Le Riviera (Hotel Le Pigonnet)

Last night, we went to Le Riviera, the restaurant associated with Hotel Le Pigonnet (5 avenue de Pigonnet, www.hotelpigonnet.com, +33 (0)4 42 59 02 90), that was recommended to us multiple times, most recently by a woman whose charming five-year-old daughter, Meela, was in one of our cooking classes. We had a great time. We were seated in a very beautiful garden for our 8:30 reservations, and given the beauty of the setting and quality of the food, I wasn't surprised at all that the restaurant was full by 9:15 or so. This restaurant is not within walking distance of old-town Aix, especially in dinner attire, though it is only a five or six minute drive.

After an amuse bouche of crab that was fine but not stunning, I had a foie gras terrine that included a savory version of creme brulee and Stri had 'canneloni' with a leek theme that included a little glass of warm foamy soup. There were both very nicely presented on black slate, and we greatly enjoyed them. My beef main course was some of the best beef I've had in Aix, cooked perfectly medium rare (if that is what you like, order your meat "seen-yon") with some excellent seared foie gras alongside. Stri enjoyed her turbot.

When we were handed the dessert card, one