The Top 100 Places to Eat Near Le Prieuré
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A converted priory across the Rhône from the Palais des Papes, which sets a fairly high bar for atmosphere that the building handles without breaking a sweat. This is a one-Michelin-star creative restaurant where the kitchen leans into surf-and-turf pairings that sound a little unexpected on paper and tend to make sense on the plate. The setting, all old stone and quiet charm, suits the cooking better than most purpose-built dining rooms ever manage.
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A large open kitchen anchors this modern tasting-menu restaurant tucked into a winding lane in Avignon, and the chefs deliver the plates themselves, which is either charming or slightly unnerving depending on your mood. Mathieu Desmarest works a no-choice menu built around seasonal local produce, and the sommelier brings a connoisseur's devotion to biodynamic wines. It holds a Michelin star.
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Rank 3. Baby Smash Burger
Smash Burger American
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A concrete bar runs the length of the open kitchen in this lively Avignon bistro, where street art shares wall space with whatever the chef is plating that night. The cooking lands somewhere between comfort food and something more curious, with spices, berries, and dried fruit nudging familiar dishes sideways. Devilled eggs get red curry; pita bread gets braised beef. The motto is "come, eat, drink," which tells you exactly what kind of evening this will be.
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Rank 5. Bèou Bistrot
French
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Rank 6. La Vieille Fontaine
Provençal Mediterranean
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Rank 7. Le Goût du Jour
Modern French
Stone walls, parquet floors, and a coffered ceiling set the scene for cooking that has no interest in looking backward. Le Goût du Jour is a modern tasting-menu restaurant where the chef's touch runs toward Provençal produce, aromatic plating, and flavors that are bolder than the elegant room might suggest. Around a hundred wines by the glass means the sommelier conversation could take longer than dinner.
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Rank 8. La Fourchette
Southern French
Breaded pig's trotters with mustard and a beef daube cooked the Avignon way tell you exactly where you are. This warm bistro in the historic centre has been packed since forever, the kind of family-run place where the waitstaff suggest the praline meringue glacée like they mean it. Southern French comfort food, no apologies, no flourishes. Book ahead or arrive optimistic.
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Rank 9. Café Roma
Mediterranean
A terrace at the foot of one of the Palais des Papes towers is a hard thing to argue with, and Café Roma leans into the setting with a colorful dining room full of large golden mirrors. The Mediterranean menu runs generous and fragrant, with the occasional Asian detour that keeps things interesting. A casual, sun-drenched spot in the thick of Avignon's old center, selected by the Michelin Guide.
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Rank 10. Sevin
French
Fine dining in a medieval building steps from the Palais des Papes, with a terrace that hangs over the square like something out of a heritage brochure, except the food is the point. The chef's menu moves between classical French and something lighter on its feet, and the cellar commits entirely to Chateauneuf-du-Pape, which is either very principled or very local, depending on your mood.
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Rank 11. La Mirande
Southern French
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Rank 12. Maison Chenet - Entre Vigne et Garrigue
Provençal French
A stone farmhouse wedged between limestone cliffs and vineyards outside Avignon, where the garrigue practically walks through the door with you. This is a Michelin-starred restaurant run by a father-and-son team, the father holding the Meilleur Ouvrier de France title, cooking a market-driven Provençal menu that somehow still makes room for Breton butter. Six rooms mean you can sleep off the olive oil ice cream without driving anywhere.
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Rank 13. Hiély-Lucullus
Peruvian
The menu at this Avignon restaurant takes its cue from a portmanteau the chef invented, "Pérouvence," blending Provençal roots with Peruvian spices from his wife's homeland. Acidity, smoke, and aji peppers turn up alongside local squab and celeriac in a dining room with a plush Belle Epoque interior that has no idea how adventurous the food has become. The wine list pulls from both countries, which feels only fair.
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Rank 16. La Grande Brasserie BIB
Traditional French
The courtyard terrace, set inside a former cloister, is the kind of outdoor seating that makes you feel smug for booking ahead. This all-day brasserie in central Avignon runs three concepts at once: a traditional French dining room, a cocktail and tapas bar, and a cheese bar. The kitchen leans into the classics, devilled eggs, pâté en croûte, andouillette, snails. Open seven days, which in France counts as a minor civic service.
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Rank 17. Italie là-bas
Italian
A tasting menu restaurant in Avignon where a chef turns an evident passion for Italy into something more personal than a theme. The menu runs through creative Italian cooking built on good ingredients, with a vegetarian option alongside the main progression. The chef's husband runs the floor, and the room has the ease of a place where both sides of the pass are genuinely invested. Expect Mediterranean flavors, generous plates, and a pace that doesn't rush you out.
