Restaurant List - Herault Department

Pezenas

Pezenas is peppered with small, intimate restaurants as well as a large variety of open air bars and cafes – here are just some of our favourites ..

Après le Déluge - 5 rue Maréchal Plantavit 0467 98 10 77 - just beyond the main line of cafés and spottable by the lines of washing (hence the name) strung outside. Various set menus from €17-30 per head which are great value. The fish soup and the chocolate fondue are stunning. If you are lucky you can catch Philippe playing excellent jazz piano, accompanied by his up and coming chanteuse, watch this space ! Always a great night out..

Le Poisson Verre - 3-5 rue de la Foire 0467 90 29 26 - a tardis of a restaurant off a tiny street in the cobbled part of Pezenas. Sit in the tiny terrace outside as the big restaurant behind can feel a bit gloomy. Fresh bright food served by friendly waiters - charming, cheap and open on a Monday night - something of a rarity in France. About €20 a head

Les Maronniers – 16 Ave de Verdun 0467 90 13 80 - tapas restaurant with big creeper-covered terrace in front and small, cosy tables inside. Unusually for France a big choice of starters (many vegetarian) to pick and mix from, and big plates (if you want them) to follow. Intimate, sweet, a local favourite and good value - about €20 per head.

La Terrasse - 2 Place Gambetta 0467 98 25 11 - in the main cobbled square. Informal and ruled by a very sociable waiter, do not mention it's your birthday if you're shy because he'll set up an impromptu choir in an instant. Jolly, friendly and perfect if you have a big appetite or like watching people who really love their food. Good place to practise your French as you queue for the only loo. Get there early for lunch. About €23 a head.

Les Palmiers - rue Mercière 0467 09 42 56 - bohemian courtyard complete with huge palms, recycled art, mis-matched tables, chairs and sofas. In the summer huge sails arch over the space to protect you from sun or rain. A blackboard menu offers the table d'hote and it's a favourite with vegetarians ! About €23 a head

Le Bateleur - 5 place Ledru Rollin 0467 98 19 96 – Small intimate, cosy restaurant situated at the top of the high straight away from the main crowds. Interior is cool, air-conditioned and like eating in someone's cosy dining room !Traditional Languedocian duck & beef dishes if you like meat. Set menus at €16.80 and € 23.70 or a la carte.

Le Yacca - Place du 14 Juillet , open air and interior seating, great family restaurant as there is a big selection of children's favourites. No set menus.

Tasty Pizzas range from €6.90 to €9.50, many pasta dishes and big choice of hot & cold starters. Leave plenty of room for the large selection of decorative “ glaces “ . For adults there are also steak, duck and fish dishes all accompanied by very generous portions of chips. A great favourite with all the family. Main dishes around €14.50

Le Moliere – 14 Place du Juillet in the middle of the main square with burgundy coloured awning and chairs, you can sit inside or on the pavement terrace and watch the world go by. A good all round menu with a wide selection of French and international dishes. The service is friendly, however, don't go if you are hungry as you may wait some time to be served .. Set menus from€14.80 - €23.80 per head. Try the house carafe of red white or rose.

Le Conti – 0467 9838 96 27 rue Conti – tucked into one of the picturesque side streets off the main market square, Le Conti is a small Italian restaurant with a few pavement tables, offering simple and great value food. Good choice of Pizzas, spaghetti, pasta dishes for kids and for adults additional choice of salads, meat and fish dishes. Excellent calamaris and cassoulette St. Jacques.

Great value menus from €12.50 to €20.00

Clermont l'Herault

Le Tournesol - 0467 96 99 22 – 2 rue Roger Salengro - fantastic place for lunch after a trip to the market. Unprepossesing from the outside, it's all cool terraces and welcoming linen-covered tables after you've climbed the stairs. Special food, fantastic fish, incredibly good value, friendly, smart but not at all daunting. Everyone who's been loves it, also great for a special celebration. Set menus at €16.00 , €21.00 and €28.00 per head

Le Terminus – rue Roger Salengro, reasonably elegant interior as well as pavement terrace on pedestrianised boulevard. Interesting Menu gourmand and good value at €27.50. Look out for the great translations from French to English – mountain man with salad ?? bon appetit !!

