Côte d'Azur Riviera

[John Talbott]

Has anyone mentionned Jouni, Atelier du goût in Nice on this thread yet?  I glanced through and didn't see it.  I know that I've read at least two articles on it recently, but can't remember where. 

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They were probably the April 10-11 A Nous Paris and the recent issue of Omnivore.

[Swisskaese]

P.S. Don't miss the Picasso Musée in Antibes, and the Picasso ceramics showroom, displaying the plates made from the molds he designed for Madoura, in Vallauris.  Renoir House in Cagnes is wonderful as well.

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I am leaving next week and I can't wait. We just found out that the Picasso Museum is closed for renovations. I was really looking forward to seeing this. Oh well, another excuse to go back.

I will give a full report when I return.

Any last minute suggestions?

[mdbasile]

P.S. Don't miss the Picasso Musée in Antibes, and the Picasso ceramics showroom, displaying the plates made from the molds he designed for Madoura, in Vallauris.  Renoir House in Cagnes is wonderful as well.

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I am leaving next week and I can't wait. We just found out that the Picasso Museum is closed for renovations. I was really looking forward to seeing this. Oh well, another excuse to go back.

I will give a full report when I return.

Any last minute suggestions?

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Right nearby in the town of Haute Cagnes sur mer -- be careful this is the old hill town - not the resort by the sea... there is a restaurant call Josy-Jo - 1 michelin star but not michelin prices. Great restaurant in a great hil town - just outside Antibes.

[yplady]

We just found out that the Picasso Museum is closed for renovations. I was really looking forward to seeing this. Oh well, another excuse to go back.

Just as well, there's an exhibition in Paris and quite a bit would be there!

yplady

[yplady]

Hostellerie Jerome in la Turbie is a great 2* with a view - if you manage to get a (the) table by the window. Worth a trip even without the view.

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This recommendation sounds perfect - friends have wanted to go to La Turbie for years...just wrote for lunch reservations for 23 mai - hope they can accommodate us. Thanks so much.

yplady

[mdbasile]

Hostellerie Jerome in la Turbie is a great 2* with a view - if you manage to get a (the) table by the window. Worth a trip even without the view.

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This recommendation sounds perfect - friends have wanted to go to La Turbie for years...just wrote for lunch reservations for 23 mai - hope they can accommodate us. Thanks so much.

yplady

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Ask for a table on the little terrace - for lunch it should be perfect!! I am sure you will not be disapointed.

[Swisskaese]

I just returned from a magical trip in Provence, except for the first night when my handbag was stolen with two passports, two driver's licences, two credit cards and a number of other things... .

I was sitting in the car and the thief opened the door and took my handbag. The most important thing is that he didn't hurt me. Lock your doors at all times when you are travelling in France. Especially, Antibes and Nice.

I will give a full report in a few days with some pictures.

[Corinna Dunne]

I was sitting in the car and the thief opened the door and took my handbag. The most important thing is that he didn't hurt me. Lock your doors at all times when you are travelling in France. Especially, Antibes and Nice.

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That's terrible. Add Marseilles and Paris to the list... I had my passport stolen twice in France... but I think you have to be careful in any country these days.

[Swisskaese]

We just returned on Tuesday from a fabulous 12-day vacation in Cap d'Antibes and Avignon.

We stayed in a beautiful villa on Cap d'Antibes for 10 days and a hotel in Avignon for two days. We travelled to Antibes, Juan les Pins, Haute de Cagne, Nice, Tourtour, Villecroze, Salernes, Flayosc, Vence, St. Paul de Vence, Villeneuve-Loubet, Grasse, Villefranche sur le Mer, Saint Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Marseille, Cassis, Avignon, Orange, Carpentras, and Aix en Provence.

We didn't want to come home.

Here are the things that we brought back with us:

Two Provencal salt mixes, walnut oil and Basque paprika

Calissons (we also bought dark chocolate covered), olives (didn't eat them there) and chestnut honey

Creme de Prune and Creme de Lemoncello from a lovely shop that I will tell you more about in St. Paul de Vence

Wanted to bring more, but alas we have a limit.

[Swisskaese]

We drank a lot of wine while we were there and were amazed at how little they cost.

