LA FERME de BELLINE Chalets ou Gîtes & SPA

This restaurant on the banks of the Guisane is run by a French-Australian couple with a passion for food: Sharon rustles up delicate and creative seasonal cuisine, and Jimmy takes care of diners and the wine. Langoustine, blue lobster, pigeon royal and turbot are carefully prepared, and Mediterranean flavours can be detected in the beef tartare with confit tomatoes, lovage mayonnaise and tomato sorbet, or in the courgette flower tempura stuffed with sheep's yoghurt and piquillo pepper sauce. Friendly and attentive service.

In the upper reaches of a hamlet, the vaulted dining room of this converted sheepfold, which has retained its original mangers and hooks for smoking meat, oozes authenticity and style. Chef Fabien Ferdinand crafts a set menu with several courses that mixes local produce, such as rainbow trout from Châteauroux-les-Alpes, organic saffron from Saint Crépin and locally picked herbs and flowers, with top-drawer ingredients from further afield including lobster, wild turbot and Bourbonnais poultry. The result is colourful, aromatic and mouth-watering: scrambled eggs with a cow parsnip emulsion; lang