I ended up on holiday in Bordeaux almost by accident. I was attending a wedding in a château in the Dordogne (even typing this, I feel I have to explain that this is just not the sort of thing I ever, ever do) on a Saturday, and wanted to make a holiday of it. So where to have a city break afterwards? I considered Biarritz and San Sebastián, even contemplated hopping on a train back to my old favourite Montpellier before choosing Bordeaux mainly because our flight home departed from there, and we had to drop a hire car there anyway. I’d never heard of anybody, really, who had spent any time there but surely it would be a nice place to spend a week?

Well, as you can probably tell from the fact that this feature even exists, it is indeed a very nice place to spend a week. France’s sixth biggest city, nestled in the curve of the Garonne, it has an awful lot to offer. A wonderful museum of wine (which I didn’t get round to visiting) and a number of galleries (ditto), but just as importantly a gorgeous historic centre – it’s the largest urban development to be recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site – and more restaurants per capita than anywhere else in France, including Paris.

More to the point, wine bars are everywhere, to the extent where it’s almost worth having your main meal at lunchtime, taking advantage of the superb menus du jour, and then propping up a bar in the evening, eating small plates or charcuterie and enjoying an unbeatable selection of wines by the glass. As a way to while away the days, eating and drinking as the Bordelais do takes some beating, and it made life back in Blighty feel decidedly monochrome and humdrum. As I’ve said many times, Reading needs a great wine bar: Veeno simply doesn’t cut it.

It’s not perfect, I should add. The tram system was a little creaky and unreliable, and although my hotel was lovely it was in an area near the train station that verged on feeling unsafe after sunset and pretty scuzzy even in the mornings. If you go, stay in the historic centre. And choose your arrival and departure dates carefully: a lot of the good places are closed on Sundays and Mondays, and some of the wine bars don’t open on Tuesdays either.

I left having eaten and drunk superbly – and done some great people-watching and window-shopping into the bargain – but still feeling like I hadn’t completely got to the heart of the city. An eight hour wait in an airport almost completely lacking aircon, in thirty degree heat, thanks to BA flight delays also slightly marred my memories of the place. Bordeaux: great city, shitty airport (the tourist board can have that one for free).

But then something rather magical happened which made me see the city in a different light: totally by chance, my friends James and Liz had booked a long weekend there the week after I got home. Would I mind giving them some recommendations, they asked? So effectively much of this city guide was road tested before it was even written, and seeing pictures and iMessages from the places I had visited only a few days before brought it home to me: Bordeaux really is wonderful place. 

Strip away the frustrations of the trams, or the location of my hotel, or the hellish journey home and I could see the city, through the eyes of my delighted friends, as it really was – a beautiful part of the world, and a destination in its own right for anyone who loves food and drink and being a flâneur. I never seem to see it talked about in the way that, say, Lyon is, but I wonder if that’s because the French don’t want everybody in on the secret. I’ve come to the conclusion that France keeps all the best wines, James said, after a beautiful lunch at Zéphirine, below. They might take that approach to cities, too.

Where to eat

1. Zéphirine

Zéphirine may have been the single best meal of the trip, a lovely, tasteful and spacious dining room where the nicest staff look after you and serve you the most beautiful food. They have an à la carte menu and a tasting menu, but the only difference is that with the former you pick your main course and with the latter they let you try all three. The former is more than enough food, including a raft of small plates to share, and costs a very reasonable sixty Euros.

Everything we had was fresh and gorgeous, with a real emphasis on outstanding local produce, to the extent that many of the things I remember were the vegetarian dishes. Ricotta piled onto airy lozenges of focaccia, topped with translucent discs of radish was an absolute joy, and duckling in a deep, olive-studded sauce was a miraculous thing. But the veg that came with it – tender, just-cooked carrots and potatoes totally permeated with flavour (“it’s seasoned to the core” was James’ verdict the following week, “I just don’t understand how”) – were, if anything, even better. 

All that and we enjoyed our meal two tables down from Kyle MacLachlan – well dressed, painfully polite, fastidious and on his phone for much of the meal. I considered getting an autograph for my brother, who watched Dune so much as a teenager that he could recite the script verbatim, but thought better of it. I found out later, on Wikipedia, that MacLachlan owns a vineyard: I bet he loved Bordeaux.

Zéphirine
62 rue Abbé de l’Epée, 33000 Bordeaux
https://zephirine.fr

2. Echo

There are wine bars in both sections of this list, and whether they’re down as places to eat or to drink is often largely dictated by whether I mainly ate or drank there. But Echo, which was probably my favourite meal of the holiday, has a menu with starters, mains and desserts, and so although technically a wine bar felt more like a restaurant to me. It was an incredibly cool room packed with Bordeaux’s most beautiful types, although Zoë and I did spend much of the meal trying to work out whether the blustering Brit at the next table, a ruddy-faced spitting image of Stanley Johnson, was wearing a wig or not (my money was on it being a syrup).

