Arbane

Rating: 17
Author: Gault&Millau

51100 REIMS

17/20
Prestige Restaurant

BOOK

8 PHOTOS

Chef: Philippe Mille
Cooking: French | Gastronomic | Signature cuisine
Services: Access for people with disabilities | Garden | Private Parking | Valet parking
Style: Elegant | Exceptional setting | Romantic

Budget (€)

Indicative price per person (excl. drinks)

80 to 290

Gault&Millau's review 2026

It's a great new dining experience for Rémois and wine travelers alike. This 19th-century mansion, tastefully designed in a soft, soothing contemporary style, with its kitchen totally open to the dining room, is already the ideal setting for Philippe Mille. After fifteen years at Les Crayères, he is now free, with the baggage, vision and maturity to share with his guests. He has understood all the codes of modernity, while integrating what the discerning eater demands as a prerequisite, such as the right to choose, his plate as well as his glass, and that extra touch of chic that goes beyond window dressing. Everything here is real and palpable: the talent of the chef, the commitment of the team, the quality of the product. The bread at La Case à Pain is made with real butter (not overrun, not flavored, not gimmicky), the first sign of respect. The "Arbanothèque" has become a signature starter, seven appetizers evoking the seven grape varieties of champagne, including the rare arbane and petit meslier. As you enter the dance, you understand the approach, a tribute to the region and to those who produce it, and you appreciate the clarity of the flavors: shellfish and seaweed sabayon, with the crunch of ficoïde glaciale, lobster, first just marked on the grill, then lightly smoked in the semi-barrel of a friendly cooper, with its stuffed zucchini flower and shellfish emulsion, the remarkable côte de cochon, grilled with vine shoots, melt-in-the-mouth and crispy, with a gourmet sauce of pig's trotter, mustard and sherry vinegar, before a light and precise raspberry shiso dessert on a Japanese sponge cake. The dining room is ecstatic, as is the young service, for delivering such pleasant messages, and my cellar is brimming with sumptuous champagnes and proprietary bottles. Powerful and didactic about its region, it offers a lively panorama of other vineyards, with no real shortcomings, and at prices under control.