The Food of Languedoc-Roussillon
Bagging STARS on the Michelin Food Trail
By Richard Frisbie
 On a recent tour of the Languedoc-Roussillon region of
Southern France (think Mediterranean Coast west of the Rhone river and Provance)
there were some wonderful eating experiences to share. The meals went from
simple fare to high-tech haute cuisine, all prepared with fresh local
ingredients and served with the incredible local wines.
In order to get to France I had to leave my house in a
snowstorm at 6AM on a Sunday, fly from New York City to Chicago (don't ask!) in
order to get to Paris in time for a late lunch on Monday, with no sleep along
the way. In one of those fortunate happenstances, lunch turned out to be worth
the trip!
We ate at Welcomedia restaurant, Place de la Comédie, 34000
Montpellier, Tel: 04 67 02 82 65.
 I was served what was a common-to-some-people-but-new-to-me
cold salad of mesclun, with artichokes, red peppers, onions and herbs, dressed
with a vinaigrette and topped with warm poached eggs. What a neat idea! I've
since recreated it at home for a light supper on a hot day. So simple and good,
plus good for me, too. I was so tired from the flights that I missed some things
here. For the wine, all I remember was that it was a chilled and oh-so-good
Chardonnay.
Instead of napping I toured the city of Montpellier until
dinner, which was at the Restaurant Le Comptoir de l'Arche, [2 rue de l'Hôtel de
Ville/Place de la Canourgue, Tel: 04 67 60 30 79.] It was basically a sidewalk
cafe on a beautiful square planted in roses, with plane trees overhead. The
roses were fully budded. I can only imagine how striking the setting is when
they are in bloom, and how good the food might be when I am awake enough to
enjoy it. I was eager to try some of the beef this section of France is noted
for, so I probably missed dishes that would allow me to recommend this
restaurant more strongly. It was close to the hotel in a beautiful setting. I'm
sure this would be perfect for drinks and a light meal.
The Hôtel le Guilhem, [18, rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Tel :
011-33-4-67.52.90.90 (in France 04.67.52.90.90) E-mail : contact@leguilhem.com]
was touted as the most reasonably priced lodging in Montpellier. It came off as
much more than that - quiet, with free internet access and good beds - I loved
it. The Hôtel le Guilhem is charmingly located on a narrow back street a scant
block from shopping, restaurants and even the Botanical Garden. Sadly, the same
thing happened to me here as happened in the Canary Islands last June. I was so
close to absolutely gorgeous gardens locked behind fences that my schedule never
allowed me to explore.
After a delicious continental breakfast on the outside deck
of the hotel, I toured Montpellier again, this time finding my way to one of the
biggest museums in France - the Fabre Museum [13, rue Montpelliéret, http://us.montpellier.fr].
It is located in the center of the city and just reopened in February after
being closed for three years for refurbishment. The architecture and art come
together beautifully as this collection of ancient to modern art radiates in the
primarily natural light. Don't miss this museum, even if the weather is so
beautiful all you want to do is walk in the springtime sun. It's that good!
 My exertions left me hungry. Just when I was sure I would
never eat again I found myself at the Restaurant Duo, [Place de la Chapelle,
Tel: 04.67.66.39.44.] at a table under a by-now ubiquitous plane tree (think
Sycamore. They are planted all over the city.) It is so new, workmen were still
putting the finishing touches on a smart and
stylish, architect-designed interior. The owner/chef was animated and so full of
life that I really enjoyed visiting with him. I let him choose my food for me,
and after confirming that I was not squeamish about eating squid, he served me a plate of calamari better than any
I've ever eaten - moist, tender and delicious - drizzled with a basil sauce and
 served on a bed of creamy risotto. The aroma combined with the heady smell of
Spring in the air to make it an almost transcendental experience. That boy can
cook! In addition he served a "shooter" of soup with the flavorful combination
of sweet red pepper topped with an unsweetened whipped cream. For the desserts
he really showed off. He prepared a mixed plate dessert sampler with an
ode-to-chocolate, brownie-topped warm fudge, a pineapple slice skewered and
fried in tempura, and a crepe filled with a light vanilla creme filling - oh so
good!
 By now our group was fully assembled and we left
Montpellier to explore the Languedoc-Roussillon countryside. After a wine
tasting, we arrived late to dinner at Château de Raissac. [www.raissac.com] It smelled so good as we sorted out our
rooms and changed after a long day, but we had cocktails and time to get
acquainted before any more nourishment. I thought I would starve waiting for
food to be served. Then our host, John Pierre, saved me by serving what looked
like a kind-of pizza as a first course. It had mid-eastern roots - a seasoned
ground lamb topped with honey on a flaky pastry crust - with greens so fresh
they could have just been picked from his large garden. (He claims not, but
besides being charming he was very modest.) The fish course was a salmon fillet,
pan fried and served with roasted potatoes and tomatoes. Clean and simple food
elegantly served - what more could anyone ask? Good wine, of course! In this
case their own Château de Raissac wines perfectly complimented the meal, from
the Sacre Bleu to the Muscat, with a cheese course and a fudgy dessert to
complete it. I needed a walk after dinner to work off those delicious calories.