More importantly, Echo had a superb wine list both by the bottle and the glass and a menu where you could gladly eat anything on it without suffering a dud dish. It featured quite a lot of fusion and slow food, and I particularly loved the vitello tonnato topped with – a genius idea, this – an XO sauce of enormous depth. That sauce also turned up in a tuna tataki, harmonising with rare sashimi-grade fish and an outrageously delicious lacquered aubergine. A buttery Breton biscuit crowned with a plume of lemon cream, criss-crossed with thyme emulsion, was quite the coup de grâce. It’s also worth noting that unlike most of the places on this list, Echo is open on both Sundays and Mondays. Lucky Bordeaux.

Echo
18 rue de la Cours-des-Aides, 33000 Bordeaux
https://echocaveamanger.myportfolio.com

3. Yarra

The district of Chartrons is north of the historic centre, on the same side of the Garonne and just before you get to the futuristic statement piece that is the Cité du Vin. All the research I did suggested that this was the bobo capital of Bordeaux and so, predictably, I loved the place. Rue Notre Dame is full of restaurants, bars, cafés and boutiques, and an absurdly pretty place to wander from one of those to the next. It’s no coincidence that three of the places on this list sit on that single stretch. But Yarra, even in that exalted company, was rather special.

It’s unprepossesing out front but cavernous out back, a series of stone-walled rooms with mismatched furniture, cool by virtue of not trying too hard. But the real draw is out back, a gorgeous secluded courtyard where I quite happy could have spent an entire evening making like a Bordelais. As you can probably guess from the name, the owners are Australian. That shows in the welcome (“rain water or angry water?” asked our server to see if we wanted still or sparkling). It also shows in the wines, because although I had several crackers by the glass my favourite was a Yarra Valley Riesling.

All that would get it a place on this list but the small plates are more than the icing on the cake. I defy you to look at a menu like Yarra’s and not order something, even if like me you have dinner plans later that evening. Octopus tacos with, of all things, pineapple were a joyous find but my absolute favourite were the anchovy pintxos – salty anchovy, mozzarella, fennel and guindilla assembled on a thin slice of bread, bright with oil and pesto. Might sound like overkill, but without doubt one of the most happiness-inducing things I ate all week. That you got four of them for six Euros made something ridiculously good ridiculous value.

Yarra
18 rue Notre Dame, 33000 Bordeaux
https://www.instagram.com/yarra_bordeaux/?hl=en

4. Lauza

Since this guide was written, Lauza has closed. The same team do however run Bistro Cocagne, at 200 rue Lecocq.

We had lunch at Lauza, a place which managed to be sober and grown-up without being stuffy, and I liked it very much. On the very outer edge of the historic city and a stone’s throw from one of my favourite coffee places, Café Piha, it served a clever and satisfying lunch which was precise, well thought through and excellent value.

You can eat off the à la carte, but at lunchtime the trick is to team the starter and dessert from that menu with the plat du jour, which brings the whole thing in at a silly twenty-eight Euros. Given that the mains on the à la carte cost around thirty on their own, that’s a hard offer to refuse. I particularly enjoyed a tartare made of a mixture of veal and herring which ramped up the umami before smothering the whole thing in a delicious, comforting potato foam, and I envied Zoë’s dessert, a chocolate cremeux which looked even better than my selection of cheeses.

Lauza
5 rue de Hâ, 33000 Bordeaux
https://www.lauza.fr/en/

5. Racines

Racines was even closer to the line between sober and stuffy, but managed just about to stay on the right side of it despite looking like a place that said “business lunch” more than casual meal. That might also derive from the location, slightly out of the historic centre and bang opposite a huge glass-fronted building which housed, as it turned out, a bank.

But that’s not entirely fair to Racines and it didn’t encounter me at my best: it was my final meal in Bordeaux and I’d just been told by my hotel that I’d need to rush it because no taxi driver wanted to brave the Tour De France disruption after three pm. The fact remains that Racines, owned by self-taught Scottish chef Daniel Gallacher, is an excellent place turning out formidable food.

The lunch menu gives you a choice of two starters, mains and desserts for a crazy thirty-two Euros and in terms of quality and quantity I thought it was even better than the comparably priced Lauza. A prawn tartare absolutely shone with citrus freshness but was perfected with a savoury bouillon with notes of Thai basil, and a substantial, sublimely cooked piece of hake was served with bergamot, sorrel and oyster cream in an exceptionally complex, well orchestrated dish.

