Click here to find a more recent Montpellier city guide, from 2025.

“Montpellier? Not again. Didn’t you write about it back in March?”

Come on, you’re probably thinking it even if you’re not saying it out loud. And yes, you’re right. I wrote about the city in the Spring off the back of an impromptu visit prompted by a random conversation at an ER readers’ lunch with Phil and Kath, longstanding readers of the blog. And you can read that guide, if you want, and a lot of it still stands. It is an incredible city, a mixture of the old and the new, of biscuit coloured, sun-bathed houses and quaint little squares but also of craft beer and hipster joints.

It has beautiful green spaces, a very grand art gallery full of paintings of Jesus, pastoral scenes and tableaux from mythology, and a photographic gallery which, on my visit, was full of grainy black and white portraits of supermodels. But it also has street art everywhere, and street food to go with it. I read a stat somewhere that something like fifty per cent of the population of Montpellier is under thirty, and it feels like that: a city with more energy than almost any I’ve visited. It’s France’s eighth largest city, and yet nobody seems to know much about it. Well, I do now, and if you make it through this piece you will too.

Why an updated list so soon? Well, for no reason other than this: I went back. I spent a very happy week there on holiday earlier this month. And normally I would just make a few tweaks to my old article and leave it at that. But I ate so well, and drank so well, in so many places that never featured in my first guide (many of which surpassed the – already extremely good – meals I had back in March) that, rather than tinker around the edges, I decided to put together a mostly all new guide to the city. It is one of the best places I’ve ever been for loafing, for good food, for culture and to get a real feeling of a city as a living, breathing thing.

So if that even remotely sounds like your idea of a good time, have a read and maybe this will nudge its way on to your city break to do list for 2023. I know at least one reader of the blog found herself near Montpellier earlier this year and made a detour to the city, because she messaged me on Instagram to tell me she’d had a very enjoyable time working her way through my recommendations. Even if that happens just the once as a result of this piece, to me it will have been worth writing it. I can’t help it: I’m evangelical about the place now, you see, and it’s all Phil and Kath’s fault.

Where to eat

1. La Cigale

This was the first place I ate on my 2024 visit to Montpellier for lunch on a blazing Monday afternoon, fresh off the plane, exhausted from a 4am taxi to the airport and, if anything, slightly giddy with excitement. It was recommended by Pierre, the endlessly charming and patient host of our beautiful B&B in Les Arceaux, a gorgeous part of the city with a village feel west of the centre.

Also in Les Arceaux, Pierre told us La Cigale was a relatively recent arrival. It had a fantastic terrace which caught the sun, along with a beautiful interior. It was exceptionally busy even at noon on a Monday, and in fact it seemed to be open from early til late every day: we often walked past it late at night on an amble home to see people still chatting and gesticulating under the streetlights. If I’d ever got out of bed early enough, I’d have had a café au lait there first thing.

I suspect part of why it’s so busy is the food, which was superb, a mixture of classics and leftfield stuff. My ceviche of sea bass came in a basket of fried rice paper with the genius addition of peanuts, while Zoë’s beef tataki was seared and served with ginger and pak choi. The mains were more traditional, and I adored a steak tartare with parmesan and pesto. But I have to single out the frites – not only were they outrageously crispy and moreish but they were tossed in, and glistening with, garlic butter. Why has nobody thought of that before? And if they have, why have I never tried it?

La Cigale
7 Boulevard des Arceaux
https://www.instagram.com/la_cigale_montpellier/

2. Bistro Urbain

Bistro Urbain in the Écusson, the old city, was my other favourite discovery of my 2024 visit and was the perfect lunch spot on a happy, sunny day. Their three course lunch menu was forty-five Euros and probably represented the best value of anywhere I ate in Montpellier this year. It’s just two choices per course, but it’s a tribute to how well they wrote a menu that I still found it an almost impossible decision.

But I don’t think it was possible to order badly, in any event. I had a glorious tartlet of asparagus – which was everywhere on menus in Montpellier in May – with ricotta and jambon de Bigorre, although if anything Zoë’s tuna tataki draped over a sphere of perfectly executed sushi rice was even better. Magret du canard, pink in the middle, the skin seared, served with a terrine of courgette, black garlic and rhubarb was a proper smile-making tour de force. My dessert, strawberries with white chocolate, yuzu and a basil sorbet, was show-stopping.