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Rank 18. Le Joat
New American
A long, narrow dining room tucked into old Avignon, with vintage hardwood floors and beamed ceilings that the designer pendant lights and Plexiglas chairs cheerfully refuse to match. This is a modern bistro where the chef, who came up through serious kitchens, keeps the cooking focused on seasonal produce and whatever interesting things happen when you treat one ingredient several different ways at once. Relaxed and unfussy, with cooking that has something to say.
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Five tables inside exposed stone walls, birdsong piped through the room, and a Michelin-starred tasting menu built around Provençal ingredients, the kind of small restaurant that makes you feel like you stumbled onto something. The chef thinks in themes, pairing olives with olive wood, plants with seafood, the menu growing longer if you want it to. Barbentane is a quiet village, and Ineffable fits that register without being sleepy about it.
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Rank 22. La Courtille
Regional French
A converted silkworm farm built of white stone is an unusual home for a restaurant, but La Courtille makes it feel inevitable. The chef trained under Raquel Carena at Le Baratin in Paris, and that pedigree shows in the cooking, which is rooted in the regional produce of the Gard without making a fuss about it. Natural wines and local Tavel and Lirac labels anchor the list. In summer, an ancient cedar shades the terrace.
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Rank 23. Auberge de Cassagne & Spa
Provençal French
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Zellige tiles, moleskin benches, and a terrace shaded by a plane tree in the middle of the village set the scene at this relaxed modern bistro. The short seasonal menu leans on local sourcing and changes with what's good, while the neo-retro room makes it feel like the kind of place that's been around forever. Michelin gives it a Bib Gourmand, and Le Fooding has taken notice too.
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Rank 25. Hostellerie du Château des Fines Roches
Provençal Mediterranean
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Rank 26. La Mère Germaine
Provençal Mediterranean
The terrace looks out over the vines that made this village famous, which feels right for a Provençal restaurant sitting in the middle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Inside, Belle Époque murals in the style of Toulouse-Lautrec line the walls, a reminder that old-school Parisian glamour once passed through on its way to the Riviera. The kitchen leans into the vegetables and herbs of Provence, and the wine list treats the local appellations with the seriousness they'd demand.
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A gleaming spit-roast oven anchors the counter of this bistro offshoot, tucked down a cul-de-sac in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The chef, Ecuadorian-born, runs a traditional French lineup that quietly drifts south American when he's not looking, so roast meats and seasonal family dishes share the menu with a tuna tiradito. The terrace looks out over the vineyards, which helps when the desserts arrive and you decide you're not leaving anytime soon.
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Rank 28. L'Oustau de Baumanière
Provençal Mediterranean
A Provençal country estate tucked into Les Baux-de-Provence, where Glenn Viel cooks over open fire in a centuries-old farmhouse that once drew artists and celebrities the way honey draws flies. The three Michelin star fine dining here pulls from the estate's own garden and nearby olive groves, with Viel's Breton instincts sharpening the southern palette. The wine cellar runs to 3,000 labels, and the ceramic tableware is made on site, because of course it is.
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Rank 29. La Maison de Celou
Provençal French
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A curved white ceiling arcs over exposed stone walls inside this two-Michelin-starred fine dining room on the old ramparts of Saint-Rémy. Fanny Rey runs the kitchen with a menu built around the Alpilles, seafood, and market greens; her partner Jonathan Wahid, a former French pastry champion, closes with the figs and strawberries that make Provence worth the detour in the first place.
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Rank 31. La Belle Vie
Mediterranean
A limestone village house near the Pont-du-Gard, where the chef plates modern French cooking rooted in the Occitan countryside, lamb from Les Baux and Mediterranean fish doing most of the talking. Lunch on the terrace, a Michelin star on the wall, and guestrooms upstairs if you'd rather not drive back. The kind of restaurant that makes staying in a small Gard village feel like the obvious plan all along.
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A Michelin-starred dining room inside a 17th-century mansion where, the story goes, Gounod first played excerpts from his opera Mireille to the poet who inspired it. The chef runs a modern Provençal kitchen, drawing from the region's farms and waters, and serves the tasting menu at a communal table d'hôtes against bare stone walls. The rooftop terrace loosens the mood considerably. Both rooms share a postcard address in Saint-Rémy.
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Rank 34. Solelh
Modern Bistro New American
A bistro with a double terrace in the heart of L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue's Carré des Arts, Solelh earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand for food that earns it without making a fuss about it. The chef works an open kitchen and a binchotan grill, coaxing aged beef and squid over white charcoal while the Provençal light does what Provençal light does. A tight, mostly regional wine list keeps things grounded. Lunch here can easily become dinner if you stop paying attention.
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Rank 36. L'Aupiho - Domaine de Manville
Provençal French
Century-old plane trees shade the patio at L'Aupiho, a Michelin-starred fine dining room set within a luxury hotel at the foot of the Alpilles. The Belgian chef trained under Michel Guérard and brings that rigorous pedigree to a menu that leans hard into Provence, bold and precise in equal measure. The landscape is basically on the plate, and the setting, golf course and spa nearby, makes it easy to linger well past dessert.
