Omaha Beach: Le Sapiniere (September 2017)



La Sapiniere - Great Quiche, Mussels, and Curry
 
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.








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