Wined, dined and rested.

When you go to Pomerol, on the doorstep of Saint Émilion in one of the most prestigious wine areas in France, you expect good restaurants to be smart, exclusive, expensive and basically “not for the likes of us”.

However we took advice from a friend and booked dinner at La table de Catusseau; after all if we hadn’t tried one really good restaurant it would have been a waste of a visit, so we remortgaged the cat and set off for our meal one evening in April.

Inside, the minor irritation of speakers installed at ceiling height for the playing of what I can only presume is meant to be digestion-aiding music quickly faded into the background as we admired the neutral décor and exciting menu (although I did occasionally find suggestions for digestion-aiding music running through my head – “Banana pancakes”, “A cup of coffee, a sandwich and you”, “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and of course the immortal “Guacamole song”, none of which I actually discerned in the flow of, um, Radio 2-like music that dripped out of the speakers).

However the food swiftly banished the nasty music into almost unnoticed sonic wallpaper. For reference, here is the “suggestions of the day” menu on the evening we visited:

Being presented with a beautiful menu is part of the fine dining experience for me; again there is no fuss and fiddle, the food is always the star.

We both chose the boudin and gambas starter, with a crème de crustacées and the sweetly-named “perles du japon” (i.e. tapioca). The main ingredients were perfectly cooked, but the star of the dish for me was the crustacean cream, an intensely-flavoured liquid that tripped happily around all the other flavours, balancing them out and enhancing them.

We had spent a delightful 20 minutes perusing, discussing and admiring the wine list – a pleasantly varied list, including both eye-wateringly expensive grands crus and much more reasonable ones, as well as wines from other areas. We opted for a 2016 grand cru from the château Franc Grâce-Dieu (a great name – the “franc” in it means that a very long time ago this chateau was awarded the privilege of not having to pay taxes) and were so impressed with it and its value for money we went out the next day to the domaine and bought a case of it. The inevitable Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon were given discreet oomph by some Cabernet Franc, giving a mix of dark fruit, a hint of tobacco and just the right level of tannins.

As main dishes one of us had an entrecôte steak with another intense gravy and Noirmoutier potatoes on the side, prepared so as to look like fluffy acorns, and one tiny turnip chuckling quietly in a little puddle of jus.

It’s curious that these delicious little mouthfuls of potato grown on the tiny island of Noirmoutier off the west coast of France have never really achieved fame in the UK whereas in France fully grown adults can develop misty eyes as they speak of them. You’d think too that our potato-based culture would have developed a gastro-spud of our own to bring out the poet in us; Jersey Royals are as close as we get, and I’ve never seen anyone become misty-eyed when hurling a bag of them into the trolley in Sainsburys. Perhaps potatoes lie at the very heart of the England-France love/hate relationship across the centuries.

Leaving the philosophy aside, our other main dish was the really delicious scallops “snackées” with green asparagus, and shreds of dried tomato garnished with capers and artichokes. The word “snacker” is one of many examples of English being repurposed into French – once in the language of Molière it acquires the meaning of “seared” or even just “blowtorched”, in other words blasted with extreme heat on the outside leaving the inside nearly uncooked. Who cares, the result is truly delicious.

Having initially taken the decision to eschew pudding we changed our minds with not a backwards thought, and oh yes that was the right decision. One hot passion fruit soufflé (with caramel and lime ice cream) and pistachio macaron (with local strawberries and rhubarb compote flavoured with hibiscus) later we were truly replete without actually being in a food coma. The passion fruit soufflé in particular was a masterpiece of lightness with bursting flavour.

We strolled back to the car afterwards feeling that we really had experienced the craft of a master of his art; a meal at the Table de Catusseau is special, and the cost of it is not cheap but it is absolutely not exorbitant. There are many other restaurants, both here and elsewhere, where one would pay much more for less exciting and talented food. As Madame at the Chateau Franc Grâce-Dieu said to me the following day when I went to buy the wine and told her we had been to the Table de Catusseau the night before, “you always know you will have superb food for a decent price”.

So if you’re in the area and wondering how to choose a restaurant, wonder no more – if you can go to just one, go to this one. You won’t regret it.