My spouse and I and our guide dined at La Sapiniere for
lunch on a Friday afternoon in early September 2017. The restaurant is open daily for lunch (from
12:00 noon until 2:00 pm) and dinner (from 7:00 pm until 10:00 pm) during the
months of March until November. (It is closed during the other months of the
year.) Our guide reserved our table via telephone.
The name La
Sapiniere means “Pine Forest”, which is visible behind the restaurant and its
associated hotel, located just across the street from a quiet part of Omaha
Beach in the sleepy hamlet of St Laurent sur Mer. We stopped here during a day
tour of the D-Day beach sites, and it offered a better quality meal than the
other more touristy restaurants that we saw.
Located adjacent to
(but in a separate building from) the hotel, in appropriate weather you can
dine outdoors on an L-shaped deck/terrace (part of which is enclosed beneath a
small awning with sides), or even at small tables and chairs on a
fence-enclosed grassy lounge area. Indoors, you can choose to sit in one of two
areas: the main dining room includes a small brick bar and a lounge area in
front of the brick fireplace plus regular table dining. A smaller side dining
room with windows that overlook the back terrace and yard offers additional
seating. Both rooms feature high vaulted ceilings and lots of wood, including
ceilings beams, molding, and tables and chairs. The restaurant can accommodate
60 patrons inside and probably twice that number outdoors, weather-permitting.
La Sapiniere serves
traditional rustic French cuisine, offering generous simply prepared homemade
food. As we perused the menu, our server delivered a basket of sliced bread and
butter. Our group of three ordered one quiche (served with a choice of green
side salad or frites), moules mariniere (mussels poached in a yummy broth then
served with frites), a seafood curry (served with rice and raisins), and a pitcher
of cider for less than 60 Euros, which we paid using a credit card. Our guide
taught us how to eat mussels the French way - without a utensil – by using an
empty mussel shell to pinch out the remaining mussels.
We enjoyed our
delicious lunch at La Sapiniere.