And then all the whistles and bells fell away for a dessert which was just cherries, verbena and fromage blanc – simple, unshowy and beautiful; people talk about life being a bowl of cherries, but I didn’t know it could be this good. I left full, profoundly grateful for Racines’ great wine list and efficient aircon and slightly sad that I couldn’t try the full tasting menu available at dinner. I’ll just have to go back.

Racines
59 rue Georges Bonnac, 33000 Bordeaux
https://racines-bordeaux.com

6. Papouch

We discovered Papouch at the end of Rue Notre Dame on our amble through Chartrons early in the holiday and loved the look of the menu so much that we changed plans there and then to book it for our last night. It was a very smart choice. The staff – bright and infectiously friendly – moved another table out on to the pavement so we could enjoy the buzz of a warm al fresco Bordeaux evening. And all the food was simply gorgeous – all the menu is small plates for sharing and we did our best to have a crack at most of it.

That included wonders like new potatoes smashed and topped with kimchee, satay and a deep mushroom XO sauce. We also adored a khobez topped with yoghurt, mint, honey, cumin, a slow-cooked egg yolk and nuggets of an intense sausage something like merguez. And I really loved a dish they called “crispy rice spicy fish” that was like a cross between arancini, rice crackers and fishcakes, quite inimitable and a glorious surprise of a thing.

None of the dishes cost more than fifteen Euros, none was less than outstanding and I could have gone back the next night, ordered all the things I missed out on and doubtless had an equally magnificent evening. Only later did I realise, leafing through their Instagram, that the restaurant had barely been open a month. It has a bright future ahead of it.

Papouch
138 rue Notre Dame, 33000 Bordeaux
https://www.papouch.fr

7. Brasserie Bordelaise

A lot of my Bordeaux restaurants were full of light, inventive and seasonal food, often light on the carbs. That, combined with clocking up nearly 20000 steps a day, meant that I put on less weight on this holiday than on most I can recall. But I picked somewhere more traditional for lunch with Zoë’s family, stopping in Bordeaux for the day before flying home from the family wedding, and it didn’t let me down.

Brasserie Bordelaise is a much more old-school choice, a surprisingly big restaurant with large, sturdy tables and large sturdy chairs where large sturdy people can eat large sturdy meals. And I absolutely loved that, helped along by a brigade of hard-working, charming staff.

This is all about the classics, so some of us feasted on oysters while I had a cool, subtle and utterly delicious gazpacho. Next to me Zoë and her parents demolished a gorgeous-looking charcuterie board. I didn’t order that well – my roasted chicken main was probably the only misfire of the meal – but around me everybody else enthused over their bavette, fillet steak, beef cheek or steak tartare. This is the place to go for that kind of hearty, fortifying stuff; I remember looking at the menu to order my dessert and thinking wistfully about the cassoulet less travelled. By my in-laws-to-be had a wonderful lunch, and we made some brilliant memories, and I found that mattered much more.

Brasserie Bordelaise
50 rue Saint-Rémi, 33000 Bordeaux
https://www.brasserie-bordelaise.fr

8. Buvette

On the night we’d set aside for wine bars and getting drunk, we struggled. This is probably a very British thing to say, but sometimes the wine bars had the foreplay to shagging ratio all wrong, telling customers at the next table about the range of wines on offer while you waited to be served to the extent where your stomach thought your throat had been cut (I know, this manages to make me sound both like a Philistine and a pisshead). We left one wine bar where an hour in we’d only had one glass apiece and stumbled into Buvette looking for refuge.

It was a good decision. It’s a stylish-looking spot with a good, buzzy atmosphere, nice high tables, a compact but appealing selection of wines by the glass and a range of small plates which rescued the evening. It reminded me a little of Malaga’s Casa Lola, one of my favourite places for eating and drinking, and everything we had was top notch. I especially enjoyed the goat’s cheese, drizzled with honey and surrounded by crumpled rosettes of speck and really top-notch tinned smoked tuna from a cannery called Pirate, perfect winkled out with a fork and popped onto thin slices of baguette.

Buvette
41 Cr d’Alsace-et-Lorraine, 33000 Bordeaux
https://www.instagram.com/buvette_bordeaux/?hl=en-gb

9. Le Guet À Pan

Bordeaux has a couple of cool-looking food halls, one near the station and another, I seem to remember, up near the Cité du Vin. But the main food market, the Marché des Capucins, looks like something out of the Eighties and comes to life at lunchtime, becoming steadily busier and with more traders as the week goes on. Like a lot of these markets, it’s a mixture of produce and food traders with an embarrassment of riches – oysters at one place, moules at another, pintxos at a third. 

