A place as comforting as a grog, a good book or a concert. This is what the five conductors of Chenal, a bar, restaurant and café-bookstore in Porspoder, wanted to create. And that day, as a depression fell over the tip of Finistère, the mission was accomplished.
Some brave walkers braved the elements to attempt a walk in the dunes. They come through the door, shaggy and dripping. You will at least need waffles drizzled with chocolate, enjoyed on a leather sofa while listening to the warm voice of Césaria Évora, to recover from the escapade.
Books galore
And within reach, to the right, to the left and even under the table, books in abundance to travel to other parts of the world. Goodbye to the great outdoors, hikers have found something to spend the afternoon. Travel bookstore, restaurant, tea room, concert and cinema hall, exhibition venue… It’s difficult to summarize the Chenal in one word. The colorful profiles of its five founding partners explain this joyful mix of genres. This place is first and foremost the story of a group of friends. One makes books, the other makes music and the third is a photographer. They dream of a place in their image. It's a bit of a vague idea, like all late night ideas. But this one comes up often. So they search, without really believing in it.
An incredible view of northern Finistère
Among the false leads, there was an abandoned train station in Cantal and an old palace in Saint-Nectaire. Quite a program. Ultimately, it will be a popular old ballroom in Porspoder, located just opposite Melon Island, overlooking one of the most spectacular panoramas in Finistère. This coast, part of the small team is very attached to it. Didier Labouche and Xavier Demerliac are from Brest, they wore out their pants there. They also know the Chenal. In 2005, the old ballroom was transformed into a bar-restaurant and it is not unusual for the gang to meet there.
You can come across both the Plourin football club, which comes here to celebrate the end of the year, and an ambassador passing through Brittany.
In 2015, when rumors circulated that the brand was for sale, it was almost too good to be true. A fourth thief, Marc Wiltz, publisher of travel books in Paris, is ready to throw marbles into the affair. But to hope to make the investment profitable, the catering activity must be maintained. This is a string that the quartet does not have in its bow. “I remember perfectly the evening when we asked Béatrice to join us,” says Didier Labouche, bookseller and publisher. We had to see us, four malabars, 400 kilos, and she said yes! » At that time, Béatrice Cabon was an employee of Chenal and worked in the kitchens. “I loved this place, I had the idea of developing cultural programming here for a long time,” she remembers. Their project immediately appealed to me. And then, I had carte blanche in the kitchen! “, she enjoys.
Cultural nomadism and traveling cuisine
Béatrice Cabon becomes director and manager of the business. His four acolytes are full of praise for his traveling cuisine, entirely homemade, based on fresh, local and seasonal products. “We even make the bread ourselves,” she explains.
On the menu at the end of October, scallops gratinated with seaweed butter, squid with chorizo sauce with buckwheat flour and tonka bean chocolate mousse. The chef managed to bring together a stable team and slipped her passions between the walls, developing beautiful wine and tea lists. In seven years, the Chenal has found its clientele. You can meet an ambassador passing through Brittany as well as the Plourin football club for its end-of-year meal. In summer, the place is popular with vacationers, many Brest residents frequent it, but the local clientele has kept its habits.
Comforting in winter, welcoming during summer evenings, the Chenal à Melon is also “the last stopover before America”.
In winter, the team puts together a unique cultural program: film screenings, conferences, exhibitions, concerts and even film concerts, one of the Chenal's trademarks. Among the five founders, we find Xavier Demerliac, guitarist of the group l'Attirail, who is passionate about music with images. In September, their film concert around the documentary Grass, a fascinating epic of the migration of a Kurdish people to the pastures of Persia, left indelible memories.
Journey between words
On the shelves, 2,000 books from the catalog of the Union of Independent Travel Publishers. Alongside Chukchi tales, the story of a Paris-Tehran by bike, La porte de la mer, an Algerian initiatory novel, or L'Aimant, a tragi-comic maritime story by Richard Gaitet. The only problem with books is that they quickly invade the space and Didier Labouche, the team's bookseller, confesses that it is odious and regularly overflows. “There are books everywhere, I don’t even have room to put my menu!” », Beatrice Cabon pretends to complain.
But this crazy and eclectic atmosphere is also part of the charm of the place. Le Chenal is open from Wednesday to Sunday, all day long. Light, atmosphere, customers: the place transforms hour by hour. “I love it when night falls, when we turn on all the little lights on the tables,” says Didier Labouche. And then on screening evenings, there is a secular patronage room feel from the 1950s! Even if we invested in very good equipment. » If the team agrees on the charm of winter in this cocoon where you never get bored, it's difficult not to evoke the endless June evenings, soaking up the light and the horizon until the sun falls behind Melon Island. We are here – as the festival organized each year at Le Chenal reminds us – at “the last stopover before America”.
Discover the world of photographer Mathieu Le Gall
This article appeared in Bretagne Magazine N°123 (January-February 2022)
Pop souvenirs
We stood there on the floor of the Chenal! A ballroom existed before the war, but it was in 1947 that the vast space we know today was built. The dance floor was three steps below the floor and could accommodate up to 240 guests. Many couples have met, recognized and lost touch in this institution renowned throughout the region. The place opened its doors in 1907, first as a café-haberdashery-grocery store. As was common on the coast, meals were served to fishermen and workers. A first restaurant room was built in 1920. It now houses the offices of the Géorama publishing house, resembling a cabinet of curiosities, attached to the bar.
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