By SHANE MITCHELL
Pack your appetite for a gourmet’s drive through southern France.
Consider the cassoulet – in its own right, reason for epicureans to journey to France. At heart, this earthy dish is a bowl full of beans and pork sausage and roasted meats, usually including – but not always – duck or goose or partridge that has been preserved in its own fat. Originally favored by peasants in the Languedoc region, especially on stormy nights when the mistral howls outside, cassoulet is a culinary focal point of much Gallic contention regarding preparation and “correct” ingredients by chefs from Toulouse to Castelnaudary to Carcassonne. These gastronomic squabbles are endearing to me, and I’ll gladly risk the ruin of liver and figure searching for perfect variations of not only cassoulet, but also other standards of southern France’s culinary canon.
Bounded by the Pyrenees to the west and the Alps to the east, the departments of France that abut the Mediterranean Sea and dovetail inward through medieval hill towns have historically shared an affinity for garlic, tomatoes, and olive oil with neighboring Spain and Italy. Cuisine here is decidedly gutsy and sunnier in character than the fiddly sauce-centric dishes of Dijon, Lyon, or Paris. This is the geographic nexus for Minervois vineyards that grow robust grenache, carignan, and syrah varietals, as well as Camargue marshes filled with long-grain rice and Provence lavender fields that are harvested for bouquets garnis. Farmers haul violet-tinged artichokes, girolle mushrooms, and rounds of organic chèvre to morning markets, while bakers still stoke wood-fired ovens in Valbonne. Fishermen repair their nets by hand on the quays in Marseille after selling off their catches of red snapper and mullet. In the old district of Aix-en-Provence, shops specialize in calissons (fruit and almond paste candy) and rustic table linens. Butchers from Toulouse to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat cure their own piquant saucisson.
Tasting my way through these places always proves a slice of heaven, which is why I
recently embarked on a seven-day drive to hunt for the south’s finest variations of bouillabaisse, frog legs Provençal, aioli, and salade niçoise. Starting at the stately Carcassonne and heading east toward the sleek and carb-conscious Riviera provides a journey that begins with the hearty traditional fare of the fortified cities (cassoulet, roast lamb, foie gras, pommes dauphinoise) and finishes with lighter bounty of the seashore (prawns, lobsters, mussels, anchovy tartlets).
Carcassonne: All It’s Crocked Up To Be
Most cooks recognize seven different styles of cassoulet in the Languedoc, but all I desired was a single good one. Thanks to a crepemaker, I found it on my first night in Carcassonne, above a bend of the sycamore-lined Canal du Midi. This walled city, once an embattled bastion of the Cathar religious sect, now contains sufficient ice cream parlors and souvenir shops to withstand a siege by invading day-trippers, and it’s easy to be lured into boutiques selling fig-and-walnut nougat, rustic pain d’épices (spice cake), stitched linen covers for jam pots, and fleur de sel. Every visit to France, I crave Nutella spread on a hot crepe, so I ordered one on a whim on a quiet side street from a lady named Sofie. She poured a thin layer of batter on her griddle, spread it with a spatula, flipped it over to brown, and then flippantly used the same utensil to emphasize how the cassoulet from Le Saint Jean pasted pounds to her already ample hips.
How to resist local knowledge so frankly delivered? At dinnertime, on cobbled streets vacant of tourists, residents opened their window shutters and children emerged to play tag in odd-angled alleys. In a wide square facing the turreted château and its moat, a dapper waiter sashayed up to the table at Le Saint Jean, balanced a blackboard menu on one of the café chairs, and cheerfully assured me that the dried white beans were properly soaked overnight, the sausage was from Toulouse, and the chef’s secret ingredient would go to the grave. The glazed earthenware crock finally arrived with wonderfully scorched beans, crusty on top and still bubbling underneath. Chunks of sausage, shredded duck confit, and pork shoulder were fragrant with garlic and tomatoes. And truly, there’s nothing more glorious than the salty, crunchy skin clinging to the frenched bone of a roasted duck leg, the cassoulet’s centerpiece.
Cassoulet isn’t on the menu at La Barbacane, the wood-paneled dining room in Carcassonne’s grand Hôtel de la Cité, but the next evening I discovered chef Jérôme Ryon’s deft hand with frog legs. Admittedly, part of the reason it’s the best place to stay in this ancient burg is the proximity of linen-draped table to bedroom – mine was just at the top of an oak staircase that leads directly into the Library Bar – and perhaps just as important, the opportunity to practice a French accent while ordering regional stalwarts, including this amphibian delicacy that’s lauded or derided, depending on which side of the English Channel its critics reside. A stocky man with long sideburns, Ryon sent out pan-fried frog legs, the tender meat boned and tossed with asparagus, morels, and potato gnocchi. A main course of juicy pink Pyrenean lamb chops followed, paired with a tart red wine from a domaine near Mont Alaric in the Corbières range, just visible beyond the city’s ramparts.