At dawn I rose to walk again through the extensive grounds.
Through the kitchen window I saw the croissants rising while John Pierre was
baking the baguettes. He is a true artist, and I felt like visiting royalty.
Eating his breakfast I experienced the luxurious mornings the French enjoy over
strong coffee and pastry, with homemade jams and conversation, so that I didn't
want to get up from the table. But, unless I did, there would be no lunch. So as
an army travels on its stomach, we moved on to another wine tasting, or two, and
a light lunch on the patio of the 12th century castle (now B&B) Château d'Agel.
[6 place du Château, AGEL, www.chateaudagel.fr]
We had bowls of fresh green olives, not brined or jarred,
as you can only find in olive growing country, and three different olive
tapanades as appetizers. A chilled Muscat de Sant Jean de Minervois (sweet white
wine) was perfect with it. Our entree was a vegetable pate' served as a slice on
a bed of mesclun, and topped with a fresh cold tomato and herb marmalade. There
was a beautiful plate of colorful sweet peppers in a vinaigrette, and little
pastry "castles" of that same ground lamb and honey mix we had the night before.
A platter of blanched asparagus at room temperature, a loaf of olive and ham
'bread', and a platter of local artisanal cheeses rounded out our 'light'
repast. Our wine was from the neighboring vineyards also named Château d'Agel,
with the whites and reds an excellent adjunct to the food.
 We left there to tour a 12th century abbey with stunning
gardens, and then headed off to dinner. After a very informative wine tasting in
the cellar, we went upstairs to dine at la Bastide de Cabezac [18 / 20 Hameau de
Cabezac, BIZE MINERVOIS, Tél. : +33 4 68 46 66 10 www.labastidecabezac.com]
It started well enough - with a light pate of tuna and herbs and balsamic
vinegar - accompanied by a crisp Chardonnay. The French rarely serve butter with
dinner, but one of my dinner companions ordered it and, when it arrived,
remarked "this is the best butter in the world." [Beurre echire] It was good -
spring fresh the way I remember butter being when I was young - but haven't
tasted in years. Fantastic to relive that! The next course was smoked fillets of
duck breast wrapped around an eggplant caviar and topped with a soft-poached
egg. Very creative - I love duck - and the combination of flavors when I broke
the yolk over the aubergine and meat was subtle and delicious.
When we were served the entree is where things went a
little wrong. It looked great - a nicely browned breast of capon with an erect
"cookie" of parmesan and a fried strip of bacon on a bed of risotto - all
surrounded with a fragrant brown gravy. Impossibly, I felt as if I were starving
and dove right in. Now, I have a low salt tolerance and thought at first that it
was me, but everyone agreed that the gravy and risotto were way too salty. On
top of that, the risotto wasn't quite cooked. I'd like to eat there again and
see. The accommodations were fine, and the staff knowledgeable and friendly -
helpful, even - but that course put me off, my companions also.
Breakfast there was tasty and uneventful - thank goodness -
and I'd slept the night through for once, so all-in-all my stay at la Bastide de
Cabezac was a very good one. Then we were off to more sightseeing and another
wine-tasting before the most unusual meal of the trip. By great good fortune,
there was one seat available at the chef's table in the kitchen of Restaurant La
Table de St-Crescent Domaine [Saint-Crescent Route de Perpignan 11100 NARBONNE.
Tél. : +33 4 68 41 37 37/Fax: 04.68.41.01.22
www.la-table-saint-crescent.com
] and I was invited to occupy it.
Chef Lionel Giraud created such a fantastic meal with such
incredible flair that I devoted a whole article to just his lunch. It will be
published here soon. Meanwhile, think of him on the bleeding culinary edge with
flavors and techniques to make me envy my luncheon companions who eat there
twice a week!
Afterward we drove to Carcassonne within the walled city to
the Hotel de la Cité, [Tél. : +33 4 68 71 98 71
www.hoteldelacite.com ] a 12th
century castle that is the home of the one Michelin star Restaurant La Barbacane,
where we had our dinner. It was no one's fault that things started badly, we
arrived at the table at different times - in two groups - and an empty place
left the management thinking we were waiting for another before beginning
dinner. We thought we were waiting to be waited on. That got cleared up - not to
everyone's liking - after 45 minutes, precipitating a bad ending to the evening,
albeit many courses later.
