Travel tip: How to eat like the French on vacation

 

It's been a while since Chambana had a French restaurant, so if you wanted to explore French cuisine, you'll have to drive to Chicago. Or go to France, which is what we did last year. Sure, Paris is full of amazing Michelin-starred restaurants, but if you want to get the most bang for your buck, head to Lyon (aka the gourmet capital of France). Even better, forget Paris or Lyon and book a CroisiEurope riverboat cruise instead.

CroisiEurope is a French company specializing in European river cruises. I've never been on an ocean cruise and will steer clear of those insane 7,000-people environmental hazards. But a river cruise is a completely different story. With a capacity of 80 people or so, CroisiEurope boats are small, intimate affairs designed for French vacationers. Last year, we booked a six-day cruise from Lyon and there were only four Americans aboard (plus two other English speakers from England and Singapore). Where the boat went was not important to us because what we really wanted was to eat French food for a week. That's three French meals a day every day, plus all the French wine, French beer, French champagne, French cognac, and more that you can drink (all-inclusive, of course).

But it's mass-produced banquet food, you might say, which is nothing like eating at real French restaurants, right? Well, I beg to differ. What we got was exquisitely custom-prepared, multi-course, gourmet nouvelle cuisine prepared by extremely well-trained French chefs who worked very hard to please us. That's every meal every day, beautifully presented, served by a professional wait staff in a classic white tablecloth dining room.

Is this what French people expect when they go on vacation? Apparently so, because everyone else on board treated meal times like it's no big deal. But our table of English speakers went nuts and we couldn't believe our eyes and taste buds as course after course of the most amazing culinary creations were presented to us three times a day. And the gala evening — when the staff pulled out all the stops and gave us their personal best — well, my eyes still tear up when thinking about that evening. 

If this experience wasn't the ultimate introduction to French cuisine, then I don't know what it was. All I know is that we've promised to ourselves to book a CroisiEurope cruise every year from now until we die. Want to know more about our cruise experience? Read this blog post or take a look at these pictures). 

Not familiar with French cuisine? Consider booking my FRENCH CLASSICS cooking class on February 20. Want to learn more about French cooking? Send me a note via email. If there's enough interest, I might even put together a French master class series sometime in the future.

More information about my cooking classes and pop-up events can always be found on my website, where you'll also find over 200 recipes from my classes (no ads!). You can also subscribe to my email newsletter or follow me on Instagram or Facebook and like my posts. Bon appétit!