Awesome Antibes for Food-Lovers

              Antibes has it all:  Picasso's Museum, glorious scenery & a food-lover's paradise

I took the Julia Child group this week to the glorious seaside town of Antibes to shop for dinner ingredients.  A super charmer surrounded with centuries-old stone walls overlooking the Mediterranean, it also offers a cornucopia of delicious culinary gems.    

Antibe’s outdoor covered market was a must visit first stop.  The olive selection was mesmerizing with an endless parade of sizes, shapes and preparations (e.g. tampenade in every imaginable flavor).  Vegetables included fava beans, tomatoes, fennel, zucchini, leeks, peppers in several different colors, an array of ten different types of radishes, and a mélange of jaw-dropping lettuces.   Fruit vendors offered an enticing array of intoxicatingly fragrant products.  The strawberries and raspberries were sublime, as was the local Cavaillon melon which you could smell ten feet away.   

Close to the outdoor market was one of the Holy Grails for foodies.  Fabre (whose moniker is “the master of meat,”) has been in business since 1899.  This boucherie was Julia’s favorite meat purveyor.   After visiting I now understand why.  Fabre’s showcases featured milk-fed veal and Kobe beef among a gorgeous array of meats that could have walked the red carpet at the nearby Cannes’ Film Festival.  This place is the real deal for serious meat-lovers.

Not far from Fabre’s butcher shop was a killer boulangerie by the name of Veziano.  Even though I went to buy their late-bake breads for breakfast, I couldn’t resist the pissaladiere, the French Riviera’s version of pizza with carmelized onions, niçoise olives and anchovies.

With a few blocks was another tempting place.   La Ferme au Foie Gras was the perfect foodie emporium offering a huge array of culinary gifts for friends back home.

Need wine?  The Julia Child group did so we picked up some great wines at the city's well-stocked wine shop,  Cave La Trielle d'Or.  In addition to a terrific collection of Provence wine, there was a superb selection of Bordeaux, Burgundy & Champagne.

                                             

Table linens or items for the kitchen?  No problem.   Old town Antibes was a maze of pedestrian-only streets filled with the best that France has to offer for your home. There was one problem, however, that most of the women I brought to Antibes had.  Where was the luggage store to buy an extra suitcase?