Food History of Bordeaux

Key eras

Roman Burdigala, 56 BC

Bordeaux's food story begins as Burdigala, the Roman wine port founded around 56 BC at the bend of the Garonne. The Romans imported vines from Italy, planted them on the gravel terraces of what is now the Medoc and shipped wine north to the British Isles. By the 1st century AD, Burdigala was already exporting wine in clay amphorae stamped with the names of Bordeaux producers.

Aliénor d'Aquitaine and the English market, 1152

The marriage of Aliénor d'Aquitaine to the future Henry II of England in 1152 turned Bordeaux into the wine supplier of the British court for three hundred years. The English market gave Bordeaux the trade infrastructure and the trader class that would become the Chartrons merchants. The English called the wine claret, after the early lighter style.

The Chartrons quarter, 1700s

From the early 18th century, foreign wine merchants set up warehouses along the Quai des Chartrons, north of the city centre. Dutch, German, English and Irish names like Cruse, Schroeder and Lawton built the negociants houses that still run the Bordeaux wine trade today. The quarter still keeps the architecture of those warehouses and the Sunday Marche des Quais.

1855 Classification and the modern Bordeaux trade

The 1855 Classification, ordered by Napoleon III for the Paris Universal Exhibition, ranked 61 Medoc and 26 Sauternes chateaux into five Cru Classes growths. The list, almost unchanged since, set the structure of the Bordeaux wine market, fixed prices in step with classification and turned the Medoc into the most valuable agricultural land in France.

Cite du Vin, 2016 to now

The 2016 opening of Cite du Vin in Bordeaux's Bacalan, the EUR 81 million wine museum on the Garonne, signalled a new chapter for the city's food culture: tourism-led, polished and English-speaking. Together with Maison Nouvelle's two Michelin stars and the third-wave coffee scene, the museum reframed Bordeaux as a wine destination in 2026, not just a wine producer.

Immigrant influences

• English and Dutch (1152-1789): Built the negociants warehouses in the Chartrons quarter, set up the export trade and gave Bordeaux its merchant class structure that still runs the wine business today.
• Basque (1850s onwards): Brought Bayonne ham, pintxos, txuleta and the chistorra sausage to the city. Donostia on Rue de la Devise is a current standard-bearer.
• Maghrebi (1960s onwards): Brought couscous, tagine and the kebab houses along Cours de la Marne. The Marche Saint-Michel is the produce hub for North African groceries in Bordeaux.
• Vietnamese (1970s onwards): Brought pho, banh mi and bo bun to the working-class districts. Banh MiaM on Rue des Faures is a current standard-bearer.
• Japanese (2000s onwards): Brought ramen and Franco-Japanese fine dining via chefs like Akashi Kaneko at Akashi, who applied French gourmet technique after a Tsuji-Tokyo training.

Signature innovations

• Entrecote a la bordelaise, beef grilled over vine cuttings then sauced with red wine and shallots
• Cannele de Bordeaux, the 16th-century convent recipe in fluted copper molds
• Lamproie a la bordelaise, lamprey cooked in its own blood with red wine since the Middle Ages
• 1855 Classification of Medoc and Sauternes chateaux
• The Cite du Vin, the EUR 81 million wine museum opened 2016
• The cepe a la bordelaise, porcini sauteed with garlic, parsley and shallots