Maisons-Laffitte: A Popular Portuguese Family Restaurant Close to a 17th-century Model Château by Annabel Simms
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I had always thought of Maisons-Laffitte as a bourgeois residential suburb probably not worth exploring. But a local’s recommendation and its easy access by train decided me to try it with a friend one Sunday – and proved me wrong.
We began by ignoring the main road from the station and plunged into a series of narrow side streets lined by shuttered old houses in the village-like older part of town, towards the Seine. A friendly café-owner directed us to Le Penalty (as in football) round the corner, full of Portuguese men of all ages in the bar, where we drank a very good porto blanc while waiting for a table upstairs. The first floor dining room, with homely paper tablecloths and paper flowers, was crammed with Portuguese and French families, with two young men rushing around with the orders.
We were the only non-locals in the place and were treated with friendly but not excessive interest. There was no written menu, but I identified chevreau and cochon de lait as roast kid and sucking pig, my favourite Portuguese dishes, and we ordered those. They were good, as was the house wine, and the home-made tarte au biscuit. But the biggest surprise was the bill, which was so low we thought there was a mistake. But no. The three-course Sunday menu is currently an amazing EUR 13, including wine, mineral water and coffee.
Sober Majesty
Two hours later, flushed and happy, we turned left into the rue Mesnil, crossed the rue de Paris and continued along the rue de la Vieille Eglise to the château, a ten-minute walk. En route we passed a lopsided little 11th-century church, now an arts centre, but once the heart of the medieval village. The château is right next to it, and couldn’t be more different. It was completed in 1651 by François Mansart for René Longueil, President of the Parlement de Paris, who wanted a château fit to welcome royalty.
Mansart was a perfectionist who used classical models to produce an overwhelming impression of sober majesty and austere good taste. Maisons-Laffitte was considered his masterpiece at the time and is the best surviving example of his work. It anticipates Versailles, which was completed by his great-nephew, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, fifty years later.
Royalty did come to visit and even to buy - at one time the château was owned by the future Charles X, and at another by the Paris banker Jacques Laffitte who gave his name to the town. Louis XIV, Voltaire and Napoleon were regular guests. It has a long association with horse-racing (the nearby race-course is the longest in France, after Chantilly) and there is a display devoted to horses on the lower floor, including a horse-sized operating table.
Mysterious Reflections
I have to admit that the beautiful proportions of the château left me cold, possibly because its once extensive park has been reduced, although I admired the Cabinet des Miroirs with its inlaid parquet floor and mysterious reflections. As with Le Penalty, we savoured the gratifying sensation of being the only foreigners around. There aren’t many French visitors either, so the visit is a restful experience.
Returning past the old church, we continued round the back of the château, to follow the Avenue de Verdun to the bridge (D308) across the Seine and crossed into Sartrouville, a completely different world. It is much more densely and heterogeneously populated than Maisons-Laffitte, and moves at a faster rhythm.
But we stayed in the quiet spacious world of the river by taking the steps down from the bridge to the right and following it for half a kilometre, before coming to the railway bridge where we turned left for the station at Sartrouville and the 21-minute train ride to Paris.
Want to stay just a train ride away from this beautiful landmark? See our entire listings of luxury hotels in Paris.