Bistro Urbain
5 rue Alexandre Cabanel
https://bistrourbain.com

3. Rosemarie

Rosemarie occupies possibly the prettiest square in the old city, and is always packed, and it took me three trips to Montpellier before I got to eat there. And when I did, the thing that struck me was that it was perfect – a perfect spot, serving the perfect kind of food, not fancy or fiddly, and given how idyllic the setting was, the food was many times better than, strictly speaking, it needed to be.

It helps that the staff are lovely and charming and work their socks off keeping everyone on that terrace happy. But the food was brilliant, and I loved it. My serrano ham – dry, coarse, sliced to just the right thickness – came scattered with almonds and was exactly what I was in the mood for. Zoë’s toast, thick with sobrasada and drizzled with honey, was if anything even nicer. But my favourite thing was my main, a ragout of tender squid served with nutty red rice from the Camargue, dotted with salty, wrinkled black olives. Would you judge me if I said that I was on the Perrier, dreaming that I lived there?

Rosemarie
3 rue des Soeurs Noires
https://rosemarie-montpellier.fr

4. L’Artichaut

I liked L’Artichaut, and saved it for my final meal of the 2024 trip to Montpellier. But I’d expected to love it, so in that sense it maybe fell slightly short. Part of that was the disconnect between what I’d seen online – a hugely tempting dinner menu with four choices for each course – and what we were actually given, a barely legible blackboard which only gave you a set menu, with only two choices for your starter and main.

When the choice is limited, as it was at Bistro Urbain, it’s even more important that there are no duff choices. And I loved most of what I had. A dish of squid and prawns with ajo blanco was joyous, and a sort of deconstructed cheesecake at the end – seed cake, roasted pear, salted caramel ice cream and a puddle of fromage blanc – was a hundred times better than it sounded or looked. But the main course, of fish with chickpeas, leant heavily on an industrial quantity of dill, and didn’t work for me.

On balance, though, I’d probably go back – the room, the service and the outstanding wine list saw to that. I felt for the American friends at the next table, who didn’t understand why they couldn’t have a main course and then leave.

L’Artichaut
15b rue Saint-Firmin
https://www.artichaut-restaurant.com

5. Ébullition

Ébullition was probably my pick of the restaurants I discovered on my summer 2022 visit to Montpellier, a peaceful space where everything – the room, the welcome, the food, the wine and the service – were close to unimprovable. The food felt a whisper away from Michelin star status, a real mixture of skill and imagination and a level above most of what I ate in the city.

My starter, a symphony of tomatoes from confit to sorbet, all sweetness and summer, was one of the finest things I’ve eaten in a long time. Veal, breaded and rolled like flamenquin but with the genius addition of citrus, was an absolutely beautiful dish, served with a rich jus with the tiniest savoury hit of liquorice. They leave the jug of jus at the table so you can add more (which you do – repeatedly, unless there’s something wrong with you), something not enough restaurants do.

So it was the first place on my list when I returned in 2024, and this time we pushed the boat out and went for the full tasting menu with wine pairings – 7 courses, whistles and bells, the cheese plate, you name it. It was three and a half hours beautifully spent – a wonderful, comfortable, perfectly paced evening with, again, impeccable service. Monkfish, barbecued and served with red cabbage, red cabbage purée and red wine sauce was as good a plate as I could recall but if anything it was topped by the most astounding local lamb, cooked in salt and served with artichoke purée and a sticky, savoury lamb jus.

Ébullition
10 Rue du Pila St Gély
https://restaurant-ebullition.eu/en/english/

6. Hop Smash Burger

You might think it’s a bit naff to have a burger in Montpellier, and you might have a point. But in summer 2022 I was there for a week, which meant seeking out a variety of lunch options, and after walking past Hop Smash Burger a few times and looking enviously at their Instagram feed I decided to go for it. I was rewarded by possibly the best smashed burger I’ve ever had. 