Aix-en-Provence and Marseille: Fishy conversations
The direct route from Carcassonne to Aix passes through fields of red poppies on either side of a superhighway, but it’s not inspiring from a culinary standpoint, apart from a quick stop in Arles to buy a wheel of unpasteurized Camembert and a baguette. If time allows, take a detour through Bouches-du-Rhône, where black bullocks and white horses graze in pastures between flooded fields of the Camargue lowlands and the Rhône River empties into the Gulf of Lion. The tiny seaside town of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is slightly more bourgeois than the Riviera’s ritzy beaches, but it’s genuinely French in character: Teenage boys play soccer on the hard sand while Gitanes-smoking sailors scrub down their boats in the marina. It’s a great place to stock up on sacks of the region’s long-grain black rice, a culinary treasure not readily available in the States. I walked past an old-fashioned carousel and a bullfighting ring while collecting the tidy canvas sacks, which are sold, along with eau-de-vie and woven baskets for condiments, in shops throughout town.
My goal accomplished, I landed in Aix-en-Provence by cocktail hour, just as staff at the honey-toned Villa Gallici lit votives on the terraced garden paths lined with cypress, jasmine, and oleander. Rose petals were scattered on the tables in an intimate dining room, but the true embellishment arrived on floral-painted Limoges china: chef Christophe Gavot’s red mullet fillet with a batter-fried zucchini blossom, fava beans, coarsely crushed olives, and a ratatouille timbale. Gavot, a wiry man dressed in black kitchen togs, mentioned that he purchased his fish from Marseille, only 20 miles south, which immediately sparked a debate about bouillabaisse. He promised to
organize a table for the following evening at the city’s best fish stew restaurant, L’Épuisette.
The next afternoon, I skipped lunch. Perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration. It was market day in Aix, and no one should miss the pleasure of sampling fresh goat cheese, sausage links dusted with herbes de Provence, blushing pink radishes, marinated cloves of sweet garlic, dainty tomatoes, and cured black olives from vendors. In a narrow shop called Jacquèmes, an attentive wine expert recommended a young bottle of Château Paradis “Terre de Provence” red, produced at a winery north of the city near Mont Sainte-Victoire, and a wood-handled Laguiole picnic knife with a retractable corkscrew for opening it. To tide me over on the quick drive to Marseille, I picked up a handful of lavender calissons from a patisserie on rue Vauvenargues.
Marseille is one of the south’s fastest-growing cities, and it’s easy to get slightly lost on its broad avenues that funnel down to the waterfront – the jumping-off point for passenger ferries and ships heading to North Africa. (Signs advertising couscous and tagines outside restaurants underscore the ethnic influences that have enriched this city’s cuisine in recent decades.) Several hours later, after watching yachts bob around the Vieux Port, I finally stumbled on Gavot’s favorite fish restaurant in a hidden cove called Bassin de Carénage. Tucked under a stone bridge just before Fort Saint-Nicolas at the harbor’s mouth, L’Épuisette’s cul-de-sac looks out on Château d’If, the island prison made famous in Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. Standing on chalky tumbled granite as the sea sloshed below, I was wooed by the heady scent of reducing fish stock from the kitchen.
The proper ingredients for bouillabaisse à la Marseillaise are just as debated as those for cassoulet in French gastronomic circles. It’s believed that fishermen along this coast originally threw leftover catch of the day into a single pot for dinner: spiny lobster, firm-fleshed fish such as rascasse (scorpion fish), and softer species that disintegrated in a white wine broth containing onions, tomatoes, garlic, and parsley. At a small table in this modernist beach cabin, where views of seawater reflect through plate glass windows, the sommelier professed to be a Knicks fan and promptly brought me a chilled glass of Vacqueyras Domaine Montirius 2004. Chef Guillaume Sourrieu’s grand bouillabaisse is a far cry from the seaside potluck preferred by the professional pêcheurs, who eat in little private dining syndicates on the docks. It began with coarse dark broth, spooned from a large tureen, accompanied by toasted croutons slathered with garlic-infused rouille and shredded Parmesan. I finished every drop.
So dismay was my immediate response to part two: a huge platter of boiled potatoes and fillets of saffron-tinted monkfish, snapper, John Dory, and a tiny red crab – a more artistic than edible flourish. By the time I was good and truly fished out, other restaurants in the cove were packed, as were open-air cafés on the old port, with boisterous local diners who didn’t have to remain sober for a drive back to Aix.