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Rank 37. L'Oustalet
Provençal French
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Rank 38. Le Cèdre de Montcaud
Mediterranean
Six or seven tables in a Virginia creeper courtyard is more of a manifesto than a seating plan. This Michelin-starred fine dining room inside Château de Montcaud turns out polished Mediterranean cooking, the kind where red mullet arrives bouillabaisse-style and the menu shifts with the season. It's a date-night place in the most unironic sense, intimate enough that you'll feel like the only table there, because almost no one else is.
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Rank 39. Terre et Blé
Bakery
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Rank 40. Le Bistrot du Paradou
Provençal French
The blue shutters are the landmark; the single set menu, wine and cheeseboard included, is the whole deal. This Provençal bistro in a sleepy village runs on a rotating daily dish, cassoulet on Wednesdays and so on, built around the region's classics: aioli, spit-roast chicken, calf's head. You book by telephone only, which tells you most of what you need to know about the pace of the place. The room is loud in a good way.
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A rooftop terrace looking out over the cathedral sets the scene for this Michelin-starred fine dining room on a square in Uzès's old centre. The cooking is rooted in the southern French larder, whole-roasted squab and bigarade-sauced poultry doing most of the arguing, with a lightness of touch that keeps it from feeling heavy. The kind of place where the setting and the plate are pulling in the same direction.
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Rank 42. Le Relais du Castelet
Provençal French
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Rank 44. BALLON 2 ROUGE
Wine Bar
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Rank 47. Le Pré Gourmand
Seasonal Mediterranean
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Rank 48. Bistrot Quàsi
French
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Rank 50. Maison Bernard
Provençal Mediterranean
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Rank 51. L'Oustalet Maïanen
Provençal French
Blown-glass panels of Léo Lelée's painted Arlésiennes are set into chandeliers made by a Murano glass artist, which gives this Provençal restaurant a quietly spectacular dining room even before the food arrives. The chef pulls produce from the Alpilles and Camargue, and the cooking lands somewhere between rustic and considered. Maillane was Frédéric Mistral's hometown, and the place leans into that cultural pride without making it a museum piece.
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Rank 52. Inari
Vietnamese Fusion French
A former chapel in the heart of Arles, now a creative restaurant from chef Céline Pham, who came up through the Paris natural-wine circuit at places like Septime and Saturne before planting herself in Provence. The cooking is French-Vietnamese, vegetable-forward, and quietly inventive. The wine list is short and natural, the room has a vintage feel, and the whole thing carries the focused energy of someone who really wanted to be here.
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Rank 53. Michel Kayser - Restaurant Alexandre
Modern Mediterranean
Tucked into grounds shaded by ancient cedars between Nîmes and Arles, this two Michelin star restaurant is where Michel Kayser cooks Mediterranean cuisine with the kind of precision that makes you sit up straighter. Nothing here is decorative: every garnish exists to amplify the main ingredient, used root to tip, in a kitchen that seems allergic to gimmicks. The crowd drives out for it, which tells you something.
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Rank 56. C'la Vie
Modern French
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Rank 58. Duende
Modern French
The name comes from bullfighting and flamenco, and Pierre Gagnaire, the celebrity chef behind it, has leaned into that spirit fully at this two-Michelin-star fine dining room inside Nîmes' Hotel Imperator. The tasting menu moves through produce from the Gard and the Mediterranean, pork from the Cévennes, fish pulled from nearby waters, all rendered with the kind of precision that makes restraint look easy. The wine list runs deep on regional bottles.
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Rank 59. La Table de Xavier Mathieu
Provençal Mediterranean
The kitchen garden supplies the olives, herbs, and vegetables, and the chef, trained under Roger Vergé and Joël Robuchon, pulls classic Provençal recipes into something more precise and playful. This one-Michelin-star restaurant sits inside a stone bastide in the Luberon, so the room does some heavy lifting on its own. Soupe au pistou and lamb from the Alpilles set the register: deeply regional, quietly refined.
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Rank 60. Jérôme Nutile
Modern French
A converted farmhouse on the edge of Nîmes sets the scene for one of the region's more serious modern French tables, earning its Michelin star under a chef who holds the Meilleur Ouvrier de France distinction. The cooking follows the seasons closely, leaning on Camargue produce and the kind of classical technique that can pull off hare à la royale without irony. The wine list tilts local and runs deep.
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Rank 62. Plage Plage
Dessert
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Rank 64. Cafar Coffee Lab
Coffee
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Rank 65. Vague
Japanese
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A centuries-old town house shelters this fine dining restaurant, where a long counter runs between the dining room and the kitchen like a stage curtain that never fully closes. The chef, a former second to Georgiana Viou, works a creative menu that moves with the seasons and takes vegetables as seriously as anything with fins. The courtyard opens when the weather cooperates. It holds a Michelin star.
