Campanile Vire

This 18C building, whose conservatory overlooks wooded grounds planted with hundred-year-old trees, is run by a Franco-Japanese couple who continues to knock the socks off our tastebuds. While Masako pours her talents into pastries, Julien finetunes his exquisite, flawlessly balanced culinary score: roast monkfish, girolles, mussels and hay or lightly seared tuna in spices, aubergine and cucumber. Regional ingredients invariably take the limelight (Normandy beef, Cahagnes poultry, cheese from local farms and locally grown veggies) and the chef often waxes lyrical about his suppliers when he po