I’ve been to many places like this, from Rotterdam’s Markthal to Barcelona’s Boqueria – my favourite remains Malaga’s peerless Atarazanas – but I’m not sure I’ve ever visited one as scruffily vibrant as the Marché des Capucins. I would have really struggled to decide where to eat, but I was lucky enough to stumble on a blog post by the excellent Lost In Bordeaux and so opted for Guet À Pan which had an appealing lunch menu. I wasn’t entirely sold on my truffled croque monsieur – the bread was a little hard and unyielding – but my starter, a pared-back trio of burrata, peaches and local tomatoes – was as enchanting as anything I ate all week. Reflecting on my lunch, Carrie Bradshaw style, I couldn’t help but wonder: maybe restaurant bloggers should be twinned, like towns? If so, bagsy me Bordeaux.

Le Guet À Pan
Place des Capucins, 33800 Bordeaux
https://www.instagram.com/leguetapan/?hl=en

10. Henriette & Olga

I can’t go away on holiday in summer without seeking out ice cream or gelato, and Bordeaux was no exception. I saw plenty of places dotted around the centre but having done my research I zeroed in on Henriette & Olga and loved it so much that I went back another couple of times before the week was out. It’s very luxe, in a gorgeous spot on rue du Pas-Saint-Georges, one of my favourite Bordeaux streets, just opposite a very nice perfumery I never quite managed to visit.

Although it had a great range of flavours I couldn’t move beyond my two favourites, a chocolate which prioritised depth over sweetness and a caramel with indulgent, almost-burnt sugar and plenty of complexity; I blame the fact that the orange blossom honey and pine nut gelato was sold out every time I visited. Anyway, it was up there with the best gelato I’ve had anywhere else – in the UK, in Montpellier, even in Bologna, and I really loved the place. Delightful staff, too, and a lovely terrace out front if you fancy people watching.

Henriette & Olga
25 rue du Pas-Saint-Georges, 3300 Bordeaux
https://www.henrietteetolga.fr

Where to drink

1. L’Officine

I had a post-dinner drink at l’Officine one night and almost immediately filed it under I wish I’d spent an evening here. It was a lovely old-school wine bar, all simple wooden chairs, mosaic-tiled floor and honey-coloured stone walls, and it was absolutely rammed with people living the good life. It classed as one of my biggest regrets of the holiday, so I recommended it to James and Liz who promptly booked it for their Saturday night in the city (it’s bookable online, which is worth knowing).

So they went, and I saw their pictures of the other rooms in the bar, the ones I never graduated to, and their pictures of boards groaning with cheese and charcuterie and of tartines topped with cherry tomatoes and roasted peppers. Looking through, and wishing I was there, I was 90% delighted for them, 10% envious. That’s a good ratio for me, by the way: normally when I look at people’s holiday photos on Instagram it’s far closer to 30-70.

L’Officine
48 rue du Dr Albert Barraud, 33000 Bordeaux
https://www.lofficinebordeaux.fr

2. Backyard – Brique House

Bordeaux isn’t really a beer destination in the same way as, say, Montpellier or Paris. There are the grand total of about two verified venues on Untappd for the city and finding craft beer was tricky. I guess on one level that should be no surprise for a city more synonymous with wine than arguably any other in the world, but I still thought there would be an active craft beer scene, perhaps smaller but more vociferous. 

I did however really enjoy Backyard, which is the Bordeaux outpost and tap room of Lille brewery Brique House. They had a great terrace looking out on the place des Quinconces which was sort of what the front terrace of the Oakford would look like if it was a hundred times more classy, they did very passable pizza with spicy sausage and splodges of ricotta, and I really enjoyed New Queen In Town (no doubt a reference to Zoë’s arrival in the city), their entry level IPA.

James and Liz also visited on their trip to Bordeaux – it’s open Sunday and Monday, which again is the exception rather than the rule – made inroads into the rest of their beer list and were very impressed. Oh, and if you do visit Backyard the interior has to be seen to be believed: the 90s really are back with a vengeance.  

Backyard – Brique House
40 Allées d’Orléans, 33000 Bordeaux
https://briquehouse.com/taprooms/backyard-brique-house-4

3. Space Factory

If you wanted an illustration that craft beer is yet to gain a foothold in Bordeaux Space Factory, the only Untappd verified venue in the historic centre, is a great illustration of that. That’s not to say I didn’t like it – it had a certain stripped back charm with grungy lighting and a mixture of Tollix stools and reclaimed chairs, and all the craft beer lovers in there seemed to be having a lovely time. But it lacked the cool of, say, Paris’ Liquiderie or the polish of some of Montpellier’s burgeoning beer scene.