We had:

Les Ofevres Vignerons, Sainte Victoire Cote du Provence 2004 Rose

Golfe de Saint Tropez Merlot, Vin de Pays du Var

Montcigale Beaucaire, Coteaux d' Aix en Provence 2005 Rose

Chateau de Sablet Bordeaux 2005

Domaine Francois Gerbet Bourgogne 2004 Rose

Chateau Minuty Gassin, Cuvee du Bailly 2004 Rose

L'Arnaud 2005 Rose

Les Vignobles Choisis 2004, Cotes de Provence

We also ate a number of cheeses:

Le bleu des Basques

Saint Nectaire

Pyrenees Montsegur

Brie

Dry chevre, don't remember the name

[Swisskaese]

We did not eat out a lot because most the restaurants were very expensive and since we had a kitchen in the villa, we took full advantage of cooking with beautiful fresh ingredients.

The reason I say expensive is because 1 Euro is approximately 5.50NIS.

We grilled sardines, sebaste, trout, red gunard and emperor bream. The fish was outstanding. We were really looking forward to having red mullet, but it cost three times what we pay here.

[Swisskaese]

To continue my trip report....

The beautiful view from our friend's villa

Small Provencal vegetable stand

And fruit stand (check out those prices!!!)

Candied fruit

Lovely caramels

[Swisskaese]

The best restaurant we ate at during our travels was in Avignon.

We had a lovely dinner at Basilic Citron, , 4 Place de la Principale . It has a wonderful space for romantic outdoor dining in the courtyard and the decor inside the restaurant is also very romantic. There were strolling musicians to entertain us throughout the meal.

Interior of Basilic Citron

Three course dinner for two with a bottle of wine was 90 euro. This was the most expensive meal of our entire trip. The food was delicious. We loved the entire meal, but we both really loved the tuna. We definitely recommend this restaurant.

Our first courses were:

Thon brulee aux epices, reduction de vinaigre balsamique aux agrumes

Fresh tuna with spices and a reduction of balsamic vinegar and citrus

Asperge vertes et blanches du pays, vinegrette a l'huile de noisette torrefies

Local green and white asparagus with a vinegrette of roasted hazelnut oil

Second courses:

Tranche d'espadon poelee, tians de legumes, bearnaise aux pistils de safran

Sauteed swordfish steak with a vegetable tian and a saffron flavoured bearnaise sauce

Pave de caillebaud aux herbes fraiches vapeur, chartreuse d'aubergine a la tomate

Piece of cod filet steamed with fresh herbs and an aubergine timbale stuffed with tomato

Third course:

Millefeuille a la pistache, marmelade de griotte acidule

Pistachio napoleon with sour morello cherry jam

Tartare de fraise du pays, sorbet cactus/citron vert

Fresh local strawberries with a cactus and lime sorbet

Wine:

Plume, Cote de Luberon, white wine

The restaurant next to Basilic Citron is Art et Gourmets and it was also busy and the menu looked very interesting.

[Chufi]

Michelle thanks for the wonderful trip report.. looks like you had a wonderful time.. thanks to your post I knew about calissons, and my husband went to Aix for 2 days last week and I told him: you have to bring me back calissons!

(and he did )

[Swisskaese]

Michelle thanks for the wonderful trip report.. looks like you had a wonderful time.. thanks to your post I knew about calissons, and my husband went to Aix for 2 days last week and I told him: you have to bring me back calissons!

(and he did  )

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I know you will enjoy them. I have been rationing them out and we just ate the last ones.

Well, it is just an excuse to go back.

[Swisskaese]

Here is my final photographic report of my trip to Provence and the Cote d'Azur.

St. Paul de Vence is a very picturesque town which is famous for its beauty and also is the final resting place of Auguste Escouffier and Marc Chagall. There are a number of art galleries and other specialty shops. One that caught our eye was a shop that sold various liqueurs and olive oil. The name of the shop is Les Trois Etoiles de St. Paul and it is owned by a lovely man named Horst. Horst was kind enough to let us take pictures of his shop after we explained that we were going to post information and the pictures of his shop on eGullet.

Horst

Horst has a very interesting selection of liqueurs, such as Honey, Plum, Peach, Limoncello Cream, Strawberry, Blackberry, Pear as well as several types of balsamico and local olive oil. He certainly believes in letting potential buyers try out his wares; we must have had about eight tastings before we chose a plum liqueur and lemoncello cream to take home as part of our swag.

Edited July 2, 2006 by Swisskaese (log)

[Swisskaese]

We also went to see the Escoffier Museum. It is housed in Escoffier's house. The collection includes old menus, a provencal kitchen and cooking utensils. It is definitely worth the trip.

Escoffier's house

Auguste Escoffier

Sugar sculpture

Menus designed by Toulouse-Lautrec

Cassis is a touristy town, but it has a very nice view of the sea and great ice cream. We followed the crowd to a gelateria and had some amazing ice cream. Tapenade had Cassis and Pink Grapefruit and I don't remember what I had , but I promise it was good.

