Last spring, we had the chance to visit our friend James Miller at Mas Costa Besalu just outside the town of Besalu, in Spanish Catalonia. What an amazing experience! Besalu, it turns out, is a quiet little town of about 2500 people, which is a 45 minute walk from the Mas.  The town has retained much of its medieval charm dating from its  period as a center of local trade.  We lunched at  the historic Pont Vell, a family run restaurant founded in 1981. The restaurant is ideally located, at the city side of Besalu’s old bridge (Pont Vell), which dates from the 11th century.  Our table was on a little terrace located between the bridge’s arches and the river…could one ask for a better location?

At Pont Vell, the focus is on traditional Catalan dishes made with local ingredients, a model that has earned them a Michelin star.  The service was attentive, knowledgeable and friendly, the wine list loaded with organic and natural wines of the region and the food was excellent. It was April, so  spring produce of the region was featured as daily specials, including asparagus, strawberries and an excellent starter of artichokes sauteed with Iberico ham and Palo Cortado sherry vinegar. I especially enjoyed the house specialty, sweet and sour rabbit simmered with raisins, pine nuts and baked apple.  And it doesn’t hurt that the prices are extremely fair for a restaurant with one star.

Pont Vell
Address:  c/ Pont Vell 24, Besalú 17850
Tel:  (011 34) 972 59 10 27
Reservations: advised, especially in the summer.  On warm days, request a table on the terrace overlooking the river.

What a pleasure to find a restaurant so utterly concentrated on making simply-delicious food from the freshest possible, ultra-local ingredients and trusting that it will be beautiful, without any flourishes!  In this age of tweezer-food, micro-flowers, sauce dots and Instagram-able plates, it’s like dining in a monastery! And here, the monks dine very well!

Located near the Halles of St-Jean-de-Luz, Pluviôse is tiny, with just 12 seats.  The room is comfortable but nondescript, somewhere between a cozy cafe and a food and wine storeroom, with crates and cases stacked in every available corner.  The chef, an Australian who relocated to the Pays-Basque more than 10 years ago, is also the waiter, the sommelier, the dishwasher, literally every job in the house.  So don’t expect the fancy bells and whistles that are often found in restaurants that set the culinary bar this high.

The food here is really the point, and it is excellent.  Everything is house-made, including the bread, butter, house cheese, vinegar and more.  All ingredients are sourced hyper-locally, (the seafood and fish comes from a fisherman whose boat is 200 m from the restaurant). The bread is baked just before service so that it arrives with your first course still steaming from the oven (and is some of the best bread I have had in the region).  A yogurt ice cream, part of the dessert, was churned at the last minute and never went in a freezer.

Our 7-course lunch included a number of dishes that don’t sound unusual but surprised with their simplicity of presentation and explosive flavors: Butternut squash, grilled and served with house-made fresh cheese and pumpkin seed-parsley-garlic vinaigrette; tortilla espagnol, the classic egg and potato pie, here with onion bits that had been roasted in the wood oven until crispy and  aromatic; sashimi of grondin gris (an underappreciated fish that, served raw, was toothy, saline and wonderful) with daikon radish and piment d’Espelette oil;  grilled collar of the same fish with olive oil, sea salt and house vinegar; leeks cooked “en papillote” very slowly on the wood grill, topped with diced Meyer lemon (and perhaps my favorite dish of the entire meal);  merlu cooked on the braise with sauce  pil-pil and a salad of cabbage and sunflower seeds (merlu, a flaky white fish, is THE fish of the Basque countries, often cooked “pil-pil”, in which the gelatinous fish juices are emulsified with garlic and olive oil);  yogurt ice-cream, with local yuzu confiture.  Wow!

The thing is, every dish was excellent.  The service was informal but well timed.  It would be difficult to find fault with any element of our meal.