That said I still had a lovely time there and would cautiously recommend it if you tire of wine – although why would you? – and want a big glass of something cold and crisp. The evening I went there was a tap takeover by relatively local brewery Brasserie Jukebox, from just up the road in Cognac, another place synonymous with an alcoholic drink that isn’t beer. I rather enjoyed their stuff, as it goes.

Space Factory
5 rue Beaubadat, 33000 Bordeaux
https://www.spacefactory33.com

4. Beer Trotter

Beer Trotter, a little bottle shop on Chartrons’ rue Notre Dame, was my favourite beer venue of the trip. It’s small and unassuming, it’s only open shop hours – so closed at lunchtime and after 7.30 at night – but it’s a really lovely, modest little place. They have an impressive range of beers from further afield in Europe – I spotted some I really wanted to try from Sofia, of all places – and they stock seemingly everything from local brewery Azimut Brasserie.

But what I really loved was that they had just the two beers on keg, and what they lacked in quantity they easily made up for in quality. I had an IPA from Basqueland Brewing, just over the border, which was probably the nicest beer I had on my holiday, but even more exciting – for Zoë more than me – was a proper beer white whale, Sang Bleu by Cantillon. Zoë raved about it to the owner, and between our French and his English we managed to cobble together an understanding that the man really loves his Belgian beers.

I left wishing I could have stayed longer, wishing too that my luggage had more room in it to cram with cans to take home but most of all thinking that when I come back to Bordeaux I plan to rent an Airbnb in Chartrons, find somewhere wonderful for lunch every day and then pop in for a tipple at Beer Trotter before my inevitable siesta.

Beer Trotter
84 rue Notre Dame, 33000 Bordeaux
https://www.instagram.com/beertrotterbordeaux/?hl=en-gb

5. SIP Coffee Bar

Bordeaux has a small but excellent coffee scene, and during the week I think I managed to try out most of the key players. Probably my favourite of the bunch, although they were all good, was SIP which occupies a lovely spot on a street corner and has a lovely terrace which catches the sun – I very much enjoyed multiple lattes there watching the world go by. The inside is also very attractive in a midcentury-chic sort of way, and deceptively big with a rather fetching mezzanine floor.

They also serve a great-looking brunch menu, and although I didn’t try the food there I enviously saw very attractive dishes turning up at neighbouring tables (the pancakes with bacon and maple syrup looked especially tempting). Instead we settled for a pain au chocolat each from the bakery opposite, which was predictably brilliant.

The service was enthusiastic and hugely welcoming, but more than that it was a great advert for Bordeaux in general. When the chap realised this was our first visit and that we loved our coffee, he wrote a list of recommendations on a scrap of paper for us. It had four names on it – three of which we’d already visited and one of which we planned to go to before the end of our holiday. They also happen to be the last four entries on this list. But although I loved them all, SIP remained my favourite.

SIP Coffee Bar
69 Bis rue des Trois-Conils, 33000 Bordeaux
https://www.instagram.com/sip_coffeebar/

6. Black List Café

Black List, just the other side of the Cathedral Saint-André from SIP and Space Factory, was a lovely little spot and again, did a knockout coffee. Little is the operative word here, because it’s a very chic, very long, very thin room with benches down one side and no room, really, to sit on the other. So you all sit side by side in a line sharing a view, which I found I rather liked, although it reminded me of drinking at Flat White on Berwick Street before third wave coffee had exploded in the UK and almost nobody knew what a flat white was.

Service, as in so many of these places, was outstanding and the coffee was nectar. I only subsequently found out, sadly too late, that they also have a “boutique de donuts” – what a beautiful trio of words – around the corner called Snickelfritz. Maybe it’s best for my waistline that I didn’t realise that in time, but I’d like to have found out whether they can give Pippin Doughnuts a run for their money.

Black List Café
27 place Pey Berland, 33000 Bordeaux
https://www.instagram.com/blacklistcafe/?hl=en

7. Café Piha

Now, if we’re talking about sweet treats to accompany your coffee the prize for that surely has to go to Cafe Piha, which is just over the way from Lauza, on a very pretty street called rue des Ayres (which I assume has nothing to do with Pam Ayres, much as I wish it had). Cafe Piha does excellent coffee, its outside seating gives you a great view of the city’s comings and goings and the inside is beautifully airconditioned, even if the person in charge of the sound system likes reggae a lot more than I ever will. 

But the other reason to go there is that they sell cookies from BATCH, a place a couple of doors down whose A-board boasts that they sell the city’s largest cookies. Well, that might be true – they make even a Ben’s Cookie look positively anaemic – but more importantly a better cookie is hard to imagine. Tectonic plates of biscuit, only faintly held together by huge seams of molten chocolate, they are both a struggle to eat tidily and a delight to eat messily. 

