Le Galion Restaurant
Le Galion has been feeding locals and knowing visitors on the Place Maréchal Foch since the 1960s, and it remains the most honest expression of Norman coastal cooking in town — think just-landed sole meunière, moules marinières with proper crème fraîche, and a cheese board that takes the local terroir seriously. The room is unfussy, the service is warm and the carafe wine is surprisingly good.
What to order
The sole meunière is the benchmark dish: a whole flat fish from the morning's catch, browned in Isigny butter until the skin crackles, finished with lemon and flat-leaf parsley. It arrives with steamed potatoes and nothing else — and nothing else is needed.
For a starter, the assiette de fruits de mer gives you a cross-section of whatever the boats brought in: Normandy oysters, whelks, shrimp and half a crab, all served cold on crushed ice with shallot vinegar and rye bread. It's one of the great simple pleasures of the French coast.
When to go and booking
Lunch is the meal to prioritise — the plat du jour at around €16 is exceptional value and usually features the freshest catch of the day. The dining room fills completely by 12:30 pm on weekends from June to September, so either arrive at noon or book ahead by phone.
The covered terrace on the square is the place to sit on fine days; you can watch the town go by over a post-lunch Calvados, which is the correct way to end a meal in Normandy.
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