As I mentioned yesterday, when my friend Scotty and I return to Cannes, we don’t go all-out the way most visitors to the Riviera do. We don’t stay in a fancy hotel or rent out chaise lounges on some of the private beaches. We don’t go to the clubs where you need to reserve a table and get bottle service just to avoid the line, and we definitely don’t shop at the luxury boutiques along the rue d’Antibes.
Most of our meals are picnics on the beach, a combination of saucisson, baguette, rosé, and Apéricubes (which are tiny cubes of artificially flavored cheese that we like because they have trivia on the wrappers).
But on our last night in Cannes, it has become our tradition to have a meal at one of the best seafood restaurants in the city: Astoux et Brun.
We usually order the local rosé, a step up from the house carafe, but this year they were mysteriously out of it, and so we had to *suffer* through this delicious Bandol.
It was the perfect accompaniment for the star of the menu: the reason we come, the reason we always go on our last night (because we’re afraid we’ll want to go back after tasting them again), and the item we search for on the menu every year, lest – horror of horrors – they remove it. The tarragon oysters.
Enormous fresh oysters are doused in a tarragon-infused cream and broiled so they’re just hot enough but never overcooked. They’re so good that I seriously considered ordering them twice: once for the appetizer, and once for the main.
But as tradition dictates, instead we both ordered the generous mussels with cream, which we always forget is an enormous portion that we cannot finish. But we both made valiant efforts.
We had no room for dessert, but we are nothing if not competitive eaters. Scotty opted for this special dessert – a macaron-type concoction with fresh raspberries, a lemon cream, and a sablé base.
I, on the other hand, did as I have done for the past seven years and ordered the lemon tart: since the Country Boy abhors lemon, and it’s my absolute favorite, I have to order it pretty much everywhere I go. This one was particularly lovely: tart and creamy and not overly rich. I look forward to ordering it again next year.
Astoux et Brun - 27 Rue Félix Faure, Cannes