In Brittany, France’s Emerald Coast Enchants With Its Beaches, Oysters and More
Tides of up to 40 feet affect almost every aspect of life in the region of Brittany known as the Emerald Coast. Twice daily, the sea swells up and the coastline seems to disappear beneath the bright green water, tinted by a microscopic phytoplankton that gives the region its name.
The roughly 50-mile stretch of northwestern France is situated between the pink granite cliffs of Cap Fréhel and the village of Cancale, the oyster capital of France. It includes the Corsair City of St.-Malo as well as endless beaches and seaside chateaus. Just across the bay, the famous medieval abbey Mont-St.-Michel, is visible on the horizon.
Locals have a saying: “In Brittany, it’s sunny several times a day.” Weather can change in an instant, but the region’s maritime climate means that while people in Paris and other cities bake in heat waves, Bretons might put on light sweaters in the evening, with high summer temperatures averaging in the 70s Fahrenheit.
Somehow, the Emerald Coast draws only a fraction of the Côte d’Azur’s visitor numbers, but those who make the journey often find themselves smitten. That includes me. Early this summer, feeling the irresistible pull of the tides, I hopped on a train from Marseille and headed north.
Racing the Surf
The sea had retreated from the Plage du Sillon, in St.-Malo, leaving a stretch of sand so wide that the holiday homes looked miniature in the distance. Wearing boots and carrying a bucket, I joined a tour group of about 10 people on a kind of treasure hunt. We were scouring the tide pools for edible crustaceans (13.50 euros, or about $15.50).
Our guide, Clementine Souchet, showed us how to flip rocks and look underneath for creatures like spider crabs, squid and miniature lobster. Locals — old men and school-age children alike — bent over in deep concentration looking for prizes like velvet crabs, known for their rich meat.
Suddenly, the water began to lick at our feet. “We must run!” Ms. Souchet shouted. The kids squealed and we made a mad dash back to the safety of the high city wall known as the ramparts.
Pink clouds floated over the promenade. Clusters of people gathered, hoping to witness the tide crash over the sea wall. Safely watching it all with a glass of cider, I felt relieved to be high above the now-inundated beach.
Inside the Ramparts
The cobblestone core of old St.-Malo dates back to the Middle Ages and has been rebuilt twice, said my guide to the city, Alexandra Durand. A fire in 1661 burned 80 percent of it, and during World War II, Allied bombing also took a heavy toll.
I was on the hunt for a Breton specialty, savory galettes made from buckwheat flour. At Bergamote, a family-owned creperie and tearoom, I settled into a seat on the terrace and ordered a classic complète (ham, egg and cheese, €9.80) and a bowl of brut cider, another Breton favorite (€4.90)
That afternoon, I explored the ramparts, looking out over the granite islets with forts built by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, a military engineer for King Louis XIV. Part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, they are considered a masterpiece of military architecture.
Wandering off the main tourist streets, I stumbled upon Bouche en Folie, a quiet, intimate restaurant whose seafood-forward chalkboard menu grabbed my attention. The delicious crab fritters with lime and a monkfish meunière in lobster bisque (prix fixe, €39) felt like an ode to the ocean. In fact, the tides also drew the chef and owner, Mathieu Bouchand, and his wife to St.-Malo from Paris. “One day, we came for a walk by the sea,” he told me, and 20 years later, they’re still here.
Salted Butter and Seaweed
Butter, an afterthought almost anywhere else in the world, is a near obsession in Brittany. When you sit down at a table there, you’ll automatically get decadent salted butter that often bursts with tasty seasonings like seaweed or buckwheat. A tip from my guide landed me the next morning at the Marché de la Halle au Blé, an indoor market in a 19th-century building, in St.-Malo. My butter quest led me inside, to Fromagerie Pouilloux, whose sweet butter won me over with hints of grass and bites of coarse salt.
I was also eager to learn more about seaweed, another important part of the regional cuisine. So I joined a seaweed-harvesting tour hosted by Muriel Winsback, who works with restaurants and food producers.
We met at the sandy St.-Énogat beach in Dinard, across the bay from St.-Malo. Ms. Winsback led a group of a dozen or so of us onto a jetty, where she pulled various types of seaweed from the water and described each one. Out of the many I sampled, my favorite was the reddish pepper dulse, which had a piquant, trufflelike flavor.
A Soundtrack of Shells and Gulls
At the open-air oyster market in the village of Cancale, about nine miles east of St.-Malo, shucking specialists known as maîtres écaillers filled plates with oysters fresh from the beds in the Bay of Mont-St.-Michel.
Sitting on the stairs with a dozen oysters (€15), I sampled the briny delicacies against a soundtrack of empty shells hitting the beach and gulls circling overhead.
Women have historically played a big part in the oyster industry here. In the 19th century, men often sailed to Newfoundland to fish for cod, leaving the women to farm and manage the business. Over time, those women became a symbol of the region, inspiring John Singer Sargent to paint “Fishing for Oysters at Cancale,” a group of women and children on a Breton beach, in 1878.
Cancale specializes in two types of oysters: the Belon de Cancale, which has a flat shell and a briny taste with a hazelnut finish, and the cupped oyster, which has crisp, mineral notes. The oysters partly owe their special flavor to the tides, which reoxygenate them twice daily and have a high iodine content, said Alexandre Prod’homme, an oyster farmer who was running a booth at the market. Mr. Prod’homme’s grandmother started the farm in 1948, and he and his wife, Christine, are continuing the family tradition.
The imposing 1920s Château Richeux, in St.-Méloir-des-Ondes, about seven miles southeast of St.-Malo, sits high on a bluff overlooking the Bay of Mont-St.-Michel. It is part of a property called Maisons de Bricourt, run by the Roellinger family, whose culinary lineage is central to the town’s tourism. The chateau’s majestic scale quickly gave way to warmth as I relaxed with a glass of white wine and a cat named Fenouillette in a lovely salon with big windows.
My room (€410) had a view of the bay, and on the table in a small sitting room, I found a handwritten welcome note, a slice of raspberry cake and a miniature carafe of sherry. A tied bouquet of aromatics from the garden lay on my pillow.
Before the Roellingers bought the property in 1991, the chateau sat abandoned. Now transformed into a comfortable refuge, it has 12 guest rooms and a restaurant called Le Coquillage, run by Hugo and Marine Roellinger. Last year, Mr. Roellinger earned Le Coquillage a third Michelin star and was named chef of the year at the Trophées Le Chef competition. His father, Olivier, received the same award 20 years earlier, making them the first father-son pair to share the honor.
At Le Coquillage that evening, I enjoyed a 12-course meal of dishes like velvet crab with maritime pine oil, sorrel cream and green asparagus, and langoustines in a cucumber and rhubarb water vinaigrette. I also savored a Cancale grilled oyster in a broth of mushrooms, herbs and elderberry oil with a black currant coulis.
I awoke to a misty morning and ventured out for a walk, with a hand-drawn map provided by the chateau employees. With the grounds almost to myself, I discovered a flower-and-herb garden bordered by moss-covered slates. In a vegetable garden, I chatted briefly with workers harvesting rhubarb and fava beans.
As I reveled in the dawn air, a French word came to mind: les embruns. It describes the fine spray of seawater carried inland by the wind — not rain, not fog, but salt-laden droplets riding the breeze, fine enough to feel more than see, a perfect analogy for this subtle place.
Below me, the emerald water sparkled. The tide had worked its magic.
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