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Want to wake up your taste buds? Taste the Ardennes delicacies!

You are going to stay in one of our gîtes in Hargnies, in the heart of the Ardennes Regional Nature Park? Don't miss the good local food of the Ardennes!

For your Break en Ardennes, we have compiled a small list of gastronomic specialities not to be missed as well as a few addresses full of flavour.

Gastronomic specialities of the Ardennes

Ardennes food specialties a generous terroir

Ardennes meat specialities

Ardennes dry-cured ham

A local cured and matured raw ham, the flagship of Ardennes gastronomy. It can be served as a starter with a salad, or simply as an appetizer, in thin slices accompanied by farmhouse bread, butter and a few small gherkins.

White pudding

Another Ardennes culinary speciality made from pork, bread and milk. The white pudding of Rethel even has a protected geographical indication (IGP). It can be plain, seasoned with truffles, forest or foie gras. In this area, white pudding is often enjoyed cold and sliced as an aperitif.

Gastronomic speciality from the Ardennes
Gastronomic speciality from the Ardennes (©D. Truillard)

Andouille from Revin

An andouille sausage shaped by hand “à la ficelle” (using a string), stuffed with a piece of ham. It is eaten cold and sliced as a starter, or hot as a main course, accompanied by a vegetable side dish.

The Ardennes pie

Usually filled with a pork stuffing, this pie can be enhanced with wild boar for festive meals.

And don't forget Hargnies' charcuterie!

Quality artisanal products that you can savour by ordering your tray from the Celli Butcher's Shop in our top-of-the-range holiday cottages.

The Ardennes dishes the call for friendliness

La Cacasse à cul nu

This specialty was once the poor man's dish. "À cul nu" ("with naked b*m") means that it is made without meat, which was far too expensive at the time. It is a mixture of potatoes and onions, cooked in a cast iron casserole dish which has been rubbed with a bacon bard. Nowadays, the Cacasse is most often "culottée", i.e. filled with meat (a smoked sausage, for example) and is often found at local festivals.

La Bayenne

Another potato speciality. But this one is cooked without fat and with the potatoes skin on in a cast iron casserole with garlic and onions. The potatoes are placed skin side down on the wall of the pot. The mixture is simmered over high heat and is ready when the potatoes stick to the bottom of the pan. In our country, bayenne is served with fillets of salted herring.

The Ardennes salad

This well-vinegared potato salad is garnished with dandelions and browned bacon (called "cretons").

The Semoy trout

A trout baked in a frying pan, topped with a julienne of Ardennes ham and fresh cream.

The fry of the Meuse baby fish

This frying of small river fish is said to have played a part in the creation of Chips in the Middle Ages. One winter day, when the Meuse River froze over, some farmers had the idea of replacing the fish with potato sticks. History does not say on which side of the border this substitution took place...

Cheese or pudding? Both!

Rocroi cheese

A square cheese made from cow's milk from the Plateau de Rocroi. Its particularity is that it is made from skimmed milk, which makes it the lightest cheese in France. Rocroi has a brown washed rind.

The Ardennes Mollet Cake

A fluffy leavened cake

La Galette au Suc

A kind of brioche filled with sugar. Perfect for a delicious breakfast or a warm snack after a nice walk in the forest.

Le Carolo

La douceur emblématique de Charleville-Mézières d'où elle est originaire. Le Carolo se compose d'une meringue aux amandes et d'une crème pralinée légère. Un délice qui saura éveiller vos papilles !

The Carolo pastry, Ardennes 08
Le Carolo, a gourmet cake typical of the Ardennes! (©D. Gevaerts)

To compliment your coffee

Les Ardoises de Fumay (Fumay Slates)

A local speciality of Fumay, a pretty village nicknamed "the city of slate" in reference to the rock that made it prosperous in the 19th century. The Ardoise de Fumay is a delicious square of almond-hazelnut nougatine coated with blue chocolate.

The Givet Blue Stone

Another colourful Ardennes delicacy! The Pierre bleue de Givet is a blue chocolate filled with a dark chocolate ganache and blueberry cream. Blueberries are found in abundance during the summer in the Ardennes forests.

Ardennes Red Sugar

These red sweets celebrate the end of the year. Traditionally made in the Meuse Valley, you will find them shaped like St. Nicholas, as well as animals and other small objects.


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