My burger had two beautiful smashed patties with savoury, slightly crispy, crinkled edges, excellent bacon and whole grain mustard (which I’ve never had with a burger, but worked brilliantly). Oh, and cheddar, because we’re in France and so they don’t bother with plastic American cheese. Paired with some fries dusted in Cajun spice and topped with crumbled feta – another inspired combo which was new to me – and a NEIPA made specially for the restaurant by Brewing Bears, a local brewery, it was about as perfect a lunch in the sunshine as there is.

Fast forward to 2024 and we went back, this time taking shelter from fantastic, sultry, muggy rain. The burger was still amazing, although the default seemed to have shrunk from two patties to one, something I didn’t realise until it was too late. But the caramelisation and the crispiness were still there, in spades, and the local beer was as good as I remembered.

Hop Smash Burger
9 Rue du Puits du Temple
https://hop-smashburger.fr

7. Les Freres Poulards

On my first visit to Montpellier in 2022, while drinking at the splendid Discopathe (more on that below) I spotted a rotisserie chicken restaurant opposite called Les Freres Poulards. If I ever come back here, I thought to myself, I’m having dinner there. Well, I did, in the summer, and I did, and it was fantastic. A starter of coarse salami, sharp cornichons and agricultural terrine set me up nicely but the chicken was the feature attraction – a superb red label chicken cooked perfectly with tons of tender meat and crispy, gleaming skin. Add a little pot of sauce, juices and lardons and a hefty helping of potato dauphinois and all that’s left is to eat and luxuriate.

A British couple slightly older than us had taken the table next to us, and at the end of our meal we briefly got talking. They were here for a couple of nights passing through on their way back to their home in Spain. “What do you think of the city?” they asked and they were taken aback when we started waxing lyrical. It’s not very nice, one of them said, gesticulating at one of my favourite Montpellier streets. They were staying in what she described as the “Arab quarter” and they were wondering where the nice parts of Montpellier were. We directed them to the picturesque bits of the old city but, replete with beautiful chicken, looking at the beer festival taking place in the bar opposite, I couldn’t help feeling the whole place was wasted on them. 

I went back in 2024 for my final meal of that holiday, a lunchtime excursion on this occasion, and sat inside in a surprisingly tasteful room. The food was better than I remembered – a beautiful starter of herring and fried potato (their menu is more compact at lunchtime) followed by that chicken again. So well done, easing off the bone, the skin utterly magnificent. The fries too, were as good as any I’ve had in France and better than any I’d eaten back home. And I discovered, for the first time, the thirst quenching powers of a panaché, beer with 7-Up: why does that sound so much more sophisticated than the word ‘shandy’?

I sent a picture to my friend James with a message: this shits on Bébé Bob.

Les Freres Poulards
27 rue du Faubourg du Courreau

8. Les Glaces MPL

Les Halles Laissac is one of Montpellier’s two covered markets, and although it has a plethora of food stands selling wine, charcuterie, cheese and all that jazz I was drawn to Les Glaces MPL which sells profoundly good ice cream. A massive array of flavours is on offer, and I can personally vouch for the salted caramel and my personal favourite, a stunning black sesame ice cream. Zoë went for chocolate and Nutella, although I think she slightly envied my more leftfield choices. 

On my second visit to the city in summer 2022 I visited Les Glaces MPL most days and my favourite thing there was a strawberry confection shot through with mint and basil, summer in a cardboard cup. My only regret was that their tomato sorbet wasn’t on sale that day. The big names also have a foothold in Montpellier – I saw a branch of Amorino on my travels in the city – but I’d pick this place any day of the week. I made a couple of very enjoyable trips again when I returned in 2024, and reacquainted myself with the classics, but it was one of the unusual choices – chocolate ice cream spiked with piment d’espelette – that really bowled me over.

Les Glaces MPL
Place Alexandre Laissac
https://www.lesglacesmpl.fr

9. Pastis

Michelin-starred Pastis is a simple but superb restaurant in the old city. I had lunch there on my first visit to Montpellier, in a very tasteful dining room that I would say is possibly the most beautiful beige space I’ve ever seen, the acceptable face of taupe. The menu here’s a surprise one (no swaps, unless you have allergies) but every one of the surprises was very pleasant indeed. My highlight on that visit was a dish made with local duck, served simply but accompanied with a bread roll hollowed out, stuffed with coarse, herby confit duck and then liberally soaked with rich, sticky jus. I left full and happy (and slightly smudged, after also putting paid to a knockout bottle of white Corbieres).