The wine list is chock full of natural and organic wines at very generous prices. A bottle of winemaker Thierry Puzelat’s excellent Clos de Tue-Boeuf “Le Brin de Chèvre”, a natural white from the Touraine region, was only 45 euros.  And the 2nd bottle we took for home was only 25!

Pluviôse
Address:  3, Rue du 17 Pluviôse, 64500 Saint-Jean-de-Luz
Tel:  (011 33) 06 67 41 78 07
Reservations: very strongly advised as the restaurant only has 12 seats. No website, reservations by phone.

Chez Cabaillou is a restaurant and bar just around the corner from our little house in Orthez, family run since 1935. At lunch, it bustles with locals enjoying their well prepared daily 3-course lunch menu – an crazy bargain at 16 euros. In the evening, the bar becomes a sort of working man’s hangout, where long-time regulars relax over wine served in tiny balloons (with the pour trembling at the top of the glass, threatening to overflow)  and glasses of anisette.  Americans are tolerated with good humor.  This Friday featured an impromptue performance.

In the Pays Basque, adding Borda to the name of an eating establishment signifies a rustic country inn. In Euskera, borda means barn and the original Bordas were kitchens set up in underused barns, often with the cooking done over wood-fired braziers and guests served at long rows of tables, outdoors when weather permitted. Although no one is likely to confuse the the bright, modern dining room at Haraneko Borda with a barn, its kitchen does feature a wood fired grill and oven, the room is framed by ancient wood beams and on sunny days, tables are set up on the expansive deck looking over the green, rural valley of Itxassou.

The restaurant at Haraneko is actually part of an expansive organic farm called Ferme Heranea where owner Christian Aguerre raises the ancient race of Basque black hogs known as “cochon noir de kintoa”, rumored to produce the best pork in France, was well as fruits and vegetables including the sour cherries for which the valley of Itxassou has become known. Starting a restaurant on the property was a logical next step in the farm’s evolution, creating a a dining experience that the chef calls “zero kilometer local”, meaning that the majority of the ingredients come directly from the restaurants own farm. Ham and pork from kintoa hogs, corn for taloa (Basque corn pancakes), chickens, eggs, piment d’Espelette, fruits and vegetables all from the farm. Even the wine served, although not all produced within 1 kilometer, all comes from the Pays Basque.

The cooking at Haraneko matches the setting, being both rustic and accomplished, sophisticated but simple, the kind of food I love to discover and to eat.

When we visited for lunch during the week in early May 2019, reservations were easy to get and the menu prices very fair. However, that could change, as Borda Haraneko has been discovered, recently being named Best Farm-Auberge in France by Le Fooding.

Haraneko Borda
Address: 3 Gerastoko Bidea, 64250 Itxassou, France
Tel: 05 59 15 09 68
Reservations: Recommended. Not busy outside the season but hours can be irregular

Combine a wine shop, a cafe, a natural wine bar, a hangout for locals that’s open from 10am to midnight and a restaurant where everything is made from scratch using ingredients gathered within 100 miles and what do you get? La Legende in Sauveterre de Bearn.

On the face of it, Sauveterre de Béarn (population about 1500, although higher in the summer when tourists arrive; the name of the restaurant is a reference to Sauveterre’s medieval fortified bridge, known as Le Pont de la Legende ) seems like an unlikely choice for two former Parisians (alumni of pioneering cave a manger Le Verre Volé). Rumor has it that, having decided to quit Paris, they made a tour of France and fell in love with Sauveterre. Factor in their desire to provision the restaurant exclusively on local products, and the choice begins to make more sense; the Bearn is increasingly known as the home artisan organic farmers, bakers, winemakers and more.

At La Legende, they take full advantage for the local bounty. The daily menu is very limited (they actually ask if you have dietary restrictions when you call to reserve; given that the daily menu has no choices, your answers will shape the meal of all that days guests!) but at 22 euros for 3 very well prepared, totally seasonal course, it is a fantastic value. The cooking is sophisticated but simply and elegantly presented, the flavors are fresh and inventive while still respecting tradition. There is no wine list, but the cave is deep with organic and natural choices, and the sommelier is also your server, so expert advice about pairing with today’e menu is at hand.

