What is in season in Nantes. and what to order when the market changes.
Spring
- Poireau primeur: Loire-Atlantique is the leading French producer of new-season leek, and the slim spring bunches show up at Talensac and Petite Hollande from March; bistro kitchens serve them warm with vinaigrette.
- Radis de printemps: The department also leads France on radish, and the pink-and-white bunches sold with their leaves on are the standard spring apéritif in Nantes, eaten with butter and coarse salt.
- Navets nouveaux: New turnips arrive on the market-garden stalls alongside the leeks in spring, small enough to glaze whole; they turn up under duck and river fish on bistro cards through April and May.
- Fraises: Strawberries from the Loire market gardens reach the Nantes markets from April, and the pâtisseries build the season's tarts and Chantilly plates around them until the early summer heat ends the run.
Summer
- Concombre: Loire-Atlantique is the top French producer of cucumber, grown under the same market-garden glass as the mâche; in summer it lands in the cold soups and salads of every terrace menu in the city.
- Sardines: Sardines from the Breton and Vendée ports gave Nantes its canning industry and still define its summer eating, grilled whole on the terraces and sold in tins on Talensac's fish rows.
- Muscadet on terraces: Summer is when the Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur lie of the villages upriver does its real work in the city, poured cold by the glass in the caves à manger of Bouffay and the Olivettes.
- Tomates de plein champ: Field tomatoes from the Loire market gardens take over the stalls in July and August, which is also when a good share of the city's kitchens shut for congés and the markets carry the eating.
Autumn
- Mâche nantaise IGP: Lamb's lettuce is the emblem of Nantes market gardening, protected by IGP and grown under low shelters on a sand bed; the season opens in autumn and the leaves stay on menus right through winter.
- Carottes de Chantenay: The short, stubby Chantenay carrot takes its name from the old Nantes commune west of the centre and is at its best from autumn, roasted whole or shaved raw into mâche salads.
- Nouveau Muscadet: The vineyard upriver picks in September, and the new Muscadet reaching the city wine bars in autumn is the freshest, sharpest version of the wine you will drink all year.
- Pommes de la Loire: Loire orchard apples arrive with the rentrée and feed both the cidre poured in the crêperies and the tarts on bistro dessert cards from October onwards.
Winter
- Huîtres de la baie de Bourgneuf: Oysters from the bay south of the estuary are at their best in the cold months and are shucked to order on the fish stalls at Talensac; the brasseries build their plateaux de fruits de mer around them.
- Sandre et brochet au beurre blanc: Winter is the season for the city's defining plate, river pike-perch or pike under a beurre blanc mounted from shallots, white wine and cold butter, still on the cards of the Loire-facing dining rooms.
- Curé nantais: The soft raw-milk cow's cheese created in the 19th century in the vineyard villages upriver is a winter cheese-board fixture in Nantes, washed rind and pungent, often served with a glass of Muscadet.
- Gâteau nantais: The almond-and-rum cake keeps for weeks by design, which makes it the pâtisserie counter's winter staple; every boulangerie in the centre sells a version and no two are iced quite the same.