Fresh spring air at Le Violon Vert !

            In those times of spring and exam revision, I suggest you have a little adventure to escape from tension. What about travelling around the world in one place, thanks to music and food ? Welcome to Le Violon Vert !

            Situated near Le Faouët (Moulin-du-Duc exactly), Le Violon Vert is a café-restaurant kept by Su Partington and John Edwards, two former residents of Cornwall. This, in itself, is nothing unusual except that Su and John describe themselves as "economic migrants looking for a better quality of life in Brittany". In addition, the uniqueness of their establishment is that it is operated with responsibility towards environment and ethics in mind.

"Our aim is to offer food and drink that comes from responsible/ethical sources (organic, fair-trade, local produce, etc), and to run our business on a small scale.  We try to be as environmentally sound as possible. All our lighting is low-energy, we have good insulation, use our own wood for heating, compost our waste, grow much of our own produce for the restaurant and keep our energy consumption low (we only have a 9kw supply to the whole building !) and we hope soon to install a solar water-heating system."

            So how does Le Violon Vert work ? With simplicity and in a friendly way. It's open on weekends, from friday to sunday, offering organic food and many drinks (even wines and spirits) along with local artisanal beers. Each week, a world food theme is prepared (Indian, Chinese, Greek/Mediterranen, Mexican repeated monthly) and always with a meat, a seafood and a vegetarian option.

"We are open only at weekends - our aim is to work to earn enough money to sustain ourselves, not to make huge profits. We also think it's important that people who don't eat meat should be catered for, so we always have quality non-meat options."

And to travel more, the musical surrounding is traditional world acoustic with a leaning towards celtic music. Each sunday, there is a live session where all musicians are welcome. You also eat in an artistic and colourful environment because Le Violon Vert offers its walls to artists who want to exhibit their work.

            And for a last surprise, prices are not expensive at all compared to a french restaurant. "We are able to keep our prices at a low level for an organic/eco cafe-bar by making everythong ourselves (including the bread). Also, ingredients from the bio co-ops are much cheaper than buying organic food from supermarkets and sometimes similar in price to a supermarket's non-organic range. We believe that organic food in shops and in restaurants/cafes should be affordable for everybody."

You could eat a delicious and copious 3-course meal for 9€ at lunchtime and 12€50 in the evenings. And having tasted the Mexican Menu, I promise you that you won't be disappointed ! Maybe one day, we will all meet around an organic drink overthere ! Don't forget to book in advance !

If you want more informations, please fell free to visit their website : www.leviolonvert.com