Beyond Paris — are these the best French restaurants outside the capital?

, The Times

‘The motor-car has restored the romance of travel,” wrote the novelist Edith Wharton breathlessly, at the beginning of her book A Motor-Flight Through France. It was 1908, and the car was brand new, any comprehension of its polluting tendencies far in the future. Thank goodness for hybrid and electric cars, as I still love a driving tour, especially on quieter roads, south towards the sunshine, punctuated with the kind of great meals that France still does so well. My household holds two drivers, but no nondrinkers: if there is a wine flight in sight, we both want it and, this not being 1908, that means an overnight stay. So, with the almost impossible task of narrowing down my favourite French restaurants to six, I have chosen places that either offer accommodation — three are part of the prestigious Relais & Châteaux group — or are in places such as Lyon or Menton, where a comfortable place to sleep off a great dinner is easily found. Bon appétit!

Le Bois sans Feuilles, Ouches Troisgros

Le Bois sans Feuilles in Ouches is like dining in nature

FELIX LEDRU

It must have taken courage to move a triple-Michelin-star Relais & Châteaux restaurant of nearly 90 years’ standing a few miles out of town, but that is what the Troisgros family — one of the most famous names in French cuisine — did in 2017. And it has paid off, because they now have luxuriously simple accommodation and a glass-walled dining room, so that it really is like dining in nature (the name means “the wood without leaves”) — if nature had pillars, perfect slender tables and incredible food. César Troisgros, who is from the fourth generation of the gastronomic family, dreams up dishes that are as satisfying to the eye as to the palate: delicate crisps and tiny cups, a slash of John Dory dividing a savoury sauce from a decadent pile of black truffle slices. You will think you are unable to manage an almond soufflé or a millefeuille with caramel and clementine. You will be wrong. And for each marvel the sommelier Haik Manoukian has an ideal wine, ranging from the classics (a luscious Coche-Dury) to an Areni Noir from his native Armenia, all spice and silk.
troisgros.fr

L’Atelier des Augustins, Lyon NINTCHDBPICT001022082086

L’Atelier des Augustins in Lyon has a cosmopolitan flavour

In a charming little restaurant a step from the River Rhône, Nicolas Guilloton is busily proving that you don’t have to be born Lyonnais to make a noise in the city that prides itself on being France’s gastronomic capital. He came here from Alsace, via the kitchens of the French embassy in London and in Bamako, so there’s a cosmopolitan flavour to the food, even if the ingredients are diligently sourced within a 200km radius. In France it is still unusual to find vegetables given the love and skill that meat and fish receive, but here tiny mushrooms decorate the butter like diamonds on a ring, and a half-head of glowing green lettuce is subtly infiltrated by herbs from Guilloton’s kitchen garden. There is meat and fish, too, of course, desserts that are only subtly sweet, and a superb wine list — and all in a room cleverly lined with wood that shields diners from the graffitied walls opposite. No wonder it has already bagged a Michelin star.
latelierdesaugustins.com

La Table de Philippe Girardon, Vienne NINTCHDBPICT001022080937

La Table de Philippe Girardon serves the best of classic French food

Vienne is famous for La Pyramide, one of the greatest French restaurants ever. It is still there, and still very good, but Fernand Point, the genius who founded it, died in 1955. A more direct line of transmission runs to just south of the city, and the cool and creamily beige room where Philippe Girardon demonstrates what he learnt working for the great man as a child… and what he has learnt since. This is the best of classic French food, flawlessly served, every dish familiar yet hiding a wonderful surprise. So, the oeuf parfait (an egg cooked at low temperature) comes with lardons — bacon and eggs! — but also a breath of cheesy foam; the sauce on the duck leg is made savoury by sherry. There are bedrooms too.
domaine-de-clairefontaine.fr

Maison Pic, Valence NINTCHDBPICT001022082439

Maison Pic has three Michelin stars

The Pic family have been making hungry people happy since a generation before André Pic moved to Valence in 1936: his granddaughter Anne-Sophie holds the distinction of having won and kept three Michelin stars for her flagship restaurant on the route down to the Mediterranean. This is the house she grew up in, but it has changed: as well as 16 bedrooms, there is a bistro named after her grandfather, a tranquil Japanese-style garden and, looking out on to that garden, a silver-grey space where nothing distracts from the pleasures on the plate, unless it’s those in the glass. Every dish is perfect, from a fabulous amuse-bouche blending unlikely flavours and textures (tarragon with rose, seaweed with chickpea and turmeric) to a tender chunk of lobster with melon and mint, a dish once served to King Charles. And the sommelier Paz Levinson is interested in flavours, not percentages proof, so while there are astute matches selected from the 32,500 bottles in the cellar, pairings also include saké, a sort of vanilla milkshake, a whole tea ceremony, and even coffee served in a wine glass.
anne-sophie-pic.com

Le Grill, Monte Carlo NINTCHDBPICT001022081925

Le Grill, in Monte Carlo, has one MIchelin star and an unparalleled view

There are so many fine-dining establishments in Monaco’s glitzy coastal capital that it can be hard to choose, but my advice is to bypass the stars for the stars. Yes, there’s Alain Ducasse’s three-Michelin-star Le Louis XV at the Hôtel de Paris, and the two at the Blue Bay Marcel Ravin at the Monte-Carlo Bay hotel, but at the single-star Le Grill (also at the Hôtel de Paris), in addition to the exceptional meat and fish the name leads you to expect, there are several kinds of constellation on view. From the terrace you can see both France and Italy in the daytime and a wide angle on the sky at night; inside there’s a constellation painted on the ceiling, which has panels that wind back to show the real thing. Opinions differ as to whether it was Princess Grace or Maria Callas (the girlfriend, at the time, of Aristotle Onassis, the majority shareholder in the company that owned the Hôtel de Paris) who demanded the panorama, but whichever it was, she was right to do so. I hope she celebrated her good taste with one of the several soufflés that have been on the menu since the restaurant’s creation, and perhaps a special cuvée of Ruinart or Billecart-Salmon champagne, which feature on the wine list now and may well have done so back then. In fact, both houses are older than modern Monaco, which regained its independence in 1861.
montecarlosbm.com

Le Mirazur, Menton NINTCHDBPICT001022256602

Le Mirazur, in Menton, looks out on to the Mediterranean

MATTEO CARASSALE

Just beside the Italian border is a restaurant run by an Argentinian chef, Mauro Colagreco, that makes you want to stay, forever, in France. Le Mirazur looks out on to the Mediterranean and inwards towards the rich Provençal soil, and much of the produce comes from just around the corner, where Colagreco has an astonishing enclosure that is less a kitchen garden than an earthly paradise. The herbs, fruits and vegetables so lovingly grown here aren’t mere decoration, either: every day is classified as fruit, root, leaf or flower, and the menu designed accordingly. Which doesn’t mean that a fruit-day diner won’t be offered a bowlful of perfect peas, strewn with seaweed and mint, just that it may come accessorised with citrus jelly. All this is a challenge for a sommelier, but Guillaume Dussaussoy is up to it, understanding exactly what the zipping purity of Domaine Vacheron Sancerre will bring to those peas, and just how astonishing sea urchin and mandarin will be when combined with the world’s greatest sweet wine, Château d’Yquem.
mirazur.fr

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