I returned in 2024 for lunch again and although I still really enjoyed my meal it maybe didn’t quite reach the heights of the likes of Bistro Urbain and Ébullition. Service was a little sluggish and made some interesting choices: the wine list had nothing by the glass but the staff said they could sort us out, yet they decided to bring a glass of dessert wine with our mains for reasons that escaped me. But some of the dishes were still exceptional, including fish perched on crispy fried lozenges of rice and a beautifully blushing piece of lamb with artichoke.

Pastis
3 rue Terral
https://pastis-restaurant.com

10. Reflet d’Obione

Michelin-starred Reflet d’Obione is the one restaurant I visited on both of my 2022 visits to Montpellier and each time the tasting menu with wine pairings, by no means the kind of thing I normally go for, blew me away. It’s a small, comfortable, hushed restaurant with the kind of attention to detail (and attention to customers) that not only gets you a star – it’s held one for a few years now – but one of those Michelin green stars that most people seem to think are bullshit.

Chef Laurent Cherchi – young, intense and moustachioed – comes over to every table and the rest of the time bosses a young, extremely talented brigade. On my second visit we had a table in the front room, overlooking the kitchen, which gave you a fascinating insight into just how much work goes into delivering perfection. But the front of house is every bit as accomplished and polished, talking through the dishes and the wines with charm and enthusiasm with perfect English (although every thank you is greeted with a whispered je vous en prie).

Every dish I had, across two visits, was stunning and provenance was given reverence, with all the ingredients and all the wines being completely from and of the area. Highlights included the most stunningly executed fish with a gratin of pumpkin and a Day-Glo orange sauce, a langoustine brushed with a deep, umami civet sauce and served with a tangle of wild mushrooms and a magnificent dessert of figs served something like five different ways with a divine cream spiked with green anis. Rarely do I love a dessert this much which doesn’t involve chocolate; it came paired with a local vermouth which had notes of pine and rosemary (if you ask me) or canard de toilette (if you asked Zoë).

Reflet d’Obione
29 rue Jean Jacques Rousseau
https://www.reflet-obione.com

11. Des Reves Et Du Pain

Just at the edge of the old city, near Montpellier’s copy of the Arc du Triomphe, this bakery was my go-to for a morning pain au chocolat. A little place which only admits two customers at a time, the queue stretched up the street, particularly on Saturday morning when it felt like the whole city was there stocking up on bread for the weekend. 

But it was always worth joining. Even compared to the pastries elsewhere in Montpellier this was next level, with world-beating buttery lamination. Everything in there was beautiful – madeleines, danishes, focaccia and a glorious slab of pissaladiere topped with sweet, reduced onion, dotted with black olives and strands of anchovy. Montpellier, like the rest of France, has the same density of good bakeries as Reading has Costa Coffees. Where did it all go wrong for us?

I didn’t make it there in 2024 but I did get a list of other patisseries in Montpellier to try from Pierre. So next time I update this guide, expect to see references to Maison Bonnaire and Maison L’Oeuf – along with Scholler, an old-school institution to the west of the city: if you get to them before I do, report back.

Des Rêves Et Du Pain
10 rue Eugène Lisbonne
https://desrevesetdupain.com

12. Green Lab

Green Lab is a falafel joint with two branches, one just off Place de la Comédie and my preferred one on rue de la Université. I associate top notch falafel with France after many happy meals at Paris’ legendary L’As Du Fallafel and Green Lab didn’t let me down when I visited in summer 2022. It offers a relatively compact menu of falafel pitas and platters with variations on a theme; my choice, the Silvergreen, was a beautiful Meditteranean take on falafel, with a pesto tahini and a goats cheese tzatziki. 

