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Food & Travel Guide to Provence, France – What to See, Eat & Do

France

I’ve come to know Provence through the taste of aioli, a sauce made of garlic, egg and olive oil. This is the sauce of the Mediterranean side of France. While butter is a staple, Provence’s climate in the far south yields aromatic herbs, tomatoes, apricots and above all, olive oil. The aioli is a humble reminder that France is a big country and its cuisine varied. But despite this variety, Provençal cuisine is still very much French. Complex cooking techniques that turn rural ingredients into polished masterpieces. Through this, the aioli took shape and became the sauce I reach for whenever fried potatoes are sent to the table. 

FISHING VILLAGES

The South of France is a place of fish, fishing and fishermen. They are the rival to Brittany and Normandy in the northeast. Going to Marché aux Poissons in Marseille is a visual journey of fish. With their boats anchored to the port, the fishermen sell their catch and shout the names of what they have on the table. There is the seabass, the sole… then there is the monkfish, hideous but wonderful in stews. To the east of Marseille is Cassis, another fishing village. On Quai des Baux, we take a seat at Le Grand Bleu where a waiter is holding out a bucket of fresh catch to a woman at a table who is carefully inspecting the fish. Roy truly revels in the full experience of eating fish. Like one who is enjoying a glass of wine, he debones the whole grilled seabass using a fillet knife and sprinkles the fish with fleur de sel. Then, he places the plate of fully filleted fish in front of me. I can’t help but find myself lucky to have a husband who enjoys filleting fish for me.

TOINOU LES FRUITS DE MER 

Seafood is a way of life in France. At lunch, you will always see a lady picking at a crab and another scooping out urchin from a spiky black shell. Always with a champagne in hand. Our first taste of French seafood really began at Toinou in Aix en Provence. It was a meal of oysters and urchins on a bed of ice with Bordier butter. Butter and oysters? Could this be true? So we asked our friendly waiter and he said with a shrug, “Ahhh some people like to put the oysters on the bread with butter. I don’t really like it but others do.” Around us, everyone was taking their time with their platters of crabs, oysters, whelks, urchins, and at times spreading butter on bread. In the end, we spread the bread with butter and sea urchin. This is the only way I will eat sea urchin now – with bread and butter. 

CHATEAU D’ESCLANS

A rosé wine is the colour of Provence. A beautiful shade of pink that colours the walls of Provençal towns. We are at the Château d’Esclans in search of France’s most famous rosé. “It’s called the Whispering Angel,” Anne-Sophie tells us as she fills the glass with shimmering pink. The Whispering Angel is not dark or deep like a Bordeaux. It’s light, fruity and fashionable. All I can think of as I take sips from the glass are summers in the South of France and dinners of shellfish platters and langoustine gratin in the sunshine, all through rose-tinted shades. 

DUCK

As a Chinese, I always find that I have an affinity with duck. Like the duck confit. Roy is terribly old-fashioned when it comes to duck confit. “The skin must be crispy,” he insists. For me, duck confit is about one thing – fat. Melting fat glazing over meat and potatoes. It adds a hearty shine to the food. The duck confit at Le Bistrot is exactly that. The duck skin is crisp with fat that had melted into a gloss. Even after finishing the duck and potatoes, I am helping myself to a baguette to polish up the fat. Fat simply can’t be ignored for some dishes.

CHATEAU DE MASSILLAN

Near Avignon, we are staying at the Château de Massillan. The chateau – like all others in France – look like something out of a fairy tale. While Germany has the Grimms, France has Perrault and Villeneuve. The chateau is owned by the son of a farmer, someone who enjoys cultivating organic produce. These produce are used by the chef in the chateau’s restaurant. During our stay, we find ourselves drawn to Orange, a nearby town that is as old as the Roman Empire and where there is an ancient theatre.

BOUILLABAISSE 

The bouillabaisse is a dish I could only dream of in the pages of French cookbooks when I was young. I knew the dish as two long columns of ingredients and a more-than-10-step cooking process. It was a dish that only the most seasoned chefs could do For the days leading up to Restaurant Côté Mer, I could not stop talking about the bouillabaisse. It was “bouillabaisse this” or “bouillabaisse that”. And so on the day of our reservation, Roy drove through the grey stormy weather to Fontvieille. The rain was coming down hard in splashes, some roads were blocked as there were floods. But that didn’t stop us. We reached the restaurant at a late hour. There were no customers except us. The rain it seemed had an effect on business. But the chef was ready with our bouillabaisse. The meal lasted for more than an hour. She presented the fish, all five of them. She cooked, deboned and served them with a pot of homemade soup. Then we finished the meal with crème brûlée and baba au rhum. The latter was served with a bottle of cognac as if we were not already drowsy enough with bouillabaisse. 

A MENU-LESS LUNCH

A menu-less meal is what they would call it a few centuries ago. Inns provided whatever they had in the kitchen to travellers who needed something to eat. It was on the way to the Provençal towns when we decided to stop in Sorgues for a really early lunch. The lady at Chez Gabin was surprised when we asked for “le déjeuner”. She looked at a man behind the counter with raised eyebrows before they shook their heads and said, “monsieur, only café and croissant.” Ah… lunch only starts at noon. She looked so perplexed until an idea came to her and she asked, “maybe something simple, we can do? Pasta?” As we sat down, she opened the appetisers for us. A spread of terrines, eggs, salad, champignons and saucisson. Then out came two plates of spaghetti with roasted pork. Just something they had whipped up using whatever they had at that early hour. It was this lunch that became the prelude to Roussillon and Gordes. Our stomachs feasted, then our eyes. 

