Maison Lameloise

Section 1·The Last Stop

This was always going to be the last meal of the Burgundy trip. Maison Lameloise sits in Chagny, a quiet town at the southern end of the Côte de Beaune. The restaurant received its first Michelin star in 1926, the very year the Guide began awarding them. Its history and the history of the Guide are almost the same age.

Section 2·Three Generations

Three generations of the Lameloise family built the place. Pierre opened it in 1921, converting a fifteenth-century coaching inn. His son Jean took over in time, and Pierre's grandson Jacques earned the third star in 1979. The kitchen now belongs to Éric Pras. A Meilleur Ouvrier de France in 2004, he came up through the kitchens of Michel Troisgros, Bernard Loiseau, Pierre Gagnaire, and Régis Marcon. Jacques called him to Chagny in 2008, and when the mentor retired the following year, Pras inherited the entire kitchen. His words, "tradition is the future," sum up well what this restaurant has kept for close to a hundred years.

Section 3·The Drive

Guided by my friend Jean, who lives in Burgundy, we travelled the length of the Côte d'Or, following the vineyards south. Marsannay, then south through Côte de Nuits, past Beaune and on through Meursault and Montrachet, all the way to Chagny. Ending the trip at this table was never in question.

The restaurant occupies the ground floor of the hotel. Old timber columns and exposed stonework remain intact, and the tables are distributed across several rooms rather than gathered in a single dining hall. Compared to three-star restaurants in Paris, the scale is considerably larger. Close to twenty tables, with a good number of solo seats. Perhaps for that reason, booking was easier than I expected, without the tension that comes with securing other French three-stars. If anything, that ease showed the character of the place well. This is not the stage-like tension of Paris but a three-star where you eat at leisure in the embrace of Burgundy.

Section 4·The Opening

The menu offered a choice between the five-course Menu de l'Instant and the six-course Menu Dégustation. Not knowing when I might be back, I left myself no line of retreat: the full course at 335 euros, with the wine pairing at 225. I had heard that the pairings at Burgundy restaurants were good; just how right that was, I will come to later.

Five amuse-bouches arrived, and as befits three Michelin stars, not one was made carelessly.

What looked like a small chocolate turned out to hold foie gras inside, and that first bite was especially impressive. A bite with octopus on top and a rich cream within was very good.

The appetiser drew on the Burgundian tradition of meurette: a custard with a soft-cooked egg, the exterior set to a light jelly. It was interesting to look at and refined in flavour, though next to the dishes that followed it did not carry much impact.

The first pairing wine came alongside: Pierre & Louis Trapet Auxey Duresses 2020. It was a Burgundy white with pronounced fruit and acidity. With the first sip, I thought: ah, now the Burgundy pairing really begins.

Section 5·The Mains

The first main course was Red tuna and veal.

The only dish of the evening that fell short. The sauce and the tomato ice cream were not bad, but the two principal ingredients never justified their combination. The tuna did not approach the quality achievable in high-end Japanese or Korean sushi, and the veal alongside it produced no moment where the pairing became necessary. Across the whole course, this was the one dish that stayed with me as a disappointment.

Jacques Carillon Puligny-Montrachet 2021 came with it.

What followed was a different matter entirely. The second main, the Sea bass, stood out for its combination of textures. The slow-cooked fish, the crab, and the artichoke worked well together, under a zabaglione made from egg yolk and sugar.

But it was the crisped skin placed on top of the fish that completed the texture of the whole plate, while the zabaglione bound the fish and the crab softly together.

Coche-Dury Meursault 2021 came with it, and the sight of the bottle took me by surprise. It went well with the dish. The producer is among the most storied in Burgundy, and on the wine market it sells for about USD 1,000 (1,400,000 won) a bottle on average. It appeared as a single glass within a 225-euro pairing. The oily oak quality was clearly different from the whites before it, and the acidity had real force.

The Spiny lobster was an optional supplement. If pressed to name the best single dish of the evening, this would be it.

