TableJourney

Where to eat Curé nantais in Nantes

A soft raw-milk washed-rind cow's cheese, created in the vineyard villages upriver in 1880 and made at Pornic today, pungent on the nose and mild in the mouth.

The story of Curé nantais

The story the region tells is that a farmer at Saint-Julien-de-Concelles in the Nantes vineyard, Pierre Hivert, made the first of these cheeses around 1880 to a recipe a passing priest gave him, and that it was renamed for the ecclesiastic some years later. It is a raw cow's-milk cheese with a supple, springy paste and an orange washed rind that smells considerably stronger than the cheese tastes. Production left the vineyard for Pornic in the Pays de Retz in 1980 and the raw-milk method went with it. Made in small squares and rounds, it sits on cheese boards across the city and turns up melted into potato and charcuterie dishes in winter.

How to make Curé nantais

Serves: 4

Ingredients

  • 1 whole small curé nantais (about 200g), or another soft washed-rind cheese
  • 800g waxy potatoes, peeled and cut into 3cm chunks
  • 150g smoked lardons or diced bacon
  • 2 onions, sliced
  • 100ml Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur lie
  • 2 tablespoons crème fraîche
  • Black pepper
  • A handful of mâche, to serve

Method

  1. Boil the potatoes in well-salted water until just tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and leave to steam dry.
  2. Fry the lardons in a dry pan until they render and colour, then add the onions and cook gently for 10 minutes until soft and golden.
  3. Deglaze with the Muscadet and let it bubble down to almost nothing. Stir in the crème fraîche and plenty of black pepper.
  4. Tip the potatoes into a gratin dish, spoon the onion and lardon mixture over them and turn everything together.
  5. Slice the cheese horizontally through the middle and lay it rind-up over the top. Bake at 200C for 15 to 20 minutes until the cheese has collapsed over the potatoes and browned in patches. Serve straight from the dish with a handful of dressed mâche on the side.

Editor tip. Do not cut the rind off. It carries most of the flavour and it holds the melted cheese together in sheets instead of letting it separate into oil and curd.

The editor picks for Curé nantais in Nantes are still in research. Meanwhile, see the Nantes signature-dishes index or the Nantes food guide.