L'Auberge de l'Oumède

Twenty minutes from the village, buried in the vines of Ramatuelle, you have to really want to find it. L'Auberge de l'Oumède is Jean-Pierre's kitchen. He was a palace chef once, then he walked away. Now he cooks his grandmother's recipes from Nice. Petits farcis. Soupe au pistou. Rabbit with olives. The menu is short, and it changes. The setting stops you cold. Dry stone terrace. A fig tree that's been there for a century. Hills rolling away toward the horizon. This is what Provence was before the photographs, before the crowds. If you want to understand that, the real thing, eat here.