 To be fair - the food was innovative and excellent. Chef
Jerome Ryon produced one glamorous creation after another for our pleasure. I
thoroughly enjoyed every course he cooked. It was the way we were served them,
and apparently, the way we received them that escalated the problem. We were not
a sophisticated enough party to suit the refined tastes of the waitstaff. Not
leaving our silverware properly on our empty plates led to the removal of all
our silverware and a consume course being served without spoons.
 A request for a beer (I know, blasphemy with that great
wine!) by one member of our party only exacerbated the problem. Just when we
thought we were back on track and the courses started flowing properly (there
were about a dozen of them) something else went wrong. Besides some silverware
issues, my faux pas was to leave the table to photograph the beautifully lighted
castle walls just outside the restaurant. We were a few hours into the meal and
a break was needed, but my leaving brought
everything to a head. When I returned, our hostess was writing down the names of
the servers, furious that even though she was speaking fluent French to them all
evening, they insulted us in French while bringing the food! Ah . . . the French
- so civilized in so many ways. To their credit, our hostess explained that if
our servers really were French, they were first generation, and not at all like
the rest of the people we met on our tour. AND - the food, and this was all
about the food, after all - was exquisite!
 So - let me tell you what Chef Jerome Ryon cooked. There
was a salty cold soup with medallions of ham, and a ceramic spoon of sour cream
and radish matchsticks; morels in beef broth and sea bass with tiny artichokes;
a tiny rare lamb chop "as the chef would
serve it" and fragrant mushrooms and beans with ground ham in a tiny pastry bowl
made of rice; a sweet soufflé glacé in vanilla & strawberry flavors. Many
courses were served under silver bells which were removed with flair and
showmanship. Besides the food, the meal did have its moments. Unfortunately, my
description pales next to the photos I've included. I hope you get a better idea
of what we ate from them. We started the meal with the best white wine, Cloucher
1993 De la Digne D'Amont Limoux, and finished with a delicious red, Des 2 Anes
Domaine Corbieres 2005 Premier Pas.
 The next morning, after the provided buffet breakfast,
which was ample and delicious with fresh fruit, yogurt, pastry, cheese and an
omelet station for those who believed we wouldn't see any more food that day
(they were wrong, so wrong) we toured the castle until it was time for a wine
tasting (or two) and lunch at another Michelin starred restaurant.
 le Parc Franck Putelat [80, Chemin des Anglais Tél. : +33
4 68 71 80 80
www.leparcfranckputelat.com ] is a modern and stylish establishment outside the walled city in the new section
(meaning 17th century) of Carcassonne. We started with a sparkling white wine, Blanguette de Limdux,
 which gave me a sunny attitude to match the day. There
were little appetizers of a cardamom seed muffin, green peppers and salmon &
curry toast, looking perfect and very tasty. For soup we had a gloriously
poached egg, with white asparagus and tarragon flavored chopped mushrooms as a
base, in a frothy essence of celery broth.
 The
fish course was in the flounder family, white and flaky in a battered crust,
served with eggplant and fennel. It was the
fennel and the buttery herb sauce, delicious and aromatic, that heightened the
mild fish to perfection. I played paleontologist and carefully removed the flesh
from the bony carcass, realizing as I did, what people do while lingering over a
meal. Americans so hate bones in their food.
 Dessert was raspberry halves, drizzled with chocolate, on a thin chocolate cake spread
with vanilla creme. After the sparkling wine we continued throughout the meal
with a white Marllost 2006 - crisp and perfect with the fish. Reservations, for
lunch, have to be made two months in advance, call well before your next
vacation. It's worth it!
Dinner was an excellent last minute decision. I know. I
know. How can I keep talking about all this food? Well - it was why I was there
- to eat - and then tell you where you can have such good food (or not) - so let
me finish with one more meal.
 Our last dinner was at
La Compagnie Des Comptoirs [51 avenue Francois Delmas] which also has
restaurants in Avignon, Grand-Motte and Cap d'Agde. We were there for the
tangine, which Chef Thierry Nicoleau is very well known for, and it was great!
The aroma when the top of the
 tangine was removed made me want to eat Morrocan
food everyday, and the presentation of the colorful vegetables in a light sauce
surrounding the huge shank of lamb was stunning. As I tried to eat it the meat
kept falling off the bone. A side dish of couscous, almost dry and ungarnished,
was the perfect foil for the tangine sauce.
 The appetizer was a small stamp of
tuna, seared on the edges and raw inside. It was served with soy sauce and a
spicy rice / corn / noodle cold salad. To drink we had champagne with a cinnamon stick floating in it (that worked, but I
wouldn't do it to good champagne) followed by cold water. I don't know if that
was planned or they forgot to take a drink order, but it worked - perfectly. A
simple but elegant meal matched by the simple but elegant restaurant. Quiet, modern and efficient - it is a very
interesting event. I'd love to return and try something else on the menu.
Maison de la France,
www.franceguide.com/us
Languedoc-Roussillon Tourist Board,
www.sunfrance.com
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