Provence cooked at the summit, under the rocks of Les Baux.
At the foot of the bone-white cliffs that hold Les Baux, in the green hollow the locals call the Val d’Enfer, sits one of the great tables of the south. Founded by Raymond Thuilier in 1945 and now in the hands of Glenn Viel, the Oustau has carried Provence to the top of French cooking for three generations — and, remarkably, still feels like a farmhouse where someone happens to cook very, very well.
The kitchen reads its own garden first. Vegetables an hour out of the soil, olive oil from the valley, lamb from the Alpilles, herbs you can smell from the terrace. It is precise, modern, occasionally playful — but never forgets that it stands in Provence and answers to it.
The setting
Lunch on the terrace, under the planes and the cliff, is the version to book. There are rooms, too, scattered across the estate, if one bottle leads to another. Read our full Provence table guide.
Getting there
The valley is twenty minutes from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and forty from Avignon TGV. Come by car, and walk up to the dead village of Les Baux before you eat. See also our weekend in the Alpilles.
“A monument that never turned cold. Book lunch on the terrace and give the afternoon to it; nothing else will measure up that day.”
