LOCAL RESTAURANTS

Lots to recommend, so please read all the way down to the end. There’s a pop-up riverside guinguette very close to us (summer time only) and we’d hate you to miss it!

Simple, great value and now only open for dinner, is Un Air d’Antan (54b Rue Rabelais). Very popular with the locals, it has a chalk-board menu and a limited choice; think traditional home cooking coupled with a relaxed atmosphere. It is one of our favourite places for a low key but delicious dinner. If it’s good weather, call ahead to get a seat on the terrace. Owners Fred and Antoine are the chef and waiter respectively. It has a good wine list (try the Bernard Baudry or Francois Plouzeau). Their opening times vary, so do call and check, but are currently Thursday-Saturday, evenings only.

Charbon is another great choice, two doors down from the Cabane à Vin. They specialise in meat, cooked in the old bread oven - over charcoal - as their name suggests. The wine list is excellent and extensive … Julien, the chef-owner, has worked all over the world. His wife Marina works with him. They have also just opened Le Canteen in the old taco restaurant - 3 doors down from Charbon. Casual and very popular, it’s a great lunch spot (lunch only).

Also ideal for lunch, try Café Chaud on the square (good salads). Nemrod - the new kid on the block - puts a huge emphasis on locally sourced food. This is the chef-owner Nicolas Gauladeau’s first sole venture (he was at Chateau du Riveau’s restaurant before). Nemrod occupies a fantastic spot on the square and is lovely for lunch or dinner in the spring and summer months when you can sit out by the fountain (the food is fairly formal making it marginally better suited to dinner).

For a smart dinner, Les Années Trente is hard to beat (ask for a table upstairs and order any wine from Pascal Lambert). There is no outdoor dining space though.

There are good pizzas, pastas and salads to be had at Les Saveurs d’Italie (pizza can also be served ‘to go’ if you prefer to eat at home). If you’re eating sur place their outdoor tables, weather permitting, are the ones to reserve.

—If you’re VEGETARIAN, Un Air d’Antan can cater for you if you call ahead and ‘warn’ them. Otherwise the new comer Au Local, right by the Château de Chinon, comes much recommended for its full vegetarian menu - as well as for its regular, non-veg one.

Another local, new and well reviewed restaurant, with plenty of vegetables as the name rather implies (but by no means a vegetarian restaurant) is just a little out of town in nearby Ligré: Les Jardiniers. The new chef has just been awarded a Michelin Green Star (an accolade awarded annually to places that distinguish themselves on account of their bold, sincere and highly committed approach to sustainable gastronomy).

On market days (Thursdays), the place for lunch, in the thick of it all, is Hotel de La Treille with its lovely vine trellis and outdoor tables in the summer months. Booking is essential - or come early and bag a spot. Sit and watch the world go by.

In the summer, the pop-up, open-air and deliciously informal Guinguette de Chinon on Rive Gauche is a must for its stunning view of the chateau (pictured) and riverside dining and/or drinking. It’s an ideal venue for dinner after a game of tennis - the Chinon tennis courts are walking distance from La Guinguette (closed in bad weather). Read on to the end of this page for details of the new guinguette, very close to La Fuye, called La Bamboche.

Boat tours, kayaks and canoes can also be organised from where the Chinon Guinguette is situated - see our BOAT TOURS page for more info.

There is a new guinguette that has opened up right next to La Fuye called La Bamboche (actually in Néman, about 7km away). Definitely worth a visit - this (pictured) is the vibe and the view it serves up, along with food from a selection of different food trucks. It also has an excellent and varied wine list.

There is no need to book - you can’t! - just turn up and see what’s on offer. These pop-up riverside bars are strictly summertime only and deliciously informal by nature. They’re also very active on their Facebook page.

Address: La Bamboche, 23 rue du Val de l'Indre, Avoine

For near by rustic, local food head to Auberge de Côteaux. A hearty, lunchtime bistrot in wine growing Cravant-les-Côteaux - a neighbouring village next to Chinon and a picturesque 15-minute drive from La Fuye. Try the wine by Philippe Alliet. Booking recommended.

Same but different, yet with a similar charm - and even closer to us - is Bistrot Le Jeanne d’Arc in our nearby village of Huismes. Read about it here (you can cycle to it in 15 mins, door-to-door).

For other nearby-yet-out-of-town options, including the rather lovely Café de La Loire (pictured), click here - driving distances from La Fuye have all been calculated.