These girls stand tall in their boots

Here we go, through the doors of Les Filles en Bottes inn in Saint-Georges-de-Reintembault, and Louise Lefebvre and Lénaïck Geffroy welcome us, all smiles, with some great tunes playing in the background. Stone walls, vintage furniture and open kitchen – here, the world “inn” takes on its full meaning.

Jars of fermented vegetables adorn the kitchen shelves like the remnants of past summers: elderberry vinegar, peaches, pickles… In these early March days, the sun floods the dining room, which manages to be rustic and chic at the same time. Louise Lefebvre takes us round the two little rooms so as to find out where we want to sit, while Lénaïck Geffroy gets down to the pita bread in the kitchen. We opt for the room with the open kitchen as we don’t want to disturb their dog Paco, who’s taking a nap beside the stove in the other room.

What really strikes us about this place just north of Fougères is the match between the setting and the people who live in it. You’d never guess that the inn has only been open since last summer. These two repurposed thirty-something-year-olds have turned this former farmhouse into an inn and a gite in their own image: simple, warm-hearted and generous. Both of them are from the north and Brittany was an obvious choice for them. “My father’s from Trégastel in Côtes d’Armor. I’ve got a Breton first name. I got the Brittany bug when I was very young”, Lénaïck confides. “And then, what we liked about this place was that it’s a bit wild, a bit like us you know”, she adds, bursting into laughter.

“Les Filles en Bottes is a nod to our years of WWOOFing, as well as –unintentionally – to our firmly rooted convictions. We’re unflinching!”

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Drawn by the rural side of inland Brittany, they made the rounds of producers before moving in. “We discovered a whole network of committed, dynamic young farmers, which is what decided us to come here”, Lénaïck acknowledges. And Louise adds, “What’s important to us is to find out what local producers do and, in our turn, provide our customers with new flavours and inform them on products’ seasonality and origin.” As she trained under Florent Ladeyn (Auberge du Vert Mont, Bierbuik, etc.), the locavore chef from the north, you might say that Lénaïck Geffroy went to a good school. From appetisers to dessert, her dishes are an artful balance between acid and bitter, creamy and crunchy. A balancing act that she performs discreetly, alone, behind her range cooker.

Today, the braised mushrooms with treacle and fermented cabbage shake up the taste buds while remaining a real gourmet treat. Her dessert, a sort of beignet accompanied by orange curd and a peach in garden syrup, takes us back to our childhood.

After lunch, we take a stroll in the French-style garden. “Such a shame for an inn that was bought from English people”, Louise remarks ironically. But once we’ve passed the perfectly trimmed hedges, the real playground comes into sight: a hectare of meadowland and 4,000 m² of fruit trees that are only waiting for the fine weather in order to blossom.

A former equestrian tourist guide, Louise Lefebvre has no problem getting her hands dirty. Converted to market gardening during Covid, she trained at Les Jardins de la Matz in Plouër-sur-Rance. As for Lénaïck, she obtained a Master’s in Private Law before making off to the kitchen. “Les Filles en Bottes is a nod to our years of WWOOFing, as well as –unintentionally – to our firmly rooted convictions. We’re unflinching!”, Lénaïck concludes, all smiles.