La Ferme de la Choumette – a unique restaurant in St Martin de Belleville

Some friends from Green Mountain Chalets said one day whilst we were in the Three Valleys, “lets go to lunch in a cow shed”. Of course that intrigued us enough to go along! La Ferme de la Choumette is on the right hand side of the blue Biolley piste, just before the tunnel, on the way into St Martin de Belleville from the top of the Becca lift. Unfortunately on the day we were there (December 17th) the run was shut, however we got the bubble down into St Martin de Belleville and caught a lift up with James and Gemma.

The restaurant from the outside looks like any other traditional piste side lunch stop, but from the inside it’s a whole different story. First of all it was empty, probably due to the blue run closure, this didn’t deter us at all. The staff were absolutely lovely, and ushered us to a table looking over the cow shed, yes the cow shed! The restaurant looks over the cow shed, which you can view through the windows in the restarant. I’ll get on to the cow shed later!

The menu in La Ferme de la Choumette is a traditional one, with a range of meat choices plus the traditional range of savoyard specialities, all cooked with the cheese made in the restaurants dairy, Tomme de Savoie (I had Tommiflette rather than tartiflette). Myself and Gemma had the Tommiflette, Dave had Crosiflette (same as the Tommiflette, but substitute pasta for potatoes) James had some sort of pasta cheese bake that I can’t remember the name of! All the courses came with a side salad to complement the heavy cheese. All of us thought the food was absolutely fantastic.

Now comes the unique part of the restaurant, through the windows at the back of the restaurant you can see through to the cow shed which houses many cows, sheep, goats and one rabbit!! This gives the restaurant a rather unique atmosphere, and certainly not an experience to be missed. We got a tour of the cow shed and it was great fun looking at all the animals and gazing up to the restaurant.

Whilst we were there, the owner asked us to translate the English versions of the puddings, being 4 non fluent (but trying) French speakers we gave it a good shot, but don’t blame us if we get it slightly wrong! In return for the translations we were offered a free selection of puddings, which were all lovely, but we seriously recommend the home made yoghurt with fig and vanilla regional speciality pastries, absolutely lovely, or maybe try the Bavarian Chocolate pudding which was divine, or the creme brulees were also lovely, in fact it was all fabulous!

Main courses range from 10 – 20 euros, with puddings around 5-8euros, which for the quality of the food is great. Anyone who wants to can pop down to see the animals, great for children. The real special thing about this restaurant is the friendliness of the owners, they really were lovely, and even though much of what was said was lost in translation, I believe they were so happy to see us enjoying their food and the surroundings. One last on the house genepi and we were on our way, sneaking down the last 100metres of the closed blue run and glowing far more than when we arrived! We highly recommend you make the trip to La Ferme de la Choumette for lunch or dinner.

You can contact La Ferme de la Choumette on +33 479 4000 42.