Words Denise Irvine, Images Ashlee DeCaires
There’s a taste of France on offer at La Cave, a culinary treasure on Riverlea Road, Hillcrest, that’s flown a little bit under the radar for the past 20 years.
Owner Brigid Sullivan says the regulars to her store – packed with imported comestibles – include local food-lovers, French people and other Europeans who have made Hamilton their home. But she still gets customers who walk in and say (after all this time), “Oh, I didn’t know you were here.”
La Cave was opened in 2004 by Raphael and Valerie Coutolleau; they returned to live in their native France in 2017 and sold the business to Brigid, a Kiwi food-lover who quickly came up to speed on their legacy.
Prior to buying La Cave, Brigid spent 15 months overseas, in Canada, Europe and the UK. She admired French bistro food, and in Ireland she did a course at Darina Allen’s famous Ballymaloe Cookery School, near Cork.
At La Cave, she specialises in European – but mainly French – products. These include a lovely line up of cheeses; terrines; truffles; pâtés; rillettes; duck fat; tinned confit duck, escargot, and cassoulet; vinegars; mustards; jams; sardines; anchovies; chocolates; regional wines; lots of confectionary; and (the real deal) French market baskets, cookware (Le Creuset), glassware (La Rochere) and table linen.
There are also French pastries and breads available freshly baked at La Cave, or sold par-baked or frozen, to be finished off at home. They are a big draw-card.
Pastries cover the classics, such as croissants, pain au chocolate, pain au raisin, cinnamon swirls and chocolate and custard torsade. These are made with French artisan T55 flour (also available at La Cave) and Brigid says some of her customers tell her they find this easier to digest.
Brigid’s biggest market, though, is outside Hamilton. As well as La Cave, she runs a wholesale business, Le Gastronome, selling the products she imports to restaurants, cafes, speciality supermarkets, boutiques and gift-basket companies nationwide. Some of these clients have dealt with Le Gastronome from the get-go, and mustards, duck fat, chestnut products, sardines, gherkins and duck confit are among the top wholesale requests.
“The wholesale side was also started by Raphael,” Bridgid says. “It involves a lot of forward planning. Ordering for Christmas goods, especially, starts a long way in advance. Christmas is always exciting. There are chocolates, biscuits, French popcorn, condiments, and other things that you don’t see year round.”
Central to the operation are the refrigerated containers that regularly land in La Cave’s backyard. They are unpacked on site, and extra staff is needed for this. “It’s always a big couple of days. There are boxes to count. We quality check the products, put them away, enter everything into our inventory, and fill the wholesale orders.”
Brigid has confident hands in her home kitchen, as well as in her business. In a tour of La Cave’s shelves, she points out some of her personal favourites, and the first stop is for the French brand of Celtic Sea Salt. “There are various grades; they are 100 per cent pure with no treatments or chemicals.”
She particularly enjoys Fleur de sel de Guérande (natural flower sea salt), a finishing salt of carefully harvested fine white crystals that are perfect for dressing baking, such as a salted caramel slice, or to top off a salad. “You just don’t cook with it.”
Brigid likes escargot (snails) in garlic butter, and says they’re also good mixed with bacon and cream and baked in a tart shell. Tinned confit duck and cassoulet are excellent for winter dinner party dishes, and French goat cheese is a favourite to crumble into green salads, roast veggie salads and pasta. “It is creamy, versatile and punchy.”
French Ebly wheat is another of Brigid’s pantry staples, produced from whole durum wheat grains grown in central France. It has a nutty flavour, and it happily substitutes for risotto rice. “It makes a nice warm salad with roasted pumpkin, spinach, pinenuts and goat cheese.”
Brigid says there is a common misconception that French food is fancy and expensive. “But it is simply good quality everyday products, such as mustards, sardines, jams, and more, with lots of flavour.”
Of course I do a spot of shopping before I leave, following up on Brigid’s favourites of Fleur de sel Guérande, Ebly wheat and goat cheese. So dinner that night is a delicious warm salad based on her instructions. I’m specially enjoying the goat cheese and finishing salt, and I have some tins of French sardines waiting in the wings for an outing.
La Cave
51 A Riverlea Road, Hillcrest, Hamilton
