Le Relais des Moines

83460 LES ARCS

15.5/20
Remarkable Restaurant

7 PHOTOS

Chef Sébastien Sanjou

Cooking French | Gastronomic | Local

Services Pets allowed | Private Parking

Price Indicative price per person (excl. drinks)

68€ à 158€

Gault&Millau's review

15.5/20

Remarkable Restaurant Five centuries ago, no monk could have imagined that this sheepfold would become a landmark of Provençal haute cuisine. It took a man like Sébastien Sanjou, whose parents were restaurateurs in a ski resort in the Pyrenees, to take up such a challenge. Trained to excellence by his masters, Alain Ducasse and Jacques Maximin, he in turn became a torchbearer when, 22 years ago, he decided to open his own restaurant, Le Relais des Moines, just a few minutes from the medieval village of Les Arcs-sur-Argens. In just two decades, it has become the focal point of this southern cuisine, served by local producers just as passionate as the chef. Since then, the prolific chef has been everywhere: in Paris at 33, in Biarritz, in Monaco, and soon in New York with his Mediterranean table Marius. But here, it's a return to the roots of the obvious, a cuisine from the heart, one that nurtures emotions dish after dish. The four menus, from €68 for three courses (at lunchtime from Wednesday to Friday) to €158 for seven courses, will provide the same feeling of bliss, with nothing monastic about it. Cooked and raw butternut squash with just-snacked fresh foie gras, saddle of rabbit completely boned and stuffed with meadow pink mushrooms and sage, accompanied by small spelt risotto, Julien Bertin's fine goat cheeses, and yellow plum and Reine-Claude compote and marinated with mascarpone ice cream... The service is charming under the auspices of the chef's mother, and the cellar with its 1,000 references prolongs the pleasure of being in the present moment, and for centuries to come.