And if you think that sounds like cultural appropriation or vandalism, I’d say don’t knock it til you’ve tried it. It was a beautiful, multi-layered, ridiculous bargain of a thing bursting with enjoyable mouthfuls. A particular thumbs up goes to the sticky caramelised aubergine dotted throughout: is any vegetable more delicious in the right hands or more awful in the wrong ones?

Green Lab
2 rue de la Université
https://www.greenlab-mtp.fr/home

13. Le Couperet

On the first night of my summer 2022 trip to Montpellier, we’d planned to eat in Rosemarie, further up this list. But back then you couldn’t book online and they never responded to any of our attempts to book a table, so we cut our losses and ended up at Le Couperet, a French take on an American smokehouse. Rosemarie turned out to be a great restaurant, but even so I’m so glad we gave Le Couperet a chance.

They do two sittings every evening (including Monday, a night when many restaurants close) and they offer a menu which is delicious but limited. But you only need to find a handful of dishes you want to order, and that was no problem at Le Couperet. A selection of houmous and smoked artichoke dips started us off nicely and then they brought out a board groaning with the good stuff. Pulled lamb was terrific, especially with their homemade tomato relish, but the star of the show was a blackened pork rib, the bone dispensed with and the whole thing meltingly soft and tender. Le Couperet even smoked the potatoes used in their potato salad – how can you not love a place like that?

Le Couperet
3 rue des Tessiers
https://www.instagram.com/lecouperet/?hl=en

14. Abacus

Abacus is a tasteful, almost ascetic-looking restaurant on the edge of the Écusson. The dining room is gorgeous, but on our visit in summer 2022 we sat outside on rue Terral enjoying the last of the evening sun and hearing the hum of the passing trams – and the following morning we had the insect bites to prove it.

The menu has a stripped-back simplicity to it too, with a choice of two, three or four courses and only a couple of options per course. I loved my tuna, barely even seared and full of clean mineral flavour (and the novelty value of hearing a Frenchwoman using the words Granny Smith – it was topped with crisp batons of apple – isn’t going to fade any time soon). Even better was a crisp pastry cigarillo crammed with rich roasted lamb, reminiscent of briwats I had many years ago in Marrakech, in another life.

Abacus
26 rue Terral
http://abacus-restaurant.fr

Where to drink

1. Plein Sud

We chanced upon Plein Sud, walking through the city one night, and liked it so much that we went back the following evening. It’s a natural wine bar, and a more perfect place to sit, shoot the breeze, drink and eat small plates is difficult to imagine. Like many of these places in Montpellier it’s almost absurdly pretty, with a gorgeous vaulted ceiling and honey-coloured stone walls.

But although the interior might be ancient, the sensibilities were modern: all the wine was outstanding and the food, top notch bread, an enviable range of cheeses and a gutsy, rustic rillette, were the perfect things to go with it. I don’t know whether natural wine is a tough sell in Montpellier. But if it is, if anybody can do it, Plein Sud can.

Plein Sud
16 rue de la Monnaie
https://www.instagram.com/pleinsud.montpellier/

2. Les Enfants Rouges

Another recommendation by Pierre, wine bar Les Enfant Rouges spans both sides of a busy street in the old city. We were there for a little while before dinner elsewhere, but the selection of wines by the glass was so good, the staff so accommodating and welcoming and the small plates menu so tempting that I plan to spend longer there on my next visit to the city.

Les Enfants Rouges
3 Plan Duché
https://www.lesenfantsrouges.fr

3. Popular Brewing

On our most recent visit, we were sitting in La Barbote (further down) having a beer when Zoë got a comment on Untappd from a guy she vaguely knew called Rob. “What are you doing in my bar?” it said. So we told him to come over, had a beer with him and he offered to take us on a little beer tour of the city the following night.

Rob is British, but has had the excellent good sense to marry a Frenchwoman, and they have had the even better sense to move to France. He lives near the Alps but travels to Montpellier for work every week – it’s all right for some – and he has been following the craft beer scene in the city for something like a decade. “It’s absolutely the centre of craft beer in France” he told us, over beers in Popular Brewing, a fantastic little spot just down the road from Ébullition that we would otherwise never have spotted.

