L'ingenue - Mazan

It was the listing with a rosette in the Michelin guide which persuaded us to drive for 40 minutes to eat in the Chateau of Mazan. The dining room was elegant with an eye-catching life sized horizontal nude placed immediately above our table. I thought her pose was a little too contrived for her to be the eponymous Ingenue. The staff were friendly and attentive. There seemed to be lots of them with different people welcoming us, showing us to the table, bringing the menu, offering bread, taking the order for food, and wine. The food appeared very quickly with the amuse-bouches arriving while we were still enjoying our aperitifs and the nibbles which accompanied them. Now, barely a week later, I cannot remember any of the courses, which is a reflection on me as much as on the restaurant. We concluded that there were nearer restaurants such as Bistrot de Lagarde d'Apt or Les Lavandes at Monieux or Le Louvre in Sault where we could eat as well for the same amount or less.

This is the only restaurant in Mazan to get into the Michelin Guide (with two knives and forks), so you expect a lot. Positives first:, this is a lovely place to be, with an elegant dining room and a calm and spacious terrace. Staff are attentive and helpful. On the negative side, the food is strangely characterless, lacking the big flavours you look forward to when eating in Provence. A dish of a little cylinder of chopped tomato in a puddle of gazpacho tasted more of water than tomato (yet the night before, at another restaurant in Mazan we had had proper gazpacho, bursting with flavour, and for a tiny fraction of the price here). This was followed by pieces of rascasse in a cream sauce with potatoes the fish tired and dry and the whole thing bland and dull. Only the pudding a piece of nicely squidgy chocolate cake with some intensely flavoured raspberry sorbet came close to what we were looking for. We drank a bottle of rose (also strangely thin). With aperitifs, a plate of cheese, and coffee the bill for two came to 130 Euros. There is much better food and value to be had nearby.

The grand building was formerly owned by the Marquis de Sade. The beautiful dining room, or, during summer, the wood-decked terrace, provides the setting for menus created by Briton Franck Pujol. Dishes are well balanced and creative, and never overpowering or off-putting. The friendly staff add to the relaxed atmosphere among the diners. Already rated with two red couverts in the Guide Michelin, this is a very promising restaurant that deserves a chance to climb up even more in reputation.

We haven't stayed here but have eaten at the restaurant on a number of occasions. The hotel is one of the residences of the Marquis de Sade and the owner, Madame Lhermie has restored it from it's previously sorry state into a delightful hotel, retaining many of the original features and imprinting it with humorous and sometimes quirky character rooms are decorated with a tonque in cheek sense of history but also with a calm modern decor. The intimate gardens are beautiful and the pool is a pleasant place to relax in the summer. The hotel restaurant, L'ingenue, is situated in the elegant chateau dining room and outside on the shaded terrace in the summer. Franck Pijol is a talented chef and his food is interesting, experimental and tasty and far superior to anything in the vicinity. Staff and owners have always been very friendly and welcoming to us and our American friends (I say this because another post has suggested otherwise).