Last night we ate at Les 2 Freres at 4 Avenue Reine Astrid (telephone 04 42 27 90 32) which is a ten minute walk from La Rotunde in the direction directly away from the old town. In the middle of a residential district is one of the most stunning examples of modern restaurant design I've seen. Stainless steel, wood, glass, bamboo, great lighting, Philippe Starck chairs, stucco, all artfully integrated. I loved it, as would anyone who is, like me, a charter subscriber to Dwell. The food was excellent, though not as innovative as Le Formal. Still, my lamb was some of the best lamb I've ever had, Stri ordered duck, unusual for her, but she said she liked it, and I greatly enjoyed the playful desserts. They made pasta for the girls, and there was a large open area next to the restaurant they could run in when they couldn't sit any longer. This was a great meal in one of my favorite restaurant designs ever. I wish we had gone earlier because we would have been able to experience it more than once. Highly recommended.
Les 2 Freres has a second location in old-town Aix-en-Provence called Le Restaurant 37 at 1 Rue Entrecasteaux (http://www.les2freres.com/) which features a limited menu that clearly facilitates a focus on quality and innovative presentation. We've gone to Le 37 four times. The soups we had, melon and gazpacho, were wonderfully fresh and beautifully presented. Aubergine wrapped goat cheese was complex and tasty. The main courses - for example, the first time we went we had beef and salmon tartare - were excellent. And the desserts seduced us into finishing them even though we should have stopped because we had eaten everything that came before. Great wine list. Service was good and the decor was comfortable French modern, with draped fabrics, nice lighting, and excellent and rather unique round booths.
Le 37's terrace is large and pleasant, created out of whole cloth from the sidewalk (that is a pun of sorts; they do a great job of walling off the terrace with waist-high fabric), so on those days when you just have to eat outside, and you want high quality, modern food, this is the place to go. Recommended.
Le Passage (10 Rue Villars -- across Cours Mirabeau in the cinema district, tel 04 42 370 900, http://www.le-passage.fr/.) A modern three story restaurant (and cooking school, etc., see post) that has the best lunch deal so far: 12 Euro 50 for three courses plus drink. This is the place to go when you want somewhere air-conditioned, great value, good quality food, and close by.
The interior is a converted industrial space that clearly has had a tremendous amount of effort put into renovating it, marred only by horrendous spherical lights that I suspect, given the choices displayed in the rest of the decor, are more a consequence of running out of budget than running out of taste. (I'd change out the spindly dried plants, too, but they are not the ambience emergency the lighting is.) Lest you think these comments indicate an unpleasant interior, no, it is more like someone with a great suit that makes the polyester tie they chose really stand out. (In the interests of objectivity, we were just there today for a cooking school, and one of the French woman just volunteered how much she liked the white ball lights. But I stand by my opinion ...)
The first time we went there, our youthful server was unable to operate his PDA terminal quickly enough to capture our order, which he therefore got wrong, and he clearly had a memory like a sieve. But the one error was quickly corrected, and the watchful and very involved presence of the manager kept it all on track. I'm not expecting Michelin star level service for 12 Euros 50. The second time, the service was absolutely fine. Recommended.
L'Opera doesn't have a terrace, so on these hot days, when most everyone wants to eat outside, they are lightly attended. Well, eveyone is missing out. A beautiful modern interior and Provencal food with Moroccan influences, all at a good value, makes this one of the better restaurants in Aix. There is a reason that a couple came in while we were eating and asked the waiter if they could just have dessert and a coffee "to salvage our evening after having a bad experience at one of the restaurants on Cours Mirabeau." (They clearly hadn't read my rules.) The waiter said "you know those restaurants are just for tourists" before graciously seating them. Recommended.
Mitch is at 26 Rue des Tanneurs (telephone 04 42 26 63 08), right off the square that has Le Village and Edyko Armenian/Greek. They completely transform their section of street for their outdoor seating, even putting up bamboo screens against the wall across from the restaurant. Mitch is about modern, elegant, and quality dining. The food is excellent and innovative; no pea soup at Mitch. Instead the pea "cappuccino" is served in a tall glass carafe with creme fraiche on the top and a straw. With the addition of some salt, which I seldom feel the need to do, and a little poking with the straw to mix in the creme fraiche, I found it a tasty, even compelling experience. On a different visit, I had ceviche, which was as good as the best ceviche I've had (at Las Ventanas in Mexico). The main courses also had innovative presentation, the wine list was short but good, and I loved the desserts. But it was sometimes hard to concentrate because it was a Saturday night in July at the intersection of two important streets and the Square de Tanneurs, and the tourists smart enough to navigate away from Cours Mirabeau and the locals were walking by in roughly equal numbers, and the people watching was just fantastic. Recommended.
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