The tiny kitchen is located smack in the middle of the dining rooms, so the chef is apt to chime in when you have questions about the day’s preparations. La Legende is the sort of friendly, unpretentious but startling good restaurant that I love.

La Legende
Address: 5 Rue de l’Abbé Duplech, 64390 Sauveterre-de-Béarn, France
Tel: 09 86 68 99 47
Reservations: Recommended. Menu is very limited, so you will be asked about dietary restrictions when you call

See more photos here:

Les Passionés bills itself as a cave a manger, which functionally, means a wine shop where you can also get something to each beyond the charcuterie and cheese you find in a bar a vin. The description written on the restaurant’s facade, “Cafe du marché Vins d’artisans” gives a better idea of the restaurants ambitions, but both fall short of capturing the genius of what they do here.

I would describe it as follows: lovingly sourced products of the region, prepared with care, respect for tradition and inspiration, presented with simplicity and sophistication, paired with wines that are organic, biodymanic or natural, all at prices that are bordering on philanthropic. It is restaurants like this that convince me that French cuisine today is both vibrant and forward-looking, sophisticated and inventive in approach but vitally concerned with how people eat today, and focused on safeguarding dining as the center of everyday French life.

Located along the banks of Toulouse’s Canal de Briennes, Les Passionés manages to pack about 40 seats between its bottle-lined walls. The tables are so tightly spaced that guests coming and going risk jostling other diners but the room hums with well-fed contentment. the sidewalk out front adds another 20 seats or so on sunny days, and the view of the tree-lined canal makes up for the traffic noise from the busy Allée de Briennes.

Les Passionés
Address: 31 Allée de Briennes, 31000 Toulouse France
Tel: 05 61 13 99 06
Reservations: Recommended

Bar de la Relève is located just 5 or 6 blocks from the Vieux Port but the steep hill climb that connects the two keeps the neighborhood a bit sheltered from the crush of tourists (by the way, stop at the medieval Abbaye de St.-Victor for a quick look as you pass…the crypt is a jaw-dropper!).  A sort of bar/cafe/tapas bar a la Marseillais, Bar de la Relève was started by a group of copains who had already made there mark on the local food landscape ( Edouard of the Bistrot d’Édouard, Arnaud from the Cafe des Epice, Hugo from Le Cave de Baille and Gregoire, locally famous for organizing food-centric “happenings and soirees”) but who longed for a friendly place  to meet friends, raise a good glass of wine and have a bite.

They found the perfect location in an ancient and long abandoned café du quartier, that had, in its day, been a favored haunt for taxi drivers.  After an extensive and charming renovation, Bar de la Relève was born.  On any given night the front room is thick with neighborhood habitues crowding around the bar and spilling out onto the sidewalk, engaging in animated discussions between glasses of wine. Don’t worry, speak to the kind gentleman watching over the door, get on the list for a table and then wade right into the crowd.  The people of Marseille have a well deserved reputation for friendliness.

Once at table (or on any tiny scrap of bar you may happen to conquer), the menu is full of small plates that work as a snack or can be strung together for a meal.  On one night:  panisse, a sort of Provencal fritter made from chickpea flour, fried and simply served with sea salt and a lemon wedge;  squid hoods stuffed with green chard and braised in pastis, tomato and white wine;  filets of lieu jaune breaded a l’anglais served with sauce tartar; a robust country pâté;   and a lovely salad of roasted winter vegetables.

Côté vin, a well selected list featuring natural and organic wines, most by the glass.  What else could you need?

Bar de la Relève
Address:  41, Rue d’Endoume, 13007 Marseille, France
Tel: 04 95 09 87 81
Reservations:  Not accepted, come early or just push up to the bar until a table in the small dining room opens up.  Pleasant terrace for warm days or nights.