L'Essentiel

Rating: 15
Author: Gault&Millau

24000 PÉRIGUEUX

15/20
Remarkable Restaurant

BOOK

8 PHOTOS

Chef: Éric Vidal
Cooking: French | Gastronomic
Services: Pets allowed | Terrace
Style: Romantic

Budget (€)

Indicative price per person (excl. drinks)

72 to 110

Gault&Millau's review 2026

Having worked for Roland Mazère and at Courchevel, Éric Vidal has a keen eye for the product, and a rigorous approach to creating intuitive, sophisticated dishes. One of Périgueux's finest restaurants, this Essentiel lives up to its name, offering unique, well-executed ideas, such as white asparagus just warmed with morels, soft-boiled egg at 63°, morel cooking juice with plum almond oil emulsion, special n°2 oysters in fine vegetable jelly on a creamy crab, langoustine tartar and coconut milk emulsion, blue lobster roasted in olive oil, caramelized leeks with kari Brest, bisque of heads in spicy Monbazillac with green curry, roasted and lacquered sweetbreads, crispy potato pressé and red beet with peanut oil, veal jus with timut pepper, a café-noisette, coffee cream, caramelized hazelnut and crunch, coffee ice cream and cocoa nougatine. Well-stocked cellar, with nearly three hundred references.