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Rank 67. Le Sauvage
Bakery
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Rank 68. Skab
Modern Mediterranean
A Michelin-starred modern restaurant tucked behind Nîmes' Roman amphitheater, where the chef spent years cooking at some serious southern kitchens before coming home. The menu leans hard on vegetables and regional produce, with Mediterranean fish and local asparagus doing most of the talking. When the sun comes out, the maple-shaded patio fills fast, which in Nîmes is most of the year, so plan accordingly.
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Rank 69. Cave de Trinquetaille
Wine Bar
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Rank 72. Le Vieux Castillon
Modern French
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Rank 73. Agastache
Modern Mediterranean
One half of the couple tends the kitchen garden, growing flowers and herbs that the other turns into modern Provençal cooking at this quiet restaurant on the square. Vegetables lead the menu, ingredients lean organic, and the Mediterranean shows up in the broth, the chickpeas, the beurre blanc. It's the kind of place where the cooking smells like the garden it came from, which in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is saying something.
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Rank 74. La Balade des Saveurs
Provençal French
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Rank 76. Le Petit Henri
Provençal French
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Rank 77. L'Estevão
Modern Mediterranean
A quai-side restaurant near Pernes-les-Fontaines' covered market, where the chef trained under some serious Provençal talent before opening her own quietly confident room. She runs a market-driven lunch menu and a single multi-course menu in the evening, both shaped by Mediterranean instincts and a well-traveled palate. The cooking leans on spice with a light hand, and her riff on pissaladière, anchovy cream and all, is the kind of dish that earns a place in the conversation.
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Rank 79. Le Mas des Aigras - Table du Verger
Provençal Mediterranean
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Rank 80. La Cabro d'Or
Provençal French
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Rank 82. Allegria !
Provençal French
Tables under plane trees with cicadas doing their thing in the background set the scene at this Provençal restaurant inside a luxury hamlet of olive and almond groves. The chef, who trained under Anne-Sophie Pic and Alain Ducasse, runs a market-driven menu rooted in local tradition, the kind where the ingredients do most of the talking. Lunch is a particular draw for the price relative to the setting.
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Rank 83. Nancy Bourguignon
Burgundian French
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Rank 84. Le Bistrot du Brau
Provençal French
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Rank 85. Belvédère
Mediterranean
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Rank 86. Bec
Modern Mediterranean
An old Provençal farmhouse in the shadow of a small church, with a shaded courtyard and a terrace thick with oleanders. Inside, a young couple runs a modern restaurant where the cooking leans Mediterranean with an Italian accent, the chef's Sardinian partner handling the room with the ease of someone who means it. Sit outside if the weather allows, which in Paradou it usually does.
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A young chef running his own small restaurant in the Gard countryside, cooking everything from scratch, including the sauces and ice creams, and changing the lunch menu every week to follow the markets. The more ambitious monthly menu shows where he trained, in kitchens that took both technique and seasons seriously. The room is modest; the cooking has ambitions that go well beyond the postcode.
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Rank 88. Aux Ateliers
Provençal French
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A glass-walled cellar stocked with local wines sets the tone for this quietly confident modern restaurant tucked into a village near Uzès. The chef cooks with the seasons and a light hand, letting garden herbs and chanterelles do the heavy lifting. Two cosy lounges and genuinely warm front-of-house service make the whole thing feel more like a very talented friend's dinner party than a restaurant.
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Rank 92. Bistro de Montcaud
Mediterranean
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Rank 93. Le 6 à Table
Modern French
A former pastry shop on a drowsy village square in the shade of a church, now a bright, wood-lined conservatory serving modern French cooking tied tightly to local producers. The menu is short and seasonal, built around relationships with small growers rather than a printed manifesto. The Michelin Guide has it on their list, which tracks: this is the kind of quiet, confident cooking that travels well.
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Rank 95. Le Gibolin
French
A neighborhood bistro in old Arles where the name is slang for wine, which should tell you something about priorities. The short, market-driven menu changes with what's good, and the cooking is generous without fussing over itself. The natural and biodynamic wine list is serious but reasonably priced, the room is loose and lively, and the chocolate mousse with black olives is the kind of thing you tell someone about later. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.
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Rank 96. Le Temps de Vivre
Provençal French
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Rank 100. La Beaugravière
Traditional French
Truffle menus, plural, is the tell at this family-run country inn on the N7 in Provence. The chef has been at it forever, turning out foie gras flan, Bresse hen buried in truffles, and roast rack of lamb with the kind of confidence that comes from not needing to impress anyone. The terrace under the trees is where you want to be in fine weather, and the wine cellar runs deep on regional bottles.