Café des Negociants rue Roger Salengro, relaxed brasserie style atmosphere in the heart of Clermont where you can sit in the Parisienne style café or outside overlooking the market place. Set on this bustling boulevard, there is a small children's play area, so great for them to run around whilst you sip your well earned pastis and kir. Set menus at €21.00 and €28.00 or you can chose a mix of dishes from salads or main courses at €11.50 followed by a dessert. Kids will love the choice of pizzas, pasta and omelettes.

Neffies

Les Goutailles - 6 rue St Alban 0467 24 07 86 - in the next door village, 3 minutes by car, a converted grain-store run by the lovely Karen who speaks perfect English and Didier who cooks. The salade de campagne has driven people to poetry and it's a basic, small, kind, intimate place and guests always want to go back. Prices around €25 a head

Marseillan

Le Chateau du Port - 0467 77 31 67 - beside the Noilly Prat factory on the yacht-loaded port, this is a fab place for a special dinner. Great ultra-fresh seafood, busy, elegant, full of good talk and happy faces. A biggish menu built on experience, good wines. Stimulating and a place you can dress up a bit if you want. Around €40.

O n the other side of the canal is a line of 4 or 5 restaurants. Not quite the same standard but good nonetheless and less expensive - fish soup, moules, prawns are as good as you'd expect by the sea. All have tables outside under awnings and the atmosphere is perfect South of France lazy lunch on a hot summer's day. All around €25. If you're there during grape-picking, you can watch thin tractors pulling fat trailers piled high with grapes to the local co-operative.

Chez Philippe – 0467 017062 20 - rue de Suffren. Set one street back from the busy port area, this unassuming restaurant is set mainly in its own garden and offers an excellent choice for a special dinner. The effervescent owner Jean speaks excellent English and puts on an entertaining floor show when explaining the menu painstakingly to us poor non French speaking Brits ! there is only 1 menu at €23.00 but it has several mouthwatering choices to tempt almost every palette. Unusual blends of foods, excellent and very friendly service make this a must .. but book in advance as its nearly always full !

La Table d'Emilie – 0467 77 63 59 – 8 place couverte. In the centre of old Marseillan, tucked behind the church, the restaurant is like a rabbit warren with several dining rooms leading off the main room. Very nouvelle cuisine with 3 variations offered of either foie gras, beef or seafood each on one platter, ensuring that you get a great taste of the chef's culinary skills. Service is a bit slow in high season, but the food is worth the wait. Set menus from around €27.00 per head.

Agde

Le Lodge - Plage Richelieu, Cap d'Agde 0467 26 18 34 - on a piece of private beach divided off from the public bit with hireable sun-beds and gorgeous views. Cool, clubby, laidback restaurant/bar for cocktails, food as good as you'll find in any London restaurant and music. Funky, exclusive but not swanky, expensive but not hugely - absolutely adored by all who've been.

In Grau d'Agde there is a line of perhaps 8 restaurants all with umbrella-ed terraces along the canal leading to the Mediterranean. We've tried many of these and they are unbeatable for moules-frites, huge prawns with garlic, paella, fish soup etc. washed down with cold rosé. Don't leave it too late on a Sunday lunchtime or you'll have a stomach-rumbling wait. On spring days, if you're really lucky, you can sit eating oysters while getting a sun-tan and seeing the Pyrenees on the far horizon still covered in snow. Heaven. A 3-minute stroll to the sea, a snooze on the beach or a swim and some shell-hunting followed by an ice-cream on the way back to the car is pretty well impossible to beat.

Le Calamar – 0467 94 05 06 at La Tamarissiere, on the banks of the Herault, offers a modern interior with trendy steel and wicker chairs surrounded by pretty hanging baskets on the outside.. A great fish restaurant with a variety of mussels, oysyers, salmon, scallops and fish salads. The cod as a main course is outstanding if a bit pricey .. meat eaters will enjoy the lamb or steak. Here it is the wine list that really shines with some outstanding regional wines, some almost impossible to find in the wine shops and all reasonably priced from €17 a bottle … Around €35.00 per head depending on wines

Beziers

As Beziers is a city, there are numerous restaurants, bars and cafes which can be found both in the old town and along the banks of the canal du Midi.

