WOW! What a great start to 60 meals for 60 years! The restaurant is tiny and while waiting for our table we heard some details about the restaurant and how it came to be! Until recently it was cash only and no reservations so you had to wait outside for a table but with new owners they have given in to reservations and accept credit cards. They are only open Monday to Friday! Want to read more about the place? Here’s their website (in French): https://lamerenda.net/
The wine list consists of three brands of wine and white/rose/red or just white/red for each brand. We chose a red and it was fresh and light with some fruit forward flavours. It worked really well with the onion tart! Vivino rated it 4.1 and I would say that is slightly generous.
The menu is on a blackboard so they can change it frequently! But their website is up to date so we already had some idea of what we were going to have. We shared zucchini blossom fritters and stuffed sardines for the appetizer. The fritters were great – super light and great flavour. The stuffed sardines were really inverted stuffed sardines – the big sardine was in the middle and there was stuffing all around each one! The stuffing was breadcrumbs and herbs and was delicious.
Originally we were planning to get two ‘beef stew provencal with chickpea fritters’ but K wasn’t quite as hungry and opted for the onion tart as a main course. Of course they made it main course size (ha!) so it was too big and D had to eat some! The beef stew was perfect. Melt in your mouth tender meat and the sauce was rich so bread came in handy to mop up the sauce. The chichpea fries were excellent as well – crispy on the outside and not too dense! That onion tart was outstanding with a perfect crust rich flavour.
We king of cheated with dessert because we saw what the table next to us was having and ordered the same thing. Even though it looks like creme brulee, it was a vanilla custard. Very vanilla-y and delicious. The cherries were great! They had been cooked and the waiter described the process in French to the table next to us so we asked for their translation. The cherries are brought to a boil and then steeped and then mint is added along with a liquer that burns off.
What a great meal! Everything was perfect and the small size of the restaurant was charming. They turn over the tables 4 or 5 times a night and we were only in there just over an hour!