Market day

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

The set lunch, like any other day: starter, main, dessert, from 12 to 2pm.

The days and the number of stallholders come from Chauvigny town hall, which keeps the list current. It publishes no opening time for the market itself, and we are not going to invent one: it starts early and thins out towards midday.

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.

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.

At noon, the set menu

On Saturday the set lunch is served like any other day: starter, main, dessert from 12 to 2pm, or the main on its own when your arms are already full. The stalls are twenty-five metres away, and they are what wrote this week's menu.

In the evening the kitchen moves to sharing: boards and plates you put in the middle of the table, the tapasserie, from 6 to 9.30pm. Two ways to eat the same Saturday, the same produce behind both.

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 the one the rest of the week gets: 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.

Our full opening hours, the address and the phone number are at the foot of this page, with the practical details for finding us.

What people say

Customers who pushed the door open, and wrote about it on Google. We do not choose their words and we hide none of them: the whole list is on the listing.