Les Jardiniers

The story

Les Jardiniers, Chinon: Garden-to-Plate Cuisine in the Loire Valley

From Garden to Plate

At Les Jardiniers in Ligré, just outside Chinon, the kitchen is a direct extension of the 5,000-square-metre potager that surrounds the former village café. The restaurant’s name announces its ethic: everything begins with the garden. Vegetables, herbs, edible flowers, and fruits are grown according to agroecological principles, harvested daily, and transformed into what the team calls “authentic, creative, and committed” cuisine.

The restaurant occupies the old Café de la Gare, now a bright dining room of thirty seats furnished with carefully chosen brocante finds and custom-made pieces. It sits on the edge of the greenway linking Chinon to Richelieu, in the heart of Rabelais country.

Chef Martin Bolaers

Chef Martin Bolaers arrived from the gastronomic restaurant of the Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud, where he was deputy head chef. At Les Jardiniers, he works with spontaneity and directness, guided by what the garden offers each day. The menu changes with the season and the harvest, with dishes built around vegetables, herbs, and fruit from the potager, supplemented by local meats, fish, and artisan products from nearby producers.

The kitchen’s commitment to locality runs deep: bread is leavened with a house sourdough and baked in a traditional wood-fired oven. Each month, the restaurant lists its producers by name—growers of asparagus, truffles, quinoa, lamb, and cheeses, all within a short radius.

The Menu

Lunch offers a two-course “Deux temps” formula (39€, weekdays only), while dinner expands into three, four, or five-course menus (52€ to 75€). In winter, a black truffle menu (92€) highlights the region’s truffles from the Domaine du Moribot. A vegetarian option is always available on request. Sample dishes from a recent menu include a garden-and-cellar starter called “L’instant T”, roast duckling with a warm pâté of its own offcuts, green and white asparagus with spinach and a juice made from 2025 peelings, and a dessert of first field-ripened strawberries with raw cream, buckwheat, and fir-syrup sorbet.

Recognition

The Michelin guide has recommended Les Jardiniers, noting its direct, garden-to-plate philosophy and the clarity of its seasonal cooking. For diners seeking a meal that is both refined and deeply rooted in the surrounding land, this restaurant in the Loire Valley offers an experience that feels both modern and ancient.