Another spot like Plein Sud with those beautiful, honey-stone walls, it felt a little like drinking in someone’s front room, but in the best way, and just like Montpellier’s other craft beer places it’s full of young, beautiful people to an extent which almost made me feel like I should be in the nearest Irish pub instead.

But again, the selection of craft beer from little breweries in this part of France and beyond was absolutely impeccable. I enjoyed a couple of IPAs, from nearby Brasserie VNDL and Brasserie Malpolon before going for an absolute cracker from further afield, by The Piggy Brewing Company, who are based near Nantes and make really exquisite beers.

Every time I checked something in on Untapped and looked at where the brewery was based, I felt like I was putting pins in a map of Montpellier and getting a better picture of the innovative, burgeoning local beer scene. No wonder Rob seemed so content with his lot in life.

Popular Brewing
14 rue de Pila St Gély
https://www.instagram.com/popular_brewing/

4. Drapeau Rouge

I’d seen Drapeau Rouge on my summer 2022 visit to Montpellier, but it wasn’t until 2024 that I managed to pay it a visit. It’s a gorgeous brewpub in Boutonnet, a district a short walk from the old city, with eleven taps, including beers from many of Montpellier’s breweries and a couple brewed by the venue itself. It’s not the comfiest venue in the world, with many of those trestle benches beloved by anyone who’s been to a tap room or a street food market, but I loved sitting outside with a sour and feeling like I was in a part of Montpellier the tourists would never see.

When I go back – which I keep saying about many of the venues on this list, and the city in general – I fully intend to give their food a go, if only because their website charmingly states that they aim to provide what they call “pub food” de qualité. I bet they do a better job of it than a bloody Wetherspoons microwave and by the looks of the menu, I’ll be on the frites loaded with smoked, spiced pulled pork, or topped with Belgian beef stew.

Drapeau Rouge
53 rue du Faubourg Boutonnet
https://drapeau-rouge.fr

5. Cafe BUN

Cafe BUN was my favourite coffee place in Montpellier with a great spot just off Place de la Comédie and plenty of outside space for watching the world go by. It was the trailblazer (Montpellier’s answer to Workhouse, I suppose) opening in 2013 as the city’s first speciality coffee house and I grew very fond of it during my first trip to Montpellier.

A morning visit there to plan the day ahead over a grand crème became a very happy fixture of my second trip to Montpellier. They roast their own coffee – I brought some home with me – and their latte was easily the nicest I had on my holiday. In the time between my second and third visit they opened a second, much bigger site on the other side of the old city which Zoë preferred. For me though, there was nothing quite like sitting outside the original and best.

Café BUN
5 rue des Étuves/32 Boulevard du Jeu de Paume
https://cafebun.fr

6. Le Discopathe

Le Discopathe was one of the happiest discoveries of my first visit to Montpellier. The walk from the old city back to our B&B went down Rue de Faubourg du Courreau, a scruffy, lively street reminding me of Waterloo’s Lower Marsh, and it quickly became one of my favourite parts of the city. Much of that was down to Le Discopathe, a vinyl and craft beer shop that sold records by day and served more of Montpellier’s excellent local beer by night. 

You grab a spot at one of the trestle tables outside, get yourself a pint of something hazy, a bière d’ici, and just enjoy that feeling of being part of a buzz and bustle bigger than you. Sacrilege and Brewing Bears are well represented – more on them below – but I also had a beautiful IPA from Brasserie le Détour. We became regular visitors during our holiday, and it was one of the happiest places in a city full of happy places.

On our second visit we got to explore some of the nearby restaurants (Les Freres Poulard, above, and Lipopette) although I promised I would fit in a nearby pizza joint called Pousse on a third visit and never quite did. that I firmly have my eye on. But I’ve never gone to Montpellier without fitting in at least one visit to Le Discopathe, one of my favourite places: it’s also worth noting that it’s one of Montpellier’s only craft beer bars that opens before about 5pm.

Le Discopathe
28 rue du Faubourg du Courreau
https://lediscopathe.com

7. Hopulus Brewpub

Often, and I don’t mean this unkindly, craft beer places (like craft coffee places) can feel a bit thrown together on a budget. The stools are uncomfortable, the interior is death by chipboard and we all convince ourselves that that’s absolutely fine because we’re purists. Going to Hopulus in summer 2022 I was reminded that it doesn’t have to be that way.

