The Best Restaurants in France - Falstaff (2024)

Just like a novel, a meal that can entice from the opening paragraph is a thrilling and rare accomplishment. It opens with a culinary ode to autumn and the wine harvest, headily and surprisingly expressed. A small purple grape, macerated, perhaps pickled in an elixir that heightened its intensity, partnered with a sliver of cep on a crisp and larger similarly mi-cuit grape set on a dramatic tranche of bark was the opening note. Brand new to Béziers, the hitherto sleepy city everyone in France is starting to know about, is L’Alter Native, the second restaurant of Gilles Goujon whose L’ Auberge du Vieux Puits in Fontjoncouse, a tiny village deep in Corbières countryside has held three Michelin stars for the past ten years. For Goujon and his wife Marie-Christine it is a coming home to the city of their youth and the grand passage for his two chef sons Enzo and Axel, who is a pâtissier. They are partners in the new restaurant, cooking alongside Quentin Pellestor who has joined from Le Meurice. A sure sign of the seriousness of its ambition is the arrival of Frédéric Rouen who has run front of house operations for Ducasse for more than 20 years. I only discovered after our astounding meal that Goujon initially trained with the legendary Roger Verge in Mougins, an impeccable grounding in local, seasonal and pure tastes that is joyfully espoused at the new restaurant that finally opened late May 2021. What’s groundbreaking, too, is Goujon’s pioneering of aquaponics in gastronomy. Long known for his unerring devotion to superlative produce, he is the first chef of his calibre to combine the best of aquaculture and hydroponics in a closed virtuous circle, surely a path many sustainably minded chefs will follow. In essence, this means repurposing fish waste from his own small fish farm to feed the vegetables growing in his new Béziers vegetable garden. It follows that the menu is exclusively designed around fish and rigorously seasonal vegetables with an impeccable emphasis and loyalty to small producers. A poached Gillardeau oyster set in an ethereal lemon jelly with a surprise hidden oyster tartare comes in a special oyster-shaped dish, a thrilling start to dinner especially accompanied by glasses of each of the house Champagnes: Gosset and Drappier. Playful riffs abound ensuring the mood is not too stiff. There’s a pleasingly crisp two potato variety galette topped with a precise roll of cured salmon trout with little mounds of both trout roe and caviar in a gently frothed Verjus sauce (explicitly not a dated foam). It manages to be both decadent and supremely comforting. Bread is irresistibly good, especially the seaweed bread. There’s more indulgence with a plump langoustine tail presented with a nod to the strong North African presence in Béziers: it is wrapped in kataifi and has a Moroccan spiced couscous broth. For those that revel in heat, a little tube of house harissa is proffered on the side. Red mullet epitomises the Mediterranean, here cooked melodiously in a butter of its own liver. The fish floats contentedly in a co*cktail of several tomato varieties from the garden cooked to a fragrant essence. It is a beautiful dish singing purity with ingredients at their zenith, like a last hurrah for summer. Amberjack is not a fish I have encountered often. It has a firm texture more akin to turbot and a likeable deep flavour made more pronounced by an ambrosial seafood sauce. Partnered with a courgette flower filled with a langoustine mousse, it is stylish and sublime. A certain amount of pacing of the menu is advisable to do justice to a veritable cheese chariot wheeled ceremoniously to each table with numerous cheeses at different stages of affinage from those in their runny prime to those well aged with funky flavour and texture. The acoustics of the elegant back dining room are a little challenging, especially when trying to follow rapt descriptions of so many cheeses. A little more ventilation would also be appreciated. There’s a second dining room with similarly well-spaced tables and an artful decorative branch spanning the ceiling. A big draw too is the large inner terrace substantially covered by a prettily lit awning. Service is correct, impeccably drilled yet refreshingly friendly for a French restaurant of its calibre. Desserts are world class. A whole mandarin with ‘candied’ skin has pistachio ‘seeds’ served with a stunning chocolate sauce: a winning duo. Better still are fragrant strawberries mixed with candied black olives served with a platter of miniscule madeleines to dip into the fragrant juice. As a final flourish, an intense and impeccable chocolate tart made at L’Auberge du Vieux Puits. This is cooking of rare distinction, the unstuffy new generation of gastronomy. Reviewed by Sudi Pigott in September 2021

The Loire Valley in Western France is a popular destination – for wine lovers and architecture fans alike. On an island in the Loire River, the UNESCO-listed village of Béhuard offers a serene and special dining experience. Most visitors are drawn to the island village for its narrow alleys, quaint stone houses and the 15th century royal chapel, built on the order of King Louis XI following his miraculous rescue from drowning. But opposite the chapel, the old village school has received a new lease of life. With L´Audacieuse, chef and owners Armelle and Charles Tardy-Joubert opened an elegant, light-flooded restaurant in 2018, offering an authentic and relaxed dining experience. Fond memories of her Béhuard childhood made Armelle give up a successful career in communications and retrain as a chef at the Institute Bocuse in Lyon, France. Her cuisine is refined but also comforting and accessible, ruled by the seasons and predominately locally sourced: vegetables and herbs from the garden, poultry from the nearby farm and game from the neighbouring woodlands. Colourful soft furnishings give the interior – with 20 covers and extra seating on the courtyard in the summer months – a cool and stylish yet homely vibe. A late July visit offered a mouth-watering starter of fresh salmon tartare with dill from the herb garden in a zesty lemon dressing with bright accents of pink peppercorn. The deceptively simple-sounding main course of chicken and mushrooms revealed itself as a plate-licking exercise involving local roast chicken bedded on a mound of creamy mushroom ragout, served with buttery potato gratin. If there had been any resolve to skip dessert, it was at this point that it was abandoned. The melt-in-your-mouth crème brûlée was a vindication. A meal of brilliance and comfort. Service is impeccable, and local wines make up the short but exquisite wine list. For those longing to extend the experience, there are two newly renovated guest rooms with breath-taking views of the chapel. Reviewed by Manuela Prieth in August 2021

Arnaud Nicolas started out as a butcher. His fine charcuterie was served by chefs like Alain Ducasse. Then Nicolas started a boutique shop in the Montmartre neighbourhood and people queued up for his sausages, patés and pies. Finally, he has opened his own eponymous restaurant, just around the corner from the Eiffel Tower. This is his temple to gastrono- mic charcuterie.When you enter the restaurant, you can study a presentation of great patés to choose from: there is La terrine grand-mère, honouring his grandmother’s recipe, a pork and chicken terrine with pickles, jambon persillé, the famous potted ham with pars- ley. There are also more exotic options like clam and cod terrine with courgette, a poultry pie with foie gras, pork trotter terri- ne, also with foie gras. Of course, there also is just a ‘simple’ duck foie gras, you probably will not have tasted a better one, even at Michelin-starred establishments. Ask the charming staff at the counter to put a selec- tion of your favourites together and let the whole table join in the feast.But do leave some room for the main courses – fortunately they are lighter than the starters: Arnaud Nicolas knows that his charcuterie is rather filling. He thus offers salmon with asparagus and lardo or a tarta- re of seabream flavoured with miso. The most advantageous way to sample the but- cher’s cooking is to go for lunch. 28 Euro for pie, terrine, foie gras and a Rhum Baba to finish – offers simply unbeatable value. Should all of this indulgence make you worry about your waistline, simply climb the Eiffel Tower afterwards. 14 stairs and 1665 steps will do wonders for your figure.