Le Bistrot Decouverte - St Remy

The world is full of great chefs who have no idea how to run a restaurant. Miraculous creations emerge from the kitchen, plates are dressed as sexily as Carla Bruni, and the resulting festival of flavours would turn even the swooning Sarkozy’s head away from the nearest brunette.
Two months later the restaurant is out of business - overheads have soared, customers have been poisoned and the restaurant manager has had an affair with the chef’s wife. In short it is not as easy as it looks, which is why the Bistrot Decouverte in Saint Remy de Provence is just so good.

If the owner were a physicist he would have compressed the theory of relativity to a page A4, instead like a fine sauce he has reduced the menu to a series of intense yet simple flavours.
We visited on a sunny lunchtime in late January. The type of day that makes the locals sigh that their home is a corner of paradise, while the second homers hide their smug satisfaction behind a pair of oversize reflector shades. The terrace was full with early diners sipping on the remains of their red wine, toying with their coffees and showing absolutely no sign of vacating their tables.

Without a reservation we paraded up and down the high street for their amusement, the more longingly we looked at their tables the more the residents - it was as if they’d set up home - reclined, and nonchalantly soaked up the sun. Bills arrived, but unlike the customers they didn’t lounge indolently around. Credit card machines - which in France you wait for as long as a train in England - were pressed into slightly unwilling hands and we had our table.

The house wine was a lazy Cote du Rhone, starters were simple, but the quality immaculate. Thin slices of Iberico ham from a pig which had grazed exclusively on a diet of acorns, were nutty - and perhaps the sun was getting to me at this point - almost truffly (sp?!!) in flavour. The smoke salmon was from Scotland, but it was fleshy and fresh, and as peaty as a good whisky. But the point about all the starters was that in a small restaurant, with limited time the kitchen could quickly turn them out and concentrate on the mains, which were impeccable - a deep and luxuriant lobster risotto and of course, given my current obsession a Steak Frite, only they didn’t serve frite - well of course they didn’t.

Frite have to be tended to and nurtured and in a busy kitchen it’s all to easy to turn out something with the texture of an old leather jacket left to shallow fry in the sun, so instead the thick juicy entrecote was accompanied by gratin potatoes and a crushed peppercorn sauce. Again delicious, but despite the professionalism, the concentration on detail, it was all a little too easy, a little like a McDonald’s with upmarket ingredients. Where was the potential for disaster or moments of culinary genius? Still nobody seemed to mind, least of all us. We lounged in the sun, ignored the queue of customers still looking for a table (it was past the witching hour of 2pm), casually ordered some coffees which came accompanied with freshly baked chocolate amuse bouche, and congratulated ourselves on finding possibly one of the best venues in Saint Remy de Provence.

The only problem was that as we left I felt like we’d been in a fantastic restaurant in London rather than the south of France.

“Didn’t the bill arrive quickly,” I purred.

Steak Frite rating:

Steak: 9

Frites: 0 (but the gratin were very nice)

terrace: 3

Average Steak Frite rating: 4

Contender 1 Cafe L'Ormeau - Lourmarin

A classic café steak frite. An entrecote that fills three quarters of your plate, and a mound of thin fries in the remaining space. Dripping in meat juices with a gamey flavour that makes me think the cow was roaming wild in the Luberon before falling victim to the morning chasse. The terrace is perfect for people watching, particularly on Sunday on the stroke of 3 when a stampede of Parisians rushes to catch the last TGV home.

Marks out of 10.

Steak: 9

Frites: 8

Terrace: 8

Av. Steak frite quest score - 8.3/10