Le Cabanoix et le Châtaigne, Domme
Tucked on Rue Eugène Le Roy, this intimate restaurant champions the hyper-local Périgord Noir larder with an honesty that bigger, flashier places in Sarlat rarely match. The menu changes with the seasons and the chef's relationships with nearby farms, but the cooking is consistently precise and generous.
What to Order
The signature dish — a thick slice of duck magret glazed with local walnut oil and served with a gratin of Sarladaise potatoes cooked in duck fat — is a masterclass in Périgord cooking done without apology or irony. Pair it with a glass of Château de Tiregand Pécharmant, a structured red from vines 20 kilometres west, and the combination is almost embarrassingly good.
In autumn, the menu pivots to chestnut-based dishes: chestnut velouté with foie gras shavings, chestnut flour crêpes with salted butter caramel. In spring, asparagus from the sandy soils near Périgueux appears with morel mushrooms gathered from local woods. The kitchen respects the calendar.
The Room and the Welcome
The dining room is small — perhaps ten tables — with exposed stone walls, mismatched vintage chairs and a chalkboard menu that the owner rewrites by hand each morning. Reservations are essential in July and August; in shoulder season you can often walk in for lunch.
Service is run by the owner's partner, who speaks good English and is genuinely happy to explain every dish, every producer and every wine. This is the kind of place where you end up staying two hours longer than planned and leave with a list of farm addresses to visit the next day.
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