In this traffic-free zone near the Vieille Bourse, some restaurants are open all night, and compete to see which can build up the highest mound of empty shells on the pavement. Also ask for gratin de petits coquillages au muscadet . Besieged by locals as well as tourists, it is ideal for savouring Alsatian atmosphere and cui sine, and has several small rooms furnished with antiques.
Portions are vast.
This old wine-press house, beguilingly bucolic, stands outside a village south of Colmar. He is a Rabelaisian figure, tall and burly, warm and funny, making outrageously conceited remarks with a merry twinkle. He served me his amazing truffle soup created for President Giscard d'Estaing. An eighteenth-century country mansion in the Rhne valley, once the home of bishops, now a sympathetic little hotel, idyllically rural, owned and run by the friendly Girardon family. 6 Peillon, inland from Nice Auberge de la Madone Only 20km from hectic Nice, but in spirit a world away, this delightful auberge stands high in the hills up a giddy winding road, beside an ancient hill-village perched on a rocky spur.