I imagine if you left them to cool they’d be even better, although I never had the patience for that, and although you can buy them to take away two doors down there was something about polishing one off with a silky, poised latte that, to me, made for a perfect mid-afternoon pick me up. You know, on the afternoons when I wasn’t in an ice cream parlour or sipping a rare lambic beer. 

Café Piha
69 rue des Ayres, 33000 Bordeaux
https://www.cafepiha.com/coffee-shop-bordeaux/

8. KURO Espresso Bar

KURO (they do seem to like block capitals in Bordeaux) was the first place I had coffee in the city, and after three days of challenging café au lait – or nothing at all – in the Dordogne it was an emotional moment to be reunited with the good stuff. It has a lovely spot just down from the opera house, round the corner from Backyard, and I can’t tell you how grateful I was that it was quite that good, after slumming it for what felt like ages. If you do stop there for a coffee I also recommend a spot of wine shopping at L’Intendant, an incredible shop built around a spiral staircase where the wines just get grander and more tempting as you go along. I came home with a 2016 Pomerol, only slightly irked that I didn’t have the money and the space in my luggage to properly ransack the place..

KURO Espresso Bar
5 rue Mautrec, 33000 Bordeaux
https://kuroespressobar.wixsite.com/website

9. L’Alchimiste

Last but not least, L’Alchemiste was the coffee place I didn’t get round to until my final day. It’s arguably the godfather of the Bordeaux coffee scene and, unlike the majority of the cafés in this list, they roast their own beans. And if I didn’t love it quite as much as the others that might have said more about me – harried on my last day, rushing down a coffee before my hastily moved-forward lunch at Racines – than it did about L’Alchemiste itself.

What I will say is that my coffee was outstanding, although I never expected anything less, and that their terrace out front, on the absurdly pretty rue du Vielle Tour, just up from the eighteenth century Porte Dijeaux, is a marvellous place to sip, observe and wish you had just another couple of days in the city. That last bit – well, that might just have been me, too.

L’Alchimiste
12 rue de la Vielle Tour, 33000 Bordeaux
https://www.alchimiste-cafes.com/alchimiste/espaces/

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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/

(Click here to read more city guides.)

A more recent, extended guide to Montpellier can be found here.

I never expected to find myself in Montpellier last month, as spring finally came to everybody’s rescue. Initially I was booked for a trip back to Malaga, a regular stomping ground, for warmth, sunshine and the kind of relaxation that comes from going back to somewhere you know well – no disorientation, no spending the first day finding your bearings, just the ease and delight of good meals in familiar haunts and lazy walks down well-remembered streets.

Anyway, a couple of things happened. The first was that Malaga was hit by unseasonal torrential rain, and Europe’s sunniest city became a cocktail of downpours and Saharan sand. Every day we checked Dark Skies but the forecast for the week we were there resolutely refused to improve. Granted, we’d probably have spent a fair amount of time sitting in restaurants and bars but the prospect of not getting any vitamin D hardly appealed, especially as at the time the U.K. was bathing in something of a mini heatwave.

The second was that I remembered a conversation I’d had at my readers’ lunch last November in the Lyndhurst. I was freshly back from Malaga that weekend, as it happened, and I got chatting at one of the tables with Phil and Kath about city breaks and how much we’d missed them since the start of the pandemic. And that’s when Phil and Kath let me in on the secret of Montpellier. It was a city they’d discovered by accident, on a stopover from Bordeaux to Marseille, but on discovering it they fell accidentally in love.

Phil and Kath went most years, they told me, and the more they talked about it the more indelible my mental note became. They’d never had a bad meal, they said: everything was beautiful and the city was a maze of tiny old streets, alleyways, squares and cafés, perfect for getting gloriously lost. So the week before my holiday I idly checked flights and accommodation and found that Montpellier was both easy and affordable to get to: less than two hours, direct, from Gatwick. I’ve had an idea, I said to Zoë. Half an hour later, everything was booked.

I’m extremely grateful that Phil and Kath came to that readers’ lunch, because Montpellier was everything they promised and more – a gorgeous city with loads to see and do (although I scratched the surface of that, because there were restaurants, cafés and shops that needed my urgent attention). The old city, L’Écusson, is indeed a wonderful maze of little lanes and sidestreets, with a tempting boutique, little square or sun-dappled restaurant terrace around every corner. But I also loved Les Arceaux, the area we stayed in, a little neighbourhood in the shadow (literally and figuratively) of the impressive aqueduct that looms over the west of the city. On our first morning there we went the market held under its arches, and wandered almost in a euphoric trance from stall to stall, wondering what it must be like to have regular, easy access to all that cheese, charcuterie, olive oil, wine and cider.

