Small town, big reputation at Montreuil-sur-Mer market

 

Just a 45-minute drive from Calais, walled-town Montreuil-sur-Mer in Northern France already has its fair share of gastro-glory with Michelin stars, award-winning boulangeries, plus a string of delis, wine-merchants and restaurants. Yet it’s the convivial Saturday morning market – one of the best weekly events in France in summer ─ that binds everyone together. 

 

Here, on cobbled Place-de-Gaulle square, with local band playing and bellows of banter from convivial locals, there’s a true message of self-sufficiency and sustainability: if the freshest, finest and most organic French food is grown and produced right here on the doorstep, why shop anywhere else? It’s a traditional yet on-trend approach exemplified by market gardener ‘Les Mains Noires’ (‘black hands’ evoking the soil of local terroir) who grows his healthy local produce ─ popular with local chefs, for the record ─ just a stone’s throw from his stall.

 

And it’s not just Northern France fruit and vegetables you can expect to see at Montreuil’s medieval-meets-modern market: admire mountains of fresh fish (we’re not actually ‘sur Mer’ here, but we’re very close!), taste local farm-produced artisan honey and smell the wafts of every French cheese in the book from the subtle to the tangy and the pungent.