It’s a stunning space in the old city, all vaulted stone ceilings, like a cellar bar that happens to be on the ground floor. Like the next entry, La Barbote, they brew their own beers on the premises in a variety of styles and, also like La Barbote, they have a happy hour which will make you very happy indeed. I tried a Belgian-style quadrupel here and a blond lager and both sent me on my way with a spring in my step. They also do cheese, charcuterie and all the other wonderful things that just make beer that tiny bit better, and – crucially on a muggy September day – they have outstanding aircon.

Going back for a slightly longer session in 2024 I managed to make a dent in the food menu, and loved everything I ate. Getting a whole Brillat Savarin, in beautiful condition, to eat with bread was one thing but even better was caillette, a smoked meatball with a slightly gamey taste and the subtlest hint of offal which was how the faggots of my childhood would have tasted – if they were as good as my nostalgic recollection of them, that is.

Hopulus Brewpub
8 rue Collot
https://www.facebook.com/hopulus/

8. La Barbote

La Barbote, the grand-père of Montpellier’s buzzing craft beer scene, was round the corner from my hotel on my second trip to the city. It’s not far from the train station either, it was the first place we stopped for a drink and I think we ended up there most nights for a snifter before venturing forth to our restaurant of choice. And actually, although it was perfect for that my biggest regret is that we didn’t stay there longer.

It’s a microbrewery and they brew on the premises, offering a dazzling dozen or so beers at any one time. Everything I tried from them knocked it out of the park, from Tête Gourmande, their sweet but sharp pastry sour, to their NEIPA Set The Controls, from a DIPA called Cortez to a thick impy called De Profundis with a nicely caffeinated bite.

It’s deceptively big and it filled up pretty much the moment people quit work every day, possibly because of an insanely good happy hour where a pint of anything costs you five Euros max until seven o’clock. Looking round it was a better advert for craft beer than so many equivalent places in the U.K. with a young and diverse crowd: if they have some bore in a fleece in the corner ranting about the Good Beer Guide or whether the beer was “in good nick” I never saw them.

They also do food and I got to try their karaage chicken – which was magical, by the way – and some equally good (if messy) fish tacos. If you want a casual meal and a really good drink on the trip to Montpellier you’re surely planning by now, make a pit stop here: we made a point of returning during our 2024 visit and found the beer as beautiful as ever, the karaage if anything even better. And again, the place was buzzing with the kind of people craft beer in the U.K. would love to attract i.e. it was by no means a sausagefest.

Zoë’s verdict? “It’s how Zero Degrees would be if it wasn’t shit”.

La Barbote
1 Rue des deux Ponts
https://www.facebook.com/labarbote/

9. Couleurs de Bieres Nord

Couleurs de Bières Nord is a cracking little bar in, as the name suggests, the north of the city. It’s opposite the exotically named Stade Philippidès, and there’s something about watching people running round the track that really puts you in the mood for a cold, crisp beer. The list here on my 2022 visit skewed little more Belgian, with a couple of beers on tap by ZooBrew, a local brewery, and it made for an eminently suitable pre-prandial spot.

We made a point of returning in 2024 – it pairs nicely with Drapeau Rouge, if you’re planning a crawl – and if anything I liked it even more, and the list of 8 beers on keg was much more French with beers from nearby Nimes, Mauguio and Sommières. Nothing by my favourite local brewery, the exceptional Prizm Brewing, but you can’t win them all.

Couleurs de Bières Nord
48 rue du Faubourg Saint-Jaumes
https://www.couleursdebieres.fr/front-page/cdb/nord

10. Broc Café

Broc Café is a beautiful cafe on a street opposite the botanical gardens, and on my first trip to Montpellier it was very hard to walk past it without stopping for a drink. On my second visit I didn’t even attempt to do so, and we had a thoroughly agreeable couple of hours sitting on the terrace watching Saturday night come to life in the city. Unusually for this kind of venue they have an excellent selection of craft beer from local breweries along with wine and aperitivi, and a special mention has to go to the staff who are exceptionally helpful and friendly, very proficient at suggesting drinks you might not have considered and work like absolute Trojans.

