France — Food & Markets
There are bigger markets in the Dordogne. Périgueux on a Wednesday draws the crowds and the coach tours in equal measure. Sarlat on a Saturday is spectacular, undeniably, but by half past nine you're shoulder-to-shoulder with a hundred other holidaymakers all reaching for the same jar of foie gras. Brantôme on a Tuesday is something else entirely — and it's where we always send our guests first.
Brantôme sits on an island in the River Dronne, encircled by water on all sides and presided over by a Benedictine abbey that dates back, in parts, to the eighth century. On most days it's a quiet, almost meditative place — the kind of town where the café terrace empties by mid-morning and the only sound is the weir. On Tuesday mornings between spring and autumn, it wakes up.
The market sets up along the riverside and spills into the streets behind the abbey. It's not enormous — perhaps forty stalls on a good week — but what it lacks in scale it makes up for in quality and in character. The vendors here are mostly local producers and small traders who have held the same pitch for years. They know their regulars, they know their produce, and they are not performing for tourists.
This is exactly what makes it worth the thirty-minute drive from the mill on a Tuesday morning.
Arrive before nine if you can. The light is better, the bread is fresher, and the stalls that sell out quickly — the handmade chèvre, the seasonal mushrooms, the cut flowers — still have something left worth choosing from.
The charcuterie stall positioned near the abbey entrance, usually run by a husband-and-wife team from a farm outside Bourdeilles, is the one not to miss. Their duck rillettes are coarse-textured and deeply seasoned — nothing like the smooth, overworked version you find in supermarkets — and they sell a smoked duck breast that keeps well in the fridge for three or four days. We have never left Brantôme without a jar of the rillettes. It's non-negotiable.
Bring cash. Many of the smaller producers don't take cards, and the one ATM in the village can have a queue by nine-thirty. A cool bag in the boot is useful for anything that needs to stay fresh on the drive back.
There's usually a standalone cheese producer — sometimes the same one who also sells at the Ribérac market on Fridays — whose offerings rotate with the season. In early summer it's fresh chèvre, mild and almost spreadable, best eaten that evening with a glass of something cold. By August the hard, aged discs appear, wrapped in chestnut leaves, with a sharpness that takes you by surprise. Ask what's ready to eat today versus what needs another week, and they'll tell you honestly.
The bread van parks near the far end of the market. They bake a sourdough miche that has a crust serious enough to require both hands and a good knife, and a fougasse threaded with olives and rosemary that goes directly onto a board with the rillettes and a glass of Bergerac blanc the moment you get home. We've tried to recreate it at the mill using the bread oven — with mixed results.
Seasonal vegetables appear from late spring onwards. Look for the stalls selling directly from their own potager rather than the traders buying wholesale — you can usually tell by the irregular shapes and the fact that everything comes in small quantities. A kilo of tomates coeur de bœuf from someone's garden is not the same as a kilo of identical tomatoes in cellophane.
Once you've shopped, the natural next move is the café on the main square — the one with the green awning that faces the abbey wall. They make a good café allongé and the terrace gets the morning sun until about eleven. If you have children with you, the abbey gardens are worth a slow wander; there's a cave system carved into the cliff face behind the church that local children have been scrambling around for centuries.
The Dronne here is exceptionally clear in summer, and on hot mornings a few locals swim in the stretch below the old bridge. It's not an official swimming spot, but nobody seems to mind.
Brantôme is approximately 30 minutes by car from Moulin des Coutoux, heading north on the D939. Park near the abbey and walk — the market wraps around it in both directions. The whole morning, done properly, takes about two hours.
The best mornings we've had in the Dordogne often begin the same way: the car loaded, the cool bag on the back seat, the radio on low, and the particular anticipation of knowing there's a good rillettes stall waiting on the other side of a quiet country road. Brantôme on a Tuesday has that effect on people. It's a modest thing, but the modest things are usually the ones that stay with you.
Staying at Moulin des Coutoux? We'll share our full list of market days, restaurant recommendations and local producers with every booking.
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