybe that first carafe of wine went down too easily, but we were just soaking it all in during that long, luxurious, dinner. Dining outside on a perfect summer evening in Rouen was memorable enough. It was easily the greatest meal the two of us ever had up to that point. Between courses our heads were on swivels as we took in the scenery.

At the time, we were both thinking about how right behind my seat loomed a towering cross. It marked the site where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. Around the square, these historic buildings, including La Couronne, are mute witnesses to her martyrdom on May 30, 1431.

Layers and layers of history overlap in this square as people dine among the old church foundations. the original church was destroyed by Allied bombings in WWII. Thankfully, the stained glass windows were saved and incorporated into the modern Norse-inspired L’église Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc. I know it is dripping with Christian symbolism and evokes an upturned Viking longship, but to me it looked like a UFO just landed in the square.

This backdrop, accompanied by an incredible dining experience has made this one of my favorite shared memories with the girl I would later marry. Nearly twenty-five years later, I should thank Mathilde and Cyrille, wherever they are now, for encouraging us to dine like civilized travelers.