Saint-Paul de Vence and èze: Lighten up
The next morning, Saint-Tropez summoned. Much like the Hamptons, Coconut Grove, or Santa Monica, it’s a manicured enclave that pretends not to be. Everyone on the town’s main square dresses in their resort-wear best. This is where Coco Chanel “discovered” the suntan in the 1920s and Bridget Bardot popularized the bikini in the 1950s. Battling traffic on the secondary road, I landed at Pampelonne Beach in neighboring Ramatuelle for a brisk baptism in the Med and a languorous, if sandy, lunch at Club les Palmiers, one of several hyperchic lounges lining the strand where sun worshippers pay a tidy fortune to rent chaises and umbrellas. Instead, I spent the same amount in the club’s plein air restaurant on a crisp tomato tart, spicy giant prawns, and a fritto misto of baby octopus with zucchini batons.
That was nothing compared to the meal served that evening by chef Ludovic Puzenat at Hôtel Le Saint-Paul. In three connecting stone townhouses, the rooms at this petite property in Saint-Paul de Vence stack high enough for glimpses of the misty hills beyond their windows. The village has its fair share of art galleries, outdoor cafés, and boules courts, but its real distinction lies down a steep cobbled stairway, where the hotel’s dining room faces a patio terrace in a narrow alley. How can travelers pass through the land of duck and not dine on foie gras at least once? Or twice? Or as often as decorum permits? Puzenat may be better known for his deconstructed lobster lasagne, but he wins best-of-trip praise for his swiftly caramelized lobes of duck liver with a spiced macaroon, rhubarb compote, and balsamic vinegar sauce, just sweet enough to offset the tang of a rough La Madura Vin de Pays d’Oc 2006.
The densely forested hills above the Côte de l’Estérel shade a winding drive on unposted country lanes that eventually lead to the market town of Valbonne. I arrived in time for lunch with Kathie Alex, who operates a cooking school in the house formerly owned by Julia Child. At Café des Arcades, she ordered a humble aioli – boiled vegetables, a chunk of undressed cod, and a generous dollop of the house mayonnaise – a dish habitually favored on Fridays in Catholic Provence. Around the corner, a boulangerie still bakes baguettes in a wood-fired oven, an art swiftly becoming lost as old-fashioned artisan producers struggle to operate under restrictive EU regulations. (This malaise is wonderfully addressed in Michael Steinberger’s newly published Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine, and the End of France.) By the time we left the café the baker at Le Fouvenild d’Eugenie had sold her last loaf, but I still admired the motto above her narrow shop’s doorway: Labourer, Rigueur, Bonheur (hard work and happiness).
At a table in Eden, the fusion restaurant at Èze’s Château de la Chèvre d’Or, guests can sip Taittinger Rosé Champagne while watching the setting sun cast an equally rosy glow over the mega-yachts anchored in the neighboring bay of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Perched on the verge of a granite massif above the azure sea, the hotel’s rooms and suites scatter along the stone walkways of Èze in converted, centuries-old townhouses. The property has one of the grander restaurants on the Riviera, but after a highly caloric week of ripe cheeses and hazelnut-chocolate crepes, I really just craved a simple salad. My final morning, I abandoned plans for yet another multicourse tasting menu for the hairpin turns on the Villefranche-sur-Mer coastal road and bistros at Saint-Jean. On avenue Jean Mermoz, a bountiful charcuterie display distracted me. Inside L’Entrecôte, a cheerful middle-aged couple stood behind the counter packed with cuts of Charolais beef and jars of duck confit. We struck up a conversation about their thumbnail-size pepper sausages, which the butcher recommended pairing with an aperitif, so I asked where they would normally go for lunch. After a vigorous discussion with each other, the wife recommended Restaurant Le Sloop, declaring it “sympathique, traditionnelle.” Plus, she insisted, it has a nice view of the harbor. Her husband graciously conceded and handed me a sack of the tiny sausages for the late-afternoon flight back to Paris.
It was a great choice. In full view of motorboats tied to the marina docks, a waitress placed a perfectly portioned salade niçoise on the navy blue tablecloth. Popularized in nearby Nice, this basic dish of lettuce, French beans, anchovies, and tuna is tossed with vinaigrette dressing; Le Sloop’s version is slightly more refined, substituting crisp fennel and arugula, hard-boiled quail eggs, and a basil sorbet amuse-bouche splashed with balsamic vinegar to cleanse the palate. And it proved a maxim about the French with regard to their most iconic dishes: Always trust the crepemaker, the chef, and the boucher. Or, at least, his wife.
A Foodie's Guide to Southern France
Let boutique hotels and multistarred restaurants be your road map to the Riviera.