Gelateria in Cassis

Cassis and Red Grapefruit

We had a very nice Tourte de Blette in Antibes, but the best one we had was Nice. Lou Pihla Leva is the place to go in Nice for socca (very good!), tourte de blette and grande aioli, which is a very good, but simple provencal dish consisting of salt cod, steamed vegetables, including artichoke served with garlic mayonnaise. Their tourte de blette is like no other. Normally they are very thin, but theirs is of monster proportion. We shared one.

Tourte de Blette in the upper left-hand corner

The truth is that everything they served looked delicous. I really wanted to try their lemon tart, but I didn't have any room after we had already eaten some amazing ice cream at Finocchio. They had sweet and savory ice creams. Tapenade had Tomato/Basil and Rosemary. Call it old age, but I can't remember what I had. I just know that it was very, very good.

Finocchio's

All in all the trip was amazing and we will be going back for more adventures.

[menton1]

Thanks for all those photos, Michelle. The "gelateria" or Glacier as the French call it, looks quite good.

Devoted Francophile as I am, I still reluctantly realize that the Italians have the French completely beaten when it comes to ice cream. Those gelaterie in Italy are unbelievably wonderful, and stay open most days until the wee hours. They are the place to go after dinner, you find them by where the crowds are gathered close to midnight.

(The French make much better salads, though! )

[Swisskaese]

Thanks for all those photos, Michelle.  The "gelateria" or Glacier as the French call it, looks quite good.

Devoted Francophile as I am, I still reluctantly realize that the Italians have the French completely beaten when it comes to ice cream.  Those gelaterie in Italy are unbelievably wonderful, and stay open most days until the wee hours.  They are the place to go after dinner, you find them by where the crowds are gathered close to midnight. 

(The French make much better salads, though!  )

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I totally agree. No offence to the French, but I am an Italophile and they do make the best ice cream by far. However, the two Glacier that I featured are owned by Italians.

[yplady]

I'm well overdue to respond here - we had a lovely lunch at Hostellerie Jerome, although the four of us became distracted by the 110 euro menu and chose that over the 60 euro menu. After an hour or so visiting the Trophee des Alpes, we had worked up an appetite, so we settled in for a leisurely afternoon of fabulous food. I was quite surprised that we were practically the only ones there (one other couple) - between the film festival and the Grand Prix, I would have thought it fully booked.

I was just along for the ride in terms of wine; we had a very nice Bandol rosè and a very interesting dessert wine - don't believe it was a sauterne, but that's not very helpful, is it???

Thanks again for the recommendation - it was definitely the finest meal of the trip this year, and we hope to go back there again next year.

yplady

[Busboy]

I don't know if everyone but me has already made it to the Cote d'Azur, but if you can make it through the French, Le Figaro has an interesting run-down on a number of changes behind the line.

The one that caught my eye was La Mirazeur, in Menton "the most wonderful news, incontestably...two young people from Arpege and Alain Passard...incredibly fresh and bright cooking...laughably inexpensive (35E lunch, 70E dinner)."

Might have to check it out myself.

[Busboy]

Popped into La Merenda last night for the second time and am convinced that, despite its fame, it is a brilliant gem. Stockfish -- I now dream of stockfish!

[Ptipois]

Stockfish -- I now dream of stockfish!

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Probably my favorite dish. Lucky you, proper stockfish is nearly impossible to achieve outside of a Niçois context.

How do they make it at La Merenda? I hope they don't rejuvenate it in any way.

[Busboy]

Stockfish -- I now dream of stockfish!

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Probably my favorite dish. Lucky you, proper stockfish is nearly impossible to achieve outside of a Niçois context.

How do they make it at La Merenda? I hope they don't rejuvenate it in any way.

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I have now had stockfish exactly once, but if by "rejuvinating it" you mean dumbing it down for tourists -- "lightening" or "harmonizing with today's lighter tastes" I'm sure one would call it -- you can rest assured that they did no such thing. It was brutal and addictive, and they were clearly were worried about serving it to two Americans. The waiter asked twice if we were sure we wanted it and the kitchen actually set out a small sample, to give us a chance to back out. It is, I am sure, an acquired taste, I acquired it about the third spoonful. We did pay deference to its strength by moving up from the rose to the red, even that barely stood up to it. My wife swore that I smelled like it for a full day after.

I was told that it wasn't made with morou, which they characterized as salt cod, but with cod that had been dried by another method and preserved for at least a year. Potatoes, red peppers, (Olives?) a great deal of garlic are the flavors that, in addition to the fish, stand out.

[mdbasile]

Joel Robuchon's place in the Metropole -- an experiences?

Thanks.