Broc Café
2 boulevard Henri IV
https://broccafemontpellier.fr

11. Coldrip

Coldrip, on the northern side of the old city, is in another absurdly pretty little square and also gets plaudits online for its coffee. Having perched at a table outside I can completely understand why – my latte was wonderful, and Zoë reckoned her mocha (complete with a little ramekin of Chantilly cream) was up there with C.U.P.’s, something I didn’t previously think was possible.

The brunch menu owes more to Australia than France – lots of smashed avocado, halloumi and the like – and watching it turn up at other tables tested my resolve. But they had a crispy chicken burger on their specials menu the first time I visited in spring 2022 and it turned out to be a perfect final day lunch, really nicely done with a deceptively tasty coleslaw full of brightness and crunch and a delightful seeded brioche bun. We made a beeline there for lunch on my return to the city that summer and I had the most incredible pancakes topped with salty, crispy bacon. They bring a jug of maple syrup and leave it at the table, which strikes me as both very civilised and very decadent.

Coldrip
4 rue Glaize
https://coldrip-food-and-coffee.business.site

12. Le Reservoir

Many cities have some kind of craft beer scene, and the template is a well-trodden one: some big warehouse either in an industrial estate or near the docks, on the edge of town, usually requiring a taxi to get to (our own Double-Barrelled follows in that proud tradition). Le Réservoir is not quite like that. It’s on the outskirts of the city, and our Uber driver, who turned up in an impressively over the top lipstick-red Tesla, had never heard of the place. But it feels properly in the middle of nowhere, with the distinct whiff of agriculture from its neighbours. 

It had only just opened when I visited in spring 2022, and had the feel of a place built in anticipation of demand, rather than because of it. But inside it was positively splendid, with twenty taps nearly all of which are devoted to local beer. The space is shared by two breweries – Brewing Bears, which does more conventional IPAs, and Sacrilege who specialise in mixed fermentation beers and saisons with all sorts of interesting fruit and weirdness going on. We tried a bit of both, and had a really fantastic afternoon doing it.

I’m sorry I didn’t get to go back on subsequent visits for an afternoon of craft beer and pétanque – apparently you can play it on the premises – but I have it inked in for next time, red Tesla or no.

Le Réservoir
55 rue de Montels Saint-Pierre
https://www.instagram.com/lereservoirmontpellier/?hl=en

13. O’Petit Trinque Fougasse

A discovery on my very first visit to Montpellier, this was a very agreeable spot for a few glasses of wine, some cheese and charcuterie and a spot of people watching, along with a welcome opportunity to rest our feet after an afternoon of retail therapy. There are something like four reds and four whites available by the glass, ranging from thoroughly decent to bloody marvellous, and the small plates include sliced saucisson with a mild hum of offal, a gorgeous burrata with pesto, all manner of local cheeses and of course the eponymous fougasse studded with olive, which is flaky, indulgent and worth the price of admission alone.

The staff are absolutely lovely there, too. And for beer lovers there’s a really well curated shop a few doors down called Deli Malt which offers an extensive introduction to Montpellier’s burgeoning craft beer scene and has plenty for you to squirrel away in your suitcase for the rueful journey home.

O’Petit Trinque Fougasse
12 Boulevard Ledru Rollin
https://www.trinquefougasse.com/petit/home

14. Coffee Club

I also enjoyed Coffee Club, a tiny place on rue Saint-Guilhem with a little space inside and a nice spot at the top of the hill. This felt a little more expat than Café Bun – it’s owned by a Brit, which may explain that – but it was still a really good choice if you wanted a morning off café au lait and to try something similar to coffee closer to home.

Having said that, on my two subsequent visits to Montpellier I did find myself going to Bun, which does slightly better coffee and has more space, rather than Coffee Club. Also worth mentioning, further down the hill, is the splendidly named Maisons Régionale des Vins et des Produits du Terroir, which has a faultless selection of local wine, beer and other delicacies so you can take a little bit of the Languedoc home with you when you leave.

Coffee Club
12 rue Saint-Guilhem
https://www.facebook.com/coffeeclubmontpellier/

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