STAY The 61-room Hôtel de la Cité features a garden setting next to the medieval citadel’s ramparts and the Michelin-starred La Barbacane restaurant. Doubles from $495, including breakfast and a bottle of crémant.
A handsome eighteenth-century home with terraced gardens and a swimming pool, Villa Gallici offers 22 rooms and suites lavishly decorated in Provençal florals. Doubles from $325, including breakfast and afternoon tea.
Hôtel Le Saint-Paul is a townhouse hotel with 16 comfortable rooms and views of the surrounding hills and streets of Saint-Paul de Vence. Doubles from $318, including breakfast and afternoon tea.
Scattered through a medieval village, the Château de la Chèvre d’Or‘s 36 rooms and suites have dramatic vantages on a granite bluff above the Riviera. Doubles from $396, including breakfast.
WAYS TO GO Take a page from Napoleon’s stomach-marching army on EuroPanache’s eight-day walking tour from Nice to Arles. Hikers visit the hilltop village Gourdon, Verdon Gorge, and Cannes (for urban strolls), and refuel at Alain Ducasse’s La Colombe d’Or in Saint-Paul de Vence and on bouillabaisse in the Lubéron. Departures: Any day through 2009; from $9,244, including most meals.
Chocolatine’s seven-day self-drive trip through the south of France features a night in Carcassonne followed by three more in Aix-en-Provence and Nice. When not dining or winetasting, travelers can take in the Roman town of Arles, visit a glassblower in Biot, or sunbathe in Saint-Tropez. Departures: Any day through 2009; from $3,382, including breakfasts.
Eat Le Saint Jean Superb cassoulet and seared duck breast with foie gras in a casual setting make this restaurant worthy of discussion.
1, place Saint-Jean, Carcassonne; 33-46/847-4243; le-saint-jean.fr.
L’Épuisette Stop here for haute bouillabaisse on the harbor. Vallon des Auffes, Marseille; 33-49/152-1782; l-epuisette.com.
Club les Palmiers Live the good life with light entrees such as tomato tarts, grilled giant shrimp, and pastas on a Saint-Tropez beach. Route de l’Epi Pampelonne, Ramatuelle; 33-49/479-8270.
Café des Arcades On Fridays, order the grand aioli special of boiled vegetables, cod, and house-made mayonnaise. place des Arcades, Valbonne; 33-49/312-0006.
Restaurant Le Sloop Chose salade niçoise and bouillabaisse at this informal bistro on the waterfront. Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat; 33-49/301-4863; restaurantsloop.com.
SHOP Jacquèmes An excellent store to pick up local wines and Laguiole knives. 9, rue Méjanes, Aix-en-Provence; 33-44/223-4864; jacquemes.fr.
La place aux Huiles Stop here for a great selection of infused vinegars, confiture, and artisanal olive oils from Provençal producers. 14, rue Gaston de Saporta, Aix-en-Provence; 33-44/296-2128.
La Cure Gourmande This regional candy shop specializes in cookies and almond-paste calissons. 16, rue Vauvenargues, Aix-en-Provence; 33-44/221-2648; cure-gourmade.com.
L’Entrecôte The owners of this attractive butcher shop stock a wonderful assortment of Provençal violet jam, duck confit, pepper sausages, baguettes, and cheese. 7, avenue Jean Mermoz, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat; 33-49/376-0512.
DON’T MISS This fall, Cooking With Friends
offers one-day classes at Julia’s Child’s former residence in Valbonne. Participants prepare a full menu and enjoy including lunch, aperitif, and wine. $170; cookingwithfriends.com.
Insider Expertise: Virtuoso Travel Advisors pick three of their favorite gourmet drives in Europe.
Spain Castilla y León is one of Spain’s most culturally rich and historic regions and contains one of the its top wine valleys, Ribera del Duero. Road trips here reward travelers with sights such as the walled city of Ávila and Peñafiel and Segovia castles, as well as rich wine-friendly foods such as suckling pig and jamón.
France Pick up a car in Paris and drive to Reims for dinner at the world-renowned Les Crayères in the heart of Champagne, then head to Relais Bernard Loiseau in Saulieu for classics such as frog legs with garlic puree. From there it’s on to Vonnas and Valence before wrapping up in Lyon – which rivals Paris for number of stellar restaurants per capita.
Italy Fuel up with a perfect risotto at Milan’s Antica Trattoria della Pesa for the drive to Fornovo di Taro just west of Parma (take route 9 for a more scenic trip). There, sample traditional ham, salamis, and the fantastic torta fritta at A La Maison. Next, head to the walled city of Lucca for Bucadisantantonio, a former staging post for horses that’s been converted into a marvelous restaurant. Finish in style with Florence’s plentiful picks and San Domenico in the nearby village of Imola – considered by many the best restaurant in all of Italy.