What to Eat in Le Touquet: Seafood, Northern French Dishes and Local Treats

What should you eat in Le Touquet? The answer comes down to two things: the sea and the North. The resort lives to the rhythm of the Boulogne and Étaples fishing fleets, with mussels, flatfish and shellfish of outstanding freshness; it also shares the hearty cooking of the Hauts-de-France region, built on beer, strong cheeses and slow-cooked dishes. Add a handful of local producers, a chocolatier, a biscuit maker and a jam maker, and you have enough to fill a whole stay without eating the same thing twice. Here are the specialities to try, where to find them and what is worth taking home.

Seafood specialities

This is the heart of Le Touquet's food scene. Most of the fish comes from Boulogne-sur-Mer, which bills itself as France's leading fishing port, and from Étaples, just across the Canche.

• Mussels: marinière, with cream or with beer, served with chips. Bouchot mussels are small, plump and particularly good from summer to autumn.
• Flatfish: sole meunière, turbot with beurre blanc, skate with capers. These are the classics of the resort's best restaurants.
• Scallops (coquilles Saint-Jacques), in the colder months, simply seared.
• Herring, smoked or marinated, served with warm potatoes: the quintessential northern bistro dish.
• Brown shrimp croquettes, borrowed from neighbouring Belgian cuisine.
• Fish soup, which several local houses serve with croutons and rouille.

Our favourite places to enjoy them are gathered in our guide to seafood in Le Touquet.

Northern French dishes to try at least once

Le Touquet may be an upmarket resort, but it is still in the Pas-de-Calais. The region's brasseries and estaminets (traditional taverns) serve the great northern classics:

Welsh, a northern take on Welsh rarebit, has spread right along the northern French coast: even some grand-hotel brasseries keep it on the menu. Maroilles, a washed-rind cheese from the Avesnois with a protected designation of origin, turns up as readily on a cheeseboard as in tarts.

Le Touquet's sweet treats

Several businesses were born or have settled in Le Touquet and are part of the resort's culinary identity:

• Au Chat Bleu, 47 bis rue Saint-Jean, one of the oldest shops in town: chocolates with affectionate names, marzipan shaped like ladybirds or kittens, and armagnac-filled chardons. The kind of place where grandparents take their grandchildren.
• La Manufacture du Touquet, rue Saint-Louis: an artisan biscuit maker that looks like a giant biscuit tin, with shortbread, madeleines and house creations named after local places.
• Tea Together: organic jams made in Le Touquet and sold as far afield as luxury hotels.
• The ice-cream parlours and pâtisseries in the centre, on rue Saint-Jean and avenue du Verger, for a waffle, a crêpe or a sorbet in the late afternoon.

Chocolate is in fact one of the common threads of shopping in Le Touquet: several chocolatiers have shops between rue Saint-Jean and rue de Metz. Our guide to Le Touquet's shops and market will help you find your way.

What to pack in your suitcase

1. Pérard fish soup in a jar, the resort's most famous savoury speciality, with its rouille.
2. A tin of biscuits from La Manufacture du Touquet.
3. Chocolates from Au Chat Bleu or another chocolatier on rue Saint-Jean.
4. A jar of jam from Tea Together.
5. A Maroilles or another northern cheese, well wrapped (and kept cool).
6. Regional beers: the Hauts-de-France has many craft breweries, including beers bearing the resort's name.

Fresh produce (fish, cheese) does not travel well: buy it on your last morning and bring a cool box for the journey.

Where to try it all

Depending on what you fancy:

• At Le Touquet's covered market, on Thursday and Saturday mornings all year round, for cheese, charcuterie, fruit and fresh fish. It is also a monument: these semicircular market halls, opened in 1932, are listed as a historic monument.
• In the brasseries on rue Saint-Jean and rue de Metz, for welsh, mussels and carbonade.
• At the delicatessens, such as Maison Montet on rue de Metz, known for its pâté en croûte and vol-au-vents, everything you need for a picnic.
• At the fine-dining restaurants, where local produce (lobster, wild fish, local vegetables) is prepared more creatively: see where to eat out in Le Touquet.

Charles's tip: have a “northern dinner” at home on your first evening. Welsh or flamiche from a delicatessen, a Maroilles, a local beer and a salad: it's simple, it warms you up, and the next day you can start the week with the Thursday or Saturday market.

A typical foodie day in Le Touquet

To taste a little of everything in a single day, here is the sequence we suggest to our guests:

Everything can be done on foot within a few hundred metres: the centre of Le Touquet is compact, and the beach is never far away for an after-dinner stroll.

Eating local through the seasons

Le Touquet's menus change with the calendar:

• In spring, sole and asparagus, the first terraces and field-grown strawberries towards the end of the season.
• In summer, the year's bouchot mussels, brown shrimp and grilled fish, with red berries and ice cream.
• In autumn, the return of scallops, mushrooms and game in the bistros; in November, the Hareng Roi herring festival in Étaples, held every year.
• In winter, northern stews, festive oysters and Christmas chocolates.

To make the most of each season, see our guide on when to visit Le Touquet. And to cook up your finds, our Hélios and Cassiopée apartments each have a fully equipped kitchen, a stone's throw from rue Saint-Jean.