I don’t normally talk about accommodation, but the place we stayed was so agreeable that I must. Les 4 Étoiles is a grand 1930s house in Les Arceaux, and although it’s owned by Pierre it has been in his family for generations. The piano in the dining room belonged to his grandmother (there’s a framed picture of her over it) and Pierre encourages guests to play it: I didn’t, but I did hear notes shimmering through the house more than once. And our room was a luxurious but calm space, with a giant bed you could sink into. It had a little balcony and every morning I went out and looked down on the street outside, ecstatic to be elsewhere and, I suppose, somewhat at peace.

Pierre – chic, soft-spoken and unbelievably polite – was the perfect host, and breakfast in the dining room every morning was a delight, with good coffee, great bread from the bakery round the corner, local honey, fruit salad and pastries which I chose to consider mandatory. Our fellow guests were a real mix – from France, from Germany and from Belgium – and once I’d apologised several times for the English we had some fascinating conversations. It was interesting to get a different perspective: although I might consider the political situation back home tragic and rage-inducing, they were mostly amused by it. I expected them to be glad to be shot of us, as a nation, but if anything they were sad, and more than a little bemused.

Anyway, I had a fantastic week eating, drinking, shopping and generally being a flâneur, taking pictures with my new camera and enjoying a proper break for the first time in what felt like a long time. The food and drink scene in Montpellier was too big for me to even scratch the surface in four days, but every time I ruefully recognised that I wouldn’t get to visit everywhere on my list I mentally nudged items onto a different list, marked Next time. So with all that said, here’s my list of places to eat and drink in Montpellier – if it’s even half as effective as Phil and Kath’s sales pitch was to me, I’ll have done them proud.

Where to eat

1. Reflet d’Obione

Reflet d’Obione, near the Botanical Gardens (which, incidentally, I highly recommend) was a suggestion from Pierre and I’m so glad we took him up on it because our dinner at this Michelin-starred restaurant was the best I’ve had this year, and for that matter one of the best I can ever remember. 

The Michelin Guide does such a bad job of selling the place that we nearly picked somewhere else. It says that it “unobtrusively reconciles gastronomy and gluten-free cuisine, cutting the levels of fat and sugar”. How dreary does that sound? But in reality, their nine course tasting menu was a magical experience. Everything was clever, precise and beautifully judged, each course was completely driven by the area and the seasons and the wine pairings – again, all of them local – were an absolute dream. We were in that hushed, conspiratorial space for something like four hours, the pause between every course just right, and I never felt rushed, turned or an inconvenience.

The good dishes were too many to mention, but the very best of them will stay with me for a long time. Chicken came served simply with salsify, but accompanied with a miniature tart made with offal and one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever tasted, a smoked chicken broth like an intensely savoury latte, the rim of the glass dusted with lapsang souchong. Fish with an orange blossom butter was a beautiful surprise, as was a lake of Vieux Rodez cheese with gnocchi and truffle.

I was struck that here, dishes used a few ingredients in different ways but without overcomplicating things, so different from the almost needy parlour tricks you sometimes see in the U.K.’s starred restaurants. My last Michelin starred meal in this country was at the Woodspeen, and I feel like I’m sullying Reflet d’Obione a little by even mentioning the two in the same paragraph.

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

2. Pastis 

Pastis, also Michelin-starred, is a simple but superb restaurant in the old city. I had lunch there, 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 joyous. My highlight here was a dish made with local duck, served simply – that less is more thing, again – 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).

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

3. Terminal #1

Street food’s yet to hit Montpellier in a big way – possibly because the regular food is simply so good, possibly because they have two rather grand food halls which meet that need. But out past the edge of the city, past an architecturally interesting area called Port Marianne (think Montpellier’s answer to Kennet Island, only more glam) you find the Marché du Lez, a gentrified street food market with lots of permanent traders. It’s sort of like Blue Collar Corner after a few hundred protein shakes. 

It feels like they built the infrastructure before the demand was there, because it was pretty empty when I visited, but just round the corner was the beautiful and buzzy Terminal #1 where I had an excellent lunch. It was worth it for the starter alone – a clean, almost mineral tuna tartare topped with avocado and what can only be described as the world’s best crisp, and an equally fine tuna tataki, only just seared on the outside. Lamb three ways – chop, slow-cooked shoulder and samosa, accompanied by a lavatorial smear of sauce – was less successful, but it was still well worth the trip out of the centre.

Terminal #1
1408 Avenue de la Mer
https://www.terminalpourcel.com/en/

4. Braise

On our last night, we headed out on Montpellier’s fantastic tram network to Beaux Arts, apparently the bobo suburb of the city. I didn’t get to see it in daylight (a great shame: apparently the street art is amazing) but I managed to eat at Braise, a restaurant and wine bar with over 500 different wines, an open kitchen and a wood fire.