One of our favourites:

La Raffinerie – 0467 76 07 12 – 14, Avenue Joseph Lazare. If you can manage to circumnavigate the city's one way system, you will eventually arrive at this converted old sulphur mill on the banks of the Canal du Midi on the Quai du Pont Neuf. A modern refurbishment rich and somber colours of brown with comfortable chairs and very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable staff. Menus are a mixture between, French, Italian and Spanish cooking with exotic dishes such as calamari and black risotto, cannelloni with goat's cheese on a bed of courgettes and asparagus as well as tasty meat dishes of pork curry, lamb and delicious sea bream. Eat inside or on the terrace at night, overlooking the canal surrounded by theatrically lit plane trees. Menus from around €25.00 per head.

Bouzigues

A picturesque fishing village set on the basin du Thau, birthplace of shellfish farming since 1925 when Louis Tudesq succeeded in perfecting techniques for farming oysters and mussels. Bouzigues has subsequently earned the position of being enrolled amongst the 100 Remarkable Sites of French Taste.

Take a drive along the lagoon front and try some of the following restaurants, all with views of the lagoon and Sete across the bay. Great variety of fresh seafood and fish dishes. Always book in the summer as this is a favourite spot with the locals.

Le Grand Bleu – 0467 78 72 09 - 13 Avenue Louis Tudesq

Bistrot du Port – 0467 78 35 77

Chez Francine – 0467 78 31 20 11 – 11 Avenue Louis Tudesq

Le Saint-Pierre – 0467 78 31 20 – 23 Avenue Louis Tudesq

La Palourdiere – 0467 43 80 19 sur la Ferme de L'Etang, off the beaten track offering spectacular views of the oyster beds from the panoramic terrace. Large selection of seafood and fish dishes, mostly cooked on the massive in-door BBQ stoked with vines. Fast, friendly service, good choice of local wines and excellent Viogniers. Menus range from €23.00 per head.

Meze

La Marmitiere – 0467 43 84 99 – 38 rue du Port, off the main port area in one of the quieter side streets, La Marmitiere offers a broad regional menu as well as international dishes. Cavernous type interior is cool and spacious, friendly service especially for the struggling Brits ! Cassoulet is a favourite here ..

Menus range from €20.00per head

Chez Titou – on the main road driving in to Meze are a variety of stalls selling fresh shellfish. Chez Titou has added a small restaurant and successfully attracts truckers and tourists alike … excellent value moules and frites with a glass of wine for €6.50 a real experience !

Le Pescadou – 0467 43 81 72 – 33 Boulevard du Port, situated next to the port, you can dine on the terrace or inside. One of few restaurants to make a successful effort with the décor and what a difference it makes ! Cosy interior in warm Mediterranean colours, broad choice of fish, seafood and meat dishes ranging from €20.00 per head

Villeneuvette

La Source – 0467 96 36 95 . In the heart of the picturesque walled village of Villeneuvette, La Source offers excellent hotel facilities + pool as well as its excellently run restaurant. On a hot sunny day you can relax on the shaded terrace and be cooled by the constant fine spray of water that jet out from the vine covered pergolas. Excellent and very friendly and professional service, with very good English translation offered. Innovative and very delicious nouvelle cuisine, but you go away feeling very full ! Good choice of fish, meat and poultry dishes and an excellent wine menu. Prices around €23.00 per head

Saint Guiraud

Le Mimosa – 0467 96 67 96 – A jewel in the heart of Languedoc , a delightful intimate restaurant, run like clockwork by Bridget and David Pugh, an ex ballerina and a violinist with the Royal Ballet in England. Together they bring their own special blend of creativeness into the delicious menu, coupled with a very special and extensive wine list which serves the best of the regional wines. Fantastic set menu of 7 dishes accompanied by the appropriate glass of wine .. how do you know what you want ? tell David what you like and he will muse until he finds just the right one for you … a real treat and excellent for special occasions. You can sit under the canopy of a sail on the terrace overlooking the courtyard or on a candlelit table by the pool and while away the hours ..

Menus from around €27.00 the 7 course menu is €50.00 per head.

Montpellier

SixBix - 6 rue Embouque d'Or 0467 66 35 13 - funky style, djs playing ambient (but not loud) music, v. friendly service. Truly excellent modern French food in gigantic portions perfect for a special night out. We pushed the boat out and the bill was €80 - we would have paid 3 times as much in London.

P lace Jean Jaures - a better alternative for drinks/meals than the larger Place de la Comedie. Had a good fixed price menu at Tire de Bouchon - particularly notable for their willingness to allow an enormous, snoozing Great Dane to fill almost half the floorspace during a busy lunchtime.