Les Maisons de Bricourt

Marine water at the pass

Cold seaweed infusion set the palate first when Hugo Roellinger, Chef at Le Coquillage inside Les Maisons de Bricourt in Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes, shaped the restaurant around the bay rather than around meat. His own line, “From this ‘marine water,’ I create my cuisine,” was not ornament. It named the working material: fish, shellfish, seaweed, vegetables, salinity, spice. Roellinger had worked at sea in the merchant navy before the restaurant discipline took over, and that background gave practical weight to a kitchen governed by tides, fishing, weather and horizon. He later trained in the kitchens of Michel Bras, Michel Troisgros, Pierre Gagnaire and Michel Guérard, a French lineage of precision and control. At Le Coquillage, he brought that training back to Château Richeux, on the first floor above Cancale’s oyster beds and Mont Saint-Michel Bay. Olivier Roellinger’s spice-inflected Breton seafood stood behind the house as a predecessor’s grammar, but Hugo’s work narrowed the field further: no meat, a marine register, garden products and spices used as structure rather than display.

Wind, moon, seaweed and spice

The menu Au Gré du Vent et de la Lune carried its method in the title. Wind, moon, fishing, growing and gathering all mattered because the kitchen’s choices depended on timing. The prelude, Eau de Vie, was a cold seaweed infusion, saline and direct, putting the mouth into the same register as the plates that followed. Scallops with butter and rare pepper, turbot with sea fennel, lobster with warm spices, homard au cacao, vin xérès et trois piments, translucent langoustine tartlet with morels: the named dishes show the discipline. Shellfish sweetness met bitterness, acidity, spice and texture without losing its Breton base. The estate’s Potager Celtique supplied herbs and fruit, including 26 heirloom apple varieties pollinated by bees on site, while the bread program used local organic heirloom flours and natural sourdough in the wooden bakehouse. The cellar supported this with a serious wine program, but the plate stayed primary. Spice opened distance; seaweed brought it home.

The room above Cancale

The room at Château Richeux worked in a quieter register than the view might suggest. Coastal light moved through intimate dining rooms; polished wood, linen and discreet service held the pace while the bay did its own work below. From Le Buot, the house looks toward Cancale’s oyster beds, and that geography is not background scenery for Le Coquillage. It is part of the station. The pass answered to a landscape of beds, shore, garden and weather, with the tasting menu moving between sea and land rather than treating them as themes. The formal service gave the kitchen space to work slowly: a cold infusion, a shellfish course, a sauce sharpened by vin xérès, a pepper chosen for lift rather than heat. The restaurant held three Michelin stars for Le Coquillage in 2025, after two Michelin stars in 2019 and a Green star in 2020. At Le Coquillage, Eau de Vie comes before the first fish.