And if not every dish completely hit the mark, the best of it was memorable: grilled, smoked mackerel with cauliflower purée and sharp little florets of pickled broccoli; short rib of beef cooked deftly, soft and indulgent with a nicely astringent coleslaw; a cheese course featuring some of the best Comte I can remember. This was simultaneously the smallest and busiest restaurant I visited, and a completely tourist-free zone, so this is the place for you if you want to try something more cutting edge.

Braise
42 Avenue Saint-Lazare
https://www.braise-montpellier.com

5. Le Bouchon Saint Roch

A recommendation from Phil and Kath, Le Bouchon Saint Roch was our choice for our first meal in the city. And it was a really good one – the restaurant practically glows on corner of a square in the old city, a warm inviting place it’s difficult to resist. Inside, the decor was a quirky celebration of pigs and pork in all their forms and the barrage of quirky French 80s pop had Zoë reaching for Shazam pretty much every four minutes.

The food was robust, earthy, unpretentious and absolutely perfect for the first night in a new city. I went to town on a very generous plate of charcuterie and then got stuck into a crumbly, almost-sweet boudin noir with a caramelised slice of apple. Dessert was all about the classics – a rich chocolate mousse loaded with cream and a rum baba so booze-soaked that even Zoë couldn’t handle it.

Le Bouchon Saint Roch
14 rue du Plan d’Agde
https://www.le-bouchon-st-roch-montpellier.com

6. JB & Co

A little hole in the wall on rue des Étuves with a solitary table outside, JB & Co is a great example of how to succeed in business doing just one thing very well. It’s all about the jambon beurre here, and all you have to choose is which bread you want and which of their hams you want in it. The bread, as everywhere in France, is phenomenal. The ham, prominently displayed and sliced wafer-thin for you, is a joy. And of course there are just enough sharp, crunchy cornichons to bring the whole thing together. Yours for something like five Euros, and a better lunch on the run is difficult to imagine: I chipped a filling eating mine, but it was still worth it. Afterwards, they brought out a coffee and a little piece of freshly baked cake for us on the house, a lovely little touch. 

Back in Blighty a couple of weeks later I picked up a jambon beurre from Pret on the run for my train. I always used to enjoy them, but Montpellier has ruined them for me.

JB & Co
17 rue des Étuves
https://jbandco.fr

7. Des Rêves et des 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 currently only admits two customers at a time, the queue stretched up the street. But it was always worth joining – even compared to the pastries at breakfast this was next level, with world-beating buttery lamination. Everything in there was beautiful – cakes, pastries (sweet and savoury) and even the granola: if I’d had more room in my case, I’d have brought some home with me. Montpellier, like the rest of France, has the same density of good bakeries as London has Pret A Mangers. Where did it all go wrong for us?

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

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 the good stuff 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. 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.

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

Where to drink

1. O’Petit Trinque Fougasse

This was a brilliant 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. For beer lovers there’s a wonderful shop a few doors down called Deli Malt which proved to be an invaluable introduction to Montpellier’s budding craft beer scene.

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

2. Latitude Café

Of all of Montpellier’s little squares, one of my favourites was the almost ludicrously beautiful Place de la Canourgue. It’s more about the square than the bars on it, but on my first night I had a marvellous time sitting outside Latitude Café with a glass of pretty anonymous red enjoying those first sights and sounds of somewhere new. It wasn’t the warmest of weeks in Montpellier, but I can imagine that once summer is in full swing this would be a beautiful place for a morning coffee or to while away an hour with a drink and a good book. I did hear more English (and yes, I’m afraid, American English) at neighbouring tables here than anywhere else, so bear that in mind if that’s not your thing.

Latitude Café
5 Place de la Canourgue

3. Le Réservoir

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’s relatively new – another example, like Marché du Lez – of being built in anticipation of the demand, rather than because of it. But inside it’s 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.

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

4. Le Discopathe

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 that 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, 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. Opposite is a fantastic-looking rotisserie which immediately made it to the top of my list of restaurants to try on my next visit.

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

5. Couleurs de Bières Nord

To complete our little beer tour of Montpellier, Couleurs de Bières Nord is a lovely little bar. 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 skews little more Belgian, but there were a couple of beers on tap by ZooBrew, (yet) another local brewery, and it made for a excellent pre-prandial spot.

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

6. Café BUN

Cafe BUN was probably 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 trip. They roast their own coffee – I brought some home with me – and their latte was the nicest I had on my holiday. 

Café BUN
5 rue des Étuves
https://cafebun.fr

7. 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. 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/

8. 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: high praise indeed.

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 did test my resolve. But they had a crispy chicken burger on their specials menu that day 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.

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