The lobster itself was large and had been cooked to a proper resilient texture, not tough but with real substance. The real highlight, though, was the sauce: Chardonnay and lime, with lobster meat in it. The depth and fragrance of that sauce pulled the whole dish several levels upward. Sauce alone had moved me this way only once before, at Plénitude. In the end, I poured out all of the sauce I had kept aside and enjoyed it to the last drop.

Sauce alone had moved me this way only once before, at Plénitude.

Domaine Michel Niellon Chassagne-Montrachet accompanied it, the most successful food-and-wine match of the evening.

A lemon sorbet with spices and spirits arrived as a palate cleanser.

The final main course was Pigeon "Excellence Miéral" with foie gras.

The bird and the foie gras were enclosed together inside a crisped skin. The moment it arrived, I was certain it could not fail to be delicious. The crunch of the skin, the delicate flavour of the pigeon, the richness of the foie gras: the combination felt like something only possible in France. The aromatic herbs juice and the garnishes were a small step below the other mains, but the pairing of pigeon and foie gras carried the course entirely.

The red wine was Domaine Denis Mortet Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Les Champeaux 2020, powerful and well-matched.

Section 6·The Pairing

The pairing deserves separate attention. The first three white Burgundies arrived in sequence: Trapet with the appetiser, then Carillon with the Red tuna, then Coche-Dury with the Sea bass. Each was distinct from the last in ways that were subtle but unmistakable. For someone who had built up distrust and scepticism about wine pairings, the Coche-Dury was a decisive answer. Right down to the final red, a pairing made up entirely of Burgundy wines was worth every euro. If Burgundy wine matters to you, do not skip it here.

If Burgundy wine matters to you, do not skip it here.

Section 7·The Cheese, The Close

The cheese course arrived on a trolley, each cheese kept under a glass dome, which struck me. I do not know whether it was to keep the smell in, but it was a presentation I had never seen before. On Jean's recommendation, we chose five cheeses with different textures and flavours: fromage de chèvre, Époisses, Tomme de Savoie, Cîteaux, and Brillat-Savarin, working clockwise.

I tried Époisses properly for the first time on this Burgundy trip, and by the second tasting, I had developed a taste for it.

Jean brought over a fig jam: cheese on bread, then a little jam on top.

The sweetness and fragrance turn it into a completely different food from the cheese on its own. If you enjoy cheese, I strongly recommend trying this combination.

Dessert was two preparations of strawberry.

First, Gavottes wafers and puff pastry, with a thin strawberry sauce poured over.

Then a sweet strawberry cream with finely chopped strawberries underneath.

Rather than inventive construction, both stayed true to the taste of the strawberry itself, and the deep strawberry flavour brought things to a clean close.

When the courses finished, there was a quiet offer to move to a private room. The evening had gone long. The side room held old photographs, books, and several bottles of spirits.

The petits fours arrived there, and the moment I saw what was in the bowl, I was taken aback: it was popcorn. Caramel popcorn. It was not too sweet, just pleasantly sweet. The chocolate petits fours were delicate and deep, too. I picked them up without much thought and was surprised by how accomplished they were. Of all the petits fours I have had, this was the most impressive finish. It was a moment that showed the class of a three-star, attentive to every detail right to the end.

One further note. The bathrooms are upstairs, on the first floor. The staircase wall and the corridor above are lined with photographs and records from the restaurant's history, from the 1920s to the present. Do not hurry; walk slowly and take them in. It is a small thing you can make room for when visiting a restaurant with this much history, but a rather weighty experience.

Section 8·The Hill

When Jean and I drove through the Côte d'Or that day, he mentioned that you have to wait for autumn to understand why this place is called the golden hill. In July, the vines were still deep green, and that green running unbroken from north to south was something that neither words nor photographs can fully hold. Maison Lameloise was the last stop of the day. The journey from the vineyards to the table felt like a single sentence reaching its period. The food, the wine, the room, all of it grew from this ground and was built upon it. A meal taken on the hill before the gold arrives.