Cancale oysters come from the beds in the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel an hour north of Rennes, flat plates and cupped creuses that carry an iodine bite from a fourteen-metre tide.
Where to eat it: 3 restaurants across 1 city.
Cancale has been an oyster town since Roman times and supplied the French court from the seventeenth century onwards; the flat native oyster, the plate, was dredged wild until overfishing and disease all but destroyed the beds in the twentieth century. Cultivated creuses now make up most of the harvest, grown on trestles in the bay and finished in some of the strongest tidal currents in Europe, which is what gives them their firmness and their salinity. Rennes eats them without ever going to Cancale: the oysters travel the sixty kilometres inland the same morning and land on the Marché des Lices stalls and the seafood counters in town.
Common allergens: Molluscs
Tip from the editors. Tip out the first liquor and wait a minute: the oyster refills the shell with cleaner brine and the flavour is better for it.
Peska is a Mediterranean-leaning fish bistro on Rue Saint-Malo in Rennes, Pauline Iafrate cooking sole meunière and marinated mackerel to order.
Signature: Sole meunière, Marinated mackerel focaccia
Order: Sole meunière with fermented rhubarb and fish jus
Le Galopin has run its seafood brasserie on Avenue Jean Janvier in Rennes since 1965, Cancale oysters and whole lobster a short walk from the station.
Signature: Cancale oysters, Whole lobster with fries
Order: Six Cancale oysters, then the 600g lobster with house fries
The Marché des Lices has run in Rennes since 1622 and now packs close to 300 stallholders onto Place des Lices every Saturday, France's second-largest market.
Tip: The galette-saucisse stands between the two halls fire up from sunrise; go before 11:00 to beat the queue that swallows the square.
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