It's been some years since we got out to Le Tres Bon at Bungendore and I bring you the very good news that nothing much has changed. It's still gorgeous and historic, and it's still very French in the menu, simple and true to itself. And we still really like it.
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The building, in the main street of Bungendore, is an early Bungendore building, we assume a house before its little, low-doored rooms were opened up into the rooms of a restaurant which has all the charm that history and minimal modernising over the years can offer. Wooden floors covered partially with carpet squares, small spaces, a fireplace, sash windows and small wooden tables adorned with white and red. It's not smart, more rustic, even elegantly tatty in the way of those history-saturated European bed and breakfast style hotels, with perhaps a little more wear and tear than on our last visit, but nothing that a rooster ornament and sunflowers in a vase can't brighten up. And if you were in any doubt of the French theme, the heavily accented staff - how do they find all these French people available to wait tables in Bungendore - and the red berets are surely the figurative accent on the 'e'.
The menu is small, which is a good thing, and probably reflects the fact that Christophe Gregoire is the chef in his own enterprise. He's offering country dishes from his French homeland without obvious evidence of modernisation or Aussification.
It starts with an amuse bouche, a lovely smear of salmon butter on lovely bread with a rose petal.
And then the snails, six of them, each in its own little hole on a plate made for snails, and each with an intense dark green cover of parsley, butter and garlic. No heavy cream sauce, and just an excellent, chewy, moist slices of sourdough stick alongside. Intense and bright, we loved them.
We also find ourselves ordering foie gras instinctively and before stopping to ponder the ethics. It was only after leaving Le Tres Bon that I remembered to wonder whether I should eschew foie. While there, we blindly enjoy the slice of delicate, mild pate with a quite heavily spiced bread and such brilliant sturdy greens from the restaurant's garden.
The bright greens are there again in the "crazy" salad served alongside the pork belly. The salad doesn't seem especially crazy, as described, but is good, with its strips of celeriac and apple and freshness. The pork belly is cooked in almond milk and spices and serviced with a sauce heavy and likeable with mustard. The meat is good, and the crust cooked very thick and crisp.
The confit duck is excellent, serviced with a perfumed cherry sauce - although we look askance at the quenelles of what seem to be mashed potatoes battered and deepfried. An unnecessary complication. The duck meat itself is beautiful, dark and tender, a whole leg, crisp and spicy, and this is a favourite dish.
We're distracted enough by the offer of homemade lemon sorbet using local organic lemons to ignore the menu's description of this as a dessert over which vodka has been poured. Given the 40 minute drive home from Bungendore, we dare not go near the bottom of this tall glass full of sorbet and hefty with vodka, but we like the lemon and like the white-on-white look of this, topped with a meringue and a pink rose bud. The meringues are sold in bags so we grab some extras to take home.
The chocolate pot is mild, served cool and kept simple with a light chocolate flavour, a chocolate spoon and a madeleine.
The wine list is simple, like the menu, offering highly drinkable French wines and locals from the Bungendore doorstep.
If I lived in Bungendore I think I would eat at Le Tres Bon regularly. As a Canberran you might head here for a special occasion - it does the romantic couples feel well - or to add adventure to a dinner out. Highly worthwhile.
