Santolines en Provence

From a long line of bakers, chef Richard Durand has made C'la Vie a real mecca for food lovers. The food is good and life is good! The daily menu features terrific ingredients (most of them local), the flavours are distinctive, and the focus is firmly on dining pleasure. Enjoy your meal in the pared-back dining area inside, or on the terrace in the shade of a hundred-year-old plane tree. A fine selection of wines that celebrates the Rhône Valley and Languedoc, and rightfully so.

You are bound to enjoy your time in this stone-built house with a garden and pleasant terrace. The chef whips up well-constructed dishes – the likes of crab meat with candied orange peel, shellfish jelly and buckwheat, or a roasted sea bream served with a variety of cauliflower and seaweed. The wine list gives pride of place to organic and biodynamic wines. Charming service.

This beautiful 16C castle stands in extensive grounds surrounded by vineyards. The food aims to enhance the estate’s organic cottage garden and orchard produce. You can wash down your meal with a biodynamic wine from the Domaine de la Guicharde, which also produces the olive oil used in the kitchen. Slick, smiling service. In summer, take a seat in the courtyard adorned with a fountain, overlooking the garden.

This stone-built house, dating back to the 18C but with a contemporary decor, invites you to slow down and enjoy life, especially on its shaded terrace. The chef and his wife have the laws of hospitality down to a T. On the menu: the generosity of Provence, with vegetables grown by the father-in-law, in season; aioli on Friday lunchtime in summer, and a set menu dedicated to truffles in winter.

After a long and rewarding career, chef Guy Jullien continues to craft a culinary score that is unabashedly devoted to uplifting, traditional nosh with proper French overtones: foie gras flan and cream of truffle soup, fattened Bresse hen with truffles, roast rack of lamb in thyme, vanilla-raspberry ice cream vacherin… without forgetting a lineup of head-spinning truffle menus. As Gallic as La Marseillaise, the flavours are gutsy and big boned, to be savoured on the peaceful terrace in the shade of the trees in fine weather. The wine cellar is a treasure trove of regional gems. Authenticity an