La Vague d'Or - Cheval Blanc St-Tropez

A three-Michelin-star dining room inside the Cheval Blanc hotel, perched above the Gulf of Saint-Tropez with pine trees doing their best impression of a backdrop. Chef Arnaud Donckele's obsession is sauces, which he names like characters from Mediterranean mythology and builds to be simultaneously rich and weightless. The local fish gets the kind of forensic attention most chefs reserve for their flagship protein, and the vegetables are chosen the way jewelers choose stones.

One honor, in evidence: