Vivace

good quality, good value cooking

You can kiss the gray skies of Paris goodbye! Baptiste Lavallez (ex-Drouant, Caillebotte) and Laura Boit, an architect-turned-pastry chef, set sail for the Pink Granite Coast in 2021. In Trébeurden, in the bright dining room adorned with light wood and green details, plus a well-stocked feminist bookshelf, the vegetable and seafood heavy menu of their locavore restaurant brings some more-than-welcome bistro energy to the village. The day we went for lunch, a series of precisely crafted plates paraded out of the kitchen: fresh tomatoes and blackberries rounded out by a Catalan romesco sauce and some rich creamed corn, all seasoned with a punchy salsa verde, Bolivian cilantro and Mexican oregano harvested just a few miles away; lovely roasted skate with potatoes, chard, celery purée, shiso-infused beurre blanc sauce and hazelnut praline; and a financier with walnuts, honey and goat cheese from Pors Mabo prepared like a cheesecake, plus poached pears and sorbet made from gwell (Breton fermented milk). At night, the menus get upgraded a tad: line-caught sea bream ceviche with fennel, spicy peanuts, dill and tiger’s milk; octopus with tangy beets, seaweed tartare and blood sorrel… // Marie Salmon