Le Lion d’Or – Arcins, Bordeaux

11 Rte de Pauillac

33460 Arcins,

France

BY NEAL MARTIN | JANUARY 24, 2025

The Food:

Pheasant maison terrine

Lièvre à la royale (royal hare) with truffle tagliatelle

The Wine:

2016 Mauvésin Barton - 91

There is a restaurant nearby whose doors you never entered, whose food you have never eaten. Over time, familiarity bred indifference. Every time you walked or drove past, you rebuffed its silent entreaties beckoning you inside. Eventually, indifference metastasized into scorn. You ignored it for so many years that the reason for your apathy has been long forgotten. In any case, its proximity insinuates that its cuisine is substandard. After all, the clue is in the phrase…destination restaurants. We travel afar to be rewarded with fine dishes. The journey is part of the dining experience, building anticipation, and you don’t get that by nipping ‘round the corner for a bite.  

Don’t you?

Le Lion d’Or is located nowhere near where I live. However, I have passed this restaurant hundreds of times driving up and down the D2 artery that threads its way through the Left Bank appellations. It lies on a gentle swerve between Margaux and Saint-Julien in the village of Arcins. I always spot it from the corner of my eye. But it is viewed not so much as a restaurant, but a signpost informing how much longer before I reach my destination.

During my week in Bordeaux in December 2024, a friend and gourmand who goes under the nom de plume of Cortex suggested Le Lion d’Or as a place to eat that evening. It came out of the blue and piqued my curiosity. Why not? At the very least it would validate my stubborn refusal to patronize the restaurant. Instead, it proved that I had willfully ignored a wonderful place to dine for no rational reason except my own obstinacy.

The facade of Le Lion d'Or.

Being December, the facade is lit up with Christmas decorations twinkling in the night sky. The reception desk lies opposite a kitsch fake Christmas tree overdressed in baubles and tinsel, underneath which a toy electric train made figures of eight through a plastic snowscape. The interior décor is old school, an augury for the dishes served. Modernity is left at the front door.

The friendly maître d’, who has worked here for fifteen years, escorts us to our table. The clientele this Wednesday evening comprises locals—a family celebrating their lad’s tenth birthday and two couples, one playing music on an iPhone at an annoying volume until the woman seated behind them snaps and gives a sharp vocal rebuke that shatters the restaurant’s convivial atmosphere. For a moment, I fear that I will have to break up fisticuffs on the opposite side…

As for the food, this is real, old-school French cooking, unchanged since the Postwar era (probably). I half-expect Escoffier to be in the kitchen. Chalked on the blackboard are several entrées and mains: a cassolette of l’escargots, boudins aux pommes, pigeon rôti, joue de porc, etc. Our choice is made as soon as Cortex spots the lièvre à la royale.

“We have to eat this! Royal hare. You rarely find this dish in French restaurants.”

The maison terrine made an excellent first course.

Before the main event, we share the maison terrine that turns out to be one of the best I’ve eaten in a long time. Using pheasant and pork as the meat with foie gras, I found this less fatty compared to others. This example is relatively light but delicious, especially the golden jelly made from veal stock that I liberally spoon over the terrine to lend a little sweetness.

Lièvre à la Royale originates from Périgord or Orléanais, according to the Larousse Gastronomique, and gained popularity when the newspaper columnist Aristide Couteaux published a recipe in Le Temps. There is an apocryphal story that this dish was invented for King Louis XIV since the Sun King suffered terrible toothache and could only chew soft dishes, though disappointingly, this is now disputed. The recipe for lièvre à la royale at Lion d’Or uses two hares: one for the flesh and one for the stuffing (farce in French). This is mixed with the giblets, foie gras and black truffles, with the hares’ blood used to combine ingredients. It is then cooked slowly.

Though a classic French dish, lièvre à la royale is rarely found in most restaurants.

Ballotines arrive. They look formidable, a glazed deep brown color that could be described as…shall I put it… fecal? I guess I have become accustomed to vividly colored, aesthetically appealing works of art meticulously arranged on a plate with tweezers. The ballotine looks as if it is paddling in brown sludge and yes, yes, yes, I am using vernacular that is putting you off going within ten miles of the place. I understand why one person on my social media timeline wrote that it looked “disgusting.”

Au contraire.

Sure, over the first couple of mouthfuls, the unctuous sauce almost overwhelms the senses with its bloody goodness. It does not take long to adjust, and thereafter, I am enamored by the delicious hare whose neutrality and texture act as a perfect foil for the sauce, aided by the side order of black truffle tagliatelle.

As I realize that I am about to swallow the shot that killed bunny, I wonder whether this hare hopped around Pauillac or Margaux and ask the waiter where it comes from.

“D’Angleterre,” he replies.

So here I am, eating classic French cuisine courtesy of English hunters. Cortex later informs me that this is because in France, demand currently exceeds supply. The shortfall has been exacerbated by the incessant rain that depleted the hare population (just as it has done with grouse in these fair isles, as described in my Grouse Club article). Restaurants must source hare from overseas, though the UK is actually renowned for the quality of its hare, not that you see it often.  

The accompanying wine matches the hare with style. The 2016 Mauvésin Barton, from the Barton family’s Moulis-en-Médoc estate, is in fine form. It has lost the floral elements on the nose that I observed previously, the fruit turning a little darker with blackberry, bilberry and touches of raspberry. It is a little disjointed at first but melds together with aeration. The palate, again, demands decanting to really coalesce. Like many 2016 Left Bank wines, there is no shortage of fruit, although it requires air to shave just a soupçon of rusticity. With impressive depth on the finish, this Mauvésin Barton is reaching its drinking plateau and will continue to give pleasure over the next decade.

Tummy stuffed, I eschew the tempting desserts. By the time my espresso arrives, rapprochement between the warring couples has been reached and bizarrely, they now seem lifelong friends. The restaurant sings “Happy Birthday” to the boy. I like to think that he celebrated his tenth orbit around the sun with lièvre à la royale while his friends made do with Big Macs.

Le Lion d’Or is unapologetically traditional and a little quirky, the cooking perhaps too rich or unsophisticated for those accustomed to Michelin-starred finery. This is hearty, stomach-filling French food that cares little for fad or fashion. That’s why I fell in love with it. The next time you pass that café, that bistro or that restaurant, the one that has bred indifference, imagine that you are passing for the very first time.

Go and open their door. Venture inside. Give it a chance.

You never know what might be lying on your doorstep.

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