RESTAURANT

Le Gajuléa

LE BARROUX – NEAR MONT VENTOUX

210 Cours Louise Raymond
84330 Le Barroux
04 90 62 36 94
www.gajulea.fr
PRICE RANGE – UPPER END OF MODERATE

Every so often, sitting in some new restaurant with flashy but tasteless food and an IKEA Goes to Hollywood interior, I feel like running, screaming, out the door. Take me to a chef who’s an old pro! Take me somewhere real! Like Le Gajuléa, the outpost of Michel Philibert who has been polishing his culinary talent for exactly 40 years. The stiff white napkins, the heavy cutlery, the smiling patron…you sense it’s going to be good even before sampling the first mouthful of amuse-bouche. (Mine was beetroot mousse with a chickpea fritter: fab.)

An early exponent of nouvelle cuisine, Philibert earned his first Michelin star in 1989 during his long tenure of the Saule Pleureur in Monteux. ‘My cooking is much less fiddly now,’ he says. ‘I write a new menu every month, focusing on the things I like. And I put more effort into sourcing the best local produce.’ So a super-fresh terrine of heirloom tomatoes served with a shot of spicy tomato gazpacho (olive oil from the mill in Caromb) might be followed by a perfect fish mousse with lobster sauce, crowned by crispy leek fronds.

You can select your wine from a walk-in cellar adjoining the diningroom – stocked with bottles from smart local producers across a wide price spectrum. Wine is also an important element in Entr’Potes, the Philiberts’ more casual restaurant next door. But if you want to feel cosseted some evening, the Gajuléa is the place to go – especially in summer when Mont Ventoux feels within touching distance of the terrace.