There are these moments in our life where we pause for a couple of seconds and realize that we are creating a memory that we will hold tight for the rest of our life.
Somehow, everything in that moment just fits…The company, the volume, the smells, the emotion, (and yes, wine was involved, so I might be getting the feelings confused, but I still liked the feelings).
I already feel bad for my future husband…Who will have to suffer when I tell him the same story about the French restaurant in the trailer park anytime we are near a French restaurant or a trailer park. And come on, taking my future family there one day? We all know “that place” is never the same when you go back, especially 10 years later with children and hangry parents.
Fine Dining in a French Trailer Park: Discovering The Best Méribel Restaurant
Every day we were in Méribel we would take the free bus from our village, Chandon, to the main ski area, and every day we would pass a trailer park that had a restaurant in it.
At first, the trailer park stuck out as kind of odd, being that Méribel’s chalet-like villages help retain a traditional Alpine vibe, but you can’t help to be intrigued. I’d wonder, “What do those T-Park people know that we don’t?”
The restaurant is like the picturesque French restaurant that is all over Méribel, yet the Restaurant Le Martagon sign is slightly faded, and it is hard to distinguish the restaurant from a potential chalet that the Brits or Russian would be renting for a large group.
One cold morning we were getting a late start to skiing, and we decided to head over to the trailer park restaurant to check it out. We decided to make a reservation at Restaurant Le Martagon for a party of 10 later that evening.
As we struggled to communicate our desire to make a reservation for that evening, we knew we were in for probably the most authentic meal we would be able to have in France. None of the staff spoke any English (which is totally not expected, but peculiar since Méribel is one of the most popular ski resorts for the British).
The inside of the restaurant looked more like a family’s private dining room. It was perfect.
The restaurant reminded me of that “cool international girl’s house” that I used to hang out with when I was in Brownies. Her house and family just always seemed like they knew something that I didn’t know. Their house was never fancy, just warm, humble and inviting
It seems as though a mother owns the restaurant, and her two children are the only waitstaff. The walls are covered with Taxidermied animal heads, which are softened by the feminine yet conservative homey window coverings. And although the restaurant has animal heads mounted on the walls, flowery and awkward window coverings, and a faded France-like picture painted on the wall above the stairs, none of it seemed cheesy or suspicious. In fact, it looked as though dinner was in a living and dining room that was converted into a restaurant.
Mo, the tall Irish beauty of the group I was traveling with was fluent in French, and pulled the weight for the team as she asked questions about the food, ordered us bottles of wine, and requested our meat bloody or pink. Mo ignited an escargot trend at the table, which made snails shiver across the world.
And like you imagine your ideal “vacation moment” to be, I knew I was creating a lasting memory, especially when I began to wonder what kind of other restaurants were hiding out there in trailer parks…Or even in the trailers themselves.