Food & Travel Guide to the French Riviera, France – What to See, Eat & Do

France

The beauty of the French Riviera came to us at the end of a rain. We are eating in, a bowl of roast chicken in front of us, as the rain pours in curtains of greys and whites. Soon, the rain slows… then it stops. So we abandon our roast chicken and head out. As we drive out, the greys and whites melt into a bright blue. It’s all sunshine, miles and miles of it. 

BEACHES

We are on the road to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat when we stopped just before entering Villefranche-sur-Mer. Many have already stopped to gaze at the scene. This is how I’ve always imagined the French riviera: a Harley revs past peach-tinted houses that cascade across the sea. This day, the water is strikingly clear at Paloma Beach and Mala Beach. I can’t help but dip my toes in the cold, clear water. I remember thinking, “Something is different here, different from the Amalfi Coast.” In the Amalfi Coast, everything is vertical. Here, everything is flat, spread out across stretches of land. It’s less dramatic, but serene.

NICE

Walking in the Old Town of Nice after 6 pm is drifting through alleys of assorted aromas. Dried apples, pears and melons are arranged in metal containers next to jars of spices, flavoured salts and peppers. Socca is scraped from a large pan and placed on paper plates. Pissaladière is cut and wedged between square-cut napkins for casual takeaways. For us, dinner is escargots and daube at Marcel Bistro Chic. The Niçoise are proud of their daube, a beef stew with gnocchi. Like every French bistro, the dinner ends with something sweet – the profiteroles au chocolat. Something indulgent to finish an already indulgent meal. We are in France after all.

Nice in the morning gives off a different light. Palm trees line the promenade where people are sprawled under the sun. It’s mid-day when we reach Le Rocher. Some people are already having moules mariniere, a French dish that really came by way of Belgium. There is something therapeutic about a slow lunch of deshelling mussels to get a morsel and dipping the fries in their juices seasoned with white wine and parsley. The best French summer food at any time of the year. 

ANTIBES

I love markets, only to see the colours of the land’s produce, or sea since we are at the riviera. The market at Antibes is brimming with carts of oysters, mussels, savoy cabbage, chanterelle mushrooms and grapes. “Look at that, and that, and that,” is all I ever hear at a market stroll with Roy next to my ear. The cafes at this stretch are open for breakfast or brunch. The jambon-beurre at Aux Amoureux Des Pains is always sold out by 9 am. There is Le Pescheria, everything is freshly sliced or shucked by the poissonnier. As we sit there with small plates of sea bream carpaccio, ayaba prawns and urchin tartinables, older French women are smoking a cigarette while sipping champagne in front of a plate of a dozen oysters. An aperitif, but French. After our light seafood brunch, we are off to Èze for Le Jardin Exotique where the view from the tip of a hill is just mesmerising. 

CHATEAU SAINT ROUX

My eyes are dozing off as Roy drives to our hotel, passing by the Massif de l’Esterel where the mountains and rocks are burnt a reddish orange hue. I shake off my sleepiness, most likely from the jambon-beurre I had for breakfast earlier at the only place in Antibes that still had the French baguette at 9 am, the Copenhagen Coffee Lab. Whenever we step out of the car for views, all we see are blues and ochres.

When we finally reach the hotel, the day has already settled into an early sunset at 5 pm. We are eating in, at the Château Saint-Roux. Roy, always charmed by the idea of an organic vegetable garden at the hotel, goes for the seabass with roasted vegetables. The steak tartare with greens and cheese is for me the perfect dish to start, something to open up my appetite for the beef with dauphinoise potatoes and dessert of cheeses from the farm. Bright and early the next day, we can’t help wandering the grounds to see the chickens roosting, the boulangerie and fromagerie. The gardener is proudly showing off his vegetables, their colours painted a thousand times brighter by the sun. Now I wish I had the seabass with roasted vegetables. 

SAINT-TROPEZ

Saint-Tropez has always been something mystical to me. A place where the well-heeled go for their summer tan. But now I know why. The cream-coloured parasols loungers at the beach at Cheval Blanc. The little cafes sitting on top of boutiques. The cherry red tables and chairs at Sénéquier. The brioche filled with pastry cream and buttercream at La Tarte Tropézienne. The pastel avenues that lead out to the sea. The vista where yachts are resting at the bay. Everything is beautiful. Made even more beautiful by a coat of shine reflecting in the water. 

LA ROUTE DU MIAM

Every bistro has a story. For La Route du Miam, theirs go all the way to Bergerac outside of Bordeaux where Monsieur Jean Michel learnt a duck recipe from his mother who had learnt it from her mother, and so on and on. I love duck, any duck. When I heard of a restaurant serving only duck in Nice where seafood reigns supreme, I had to go. It only opens 4 days a week and at 8 in the evening. “Isn’t it a little late?” Roy had asked. It’s late for us who eat at 6 or 7, but I knew it must be really special.

The monsieur’s wife Marie talks of her husband’s duck recipe with a glimmer of a child who had discovered a secret. They are certain no one else does the exact same duck as theirs. A family recipe that is not duck confit, or even duck a l’orange. The monsieur’s is two types of duck. “You have to try both,” Marie insists. And so, with a glass of Bordeaux wine that had the aftertaste of dark cherries, we had duck de Jean Michel. The table near ours is coming back the next day for seconds. We have no such luxury, we are going to Provence the very next day. But still, we will always have this memory of the Riviera.