La Privadiere

What an amazing place! We had a wonderful evening at Maison Lavandet, restaurant Gastronomique, with our daughter for our 25th anniversary. The food was just exceptional! We've been traveling around the world and experiencing high end restaurants but yesterday was the best ever. We've been following Julien since 2013 and after moving to Canada 4 years ago we were longing to try his new place. He has definitely reached another level using top products with so much creativity! Every bite is an explosion of savours! The place is beautiful with an outstanding view on the vineyard. Everybody is incredibly friendly from the owner, Maxime and Jerome took great care of us, perfectly pairing our dinner with wines from the area, giving us tips for vineyards visits. If you're in the south of France, it's clearly worth driving a bit you will discover a hidden gem and have an experience of a life time!

We 've known and liked the cooking of chef Julien Lavandet for a longtime, but our first experience of his comeback after a two=year hiatus was very very disappointing. For started, the hotel where he 's located is still pretty much of a building site, and then when we arrived the young woman at reception didn 't say, Bonsoir or Bienvenue, but Vous avez reserve? She was cold and wooden, as were the two men in ill-fitting suits who run the dining room (this is a real shame, because Lavandet 's wife did such a charming job at the maitresse d 'hotel at his last restaurant, La Table de Julien). The ligting in the modern dining room is too bright, and the automatic kitchen door doesn 't close quickly enough, so a meal is regularly punctuated by bursts of kitchen noise. The idea of putting cotton balls on the tables is clearly to save money on real flowers, but is both sad and unhygienic. Re the food, portions are very stingy and the flavours in the cooking were often bland. It seemed to us that Lavandet has sort of gotten stuck, or stopped growing and evolving as a chef, right done to the Kylie Minogue style styling of a strawberry sable. Given the fact that a meal here cost more than double what it did at La Maison 2 Julien, this place offers poor value for money, little atmosphere and a rather underwhelming gastronomic experience overall. I very much doubt we 'd go back, especially since the cooking at the Chateau de Collias in Collias is simply outstanding for the same prices.

Very welcoming staff made us feel comfortable from the moment we arrived. Our host spoke excellent English so we did not need to inflict our rusty French on him. Each course was well prepared, presented and a delight to eat with a variety of original and interesting flavours.

I hope to put very soon a 5/5 but disappointment at this first meal. designed by price quality ratio and offer very, very reduced to the level of the map and menus on the contrary high price. certainly the location will be very pleasant, the renovation is very successful but the construction site is still there, the teams are hesitant. This will undoubtedly improve over time because the restaurant has just started, we would all be super happy to have another good restaurant with garrigues. the negative points of my point of view I did not appreciate the small flute of champagne at 16 euros, the background of whisky at 14 euros served with a small triangle of pate with 4 to 5 heads of pies in the image, not appreciated the entrance of the small euros for me, the account is not particularly that the frame spoils the important work in progress, a little more seems very appreciable to compensate the other nuis. I also regretted the duration of the service. On the positive side, the main dish was on my successful point of view and was much more generous than the entrance and the aperitives. positive also the framework to come, the whole will be very beautiful. I really hope to put a 5 in the coming weeks!

Great food, wine and service. Innovative, tasty, good attention to detail but not over attentive. I loved watching Jerome mop the kitchen floor together with his staff at the end of service. Great views across the countryside, super clean and modern. We were there for a birthday celebration but didn’t mention it to the staff.