French Restaurant Review: Le Phébus, Joucas | EUROtoday

“We moved to Joucas from Marseille in the 1970s and my parents had a business producing light fixtures,” explains the Michelin-starred chef Xavier Mathieu. “Slowly but surely, we started building a hotel, and when I discovered my passion for cooking, they were completely supportive of my desire to become a chef. “My goal has always been to express the terroir of the Luberon,” he says of a delicacies that achieves a superb stability between the rusticity so many vacationers search within the Luberon and a sublimation of the native produce to the very best requirements of classical French cooking , layered with a formidable dose of fastidiously thought of creativity.

Dining at La Table de Xavier Mathieu in early June, I loved an outstanding dinner with South African pals who have been staying on the resort for per week, the fifth time they’ve executed so. Our meal started with an outstanding pesto soupthe Provençale vegetable and bean soup garnished with a purée of basil that is probably the most satisfying recipes I ever discovered to make from essentially the most well-known tome of southern French cooking, The Provencal Cook by JB Reboul. There have been additionally tasting parts of an impressive ratatouille garnished with an intriguing syrup of burnt onions and a crunchy tomato wafer. Next, a superb riff on two fishes – amberjack (amberjack) with cod (cod) in a riff on raito, a pink wine sauce with onions, herbs, tomatoes and olives, one other Provençal traditional.

This was the form of dish that might have delighted such good dwelling apostles of French delicacies as Elizabeth David, Julia Child and Richard Olney. I feel Olney would have particularly liked the roast leg of lamb that adopted, as a result of a part of his life’s work was mastering the cooking of Provence when it was nonetheless little recognized to most individuals.

I can not think about a greater dessert than contemporary apricots, cherries, peaches and almonds sprinkled with outdated vinegar, however my eating companions praised their mead soufflé to the rafters. We drank some excellent Rhône Valley and Provençal wines chosen from the superb wine listing by a really gifted younger sommelier. Le Phébus is a captivating place, and Xavier Mathieu is a pleasant host and a really gifted chef.

Route de Murs, Joucas, Tel. (33) 04 90 05 78 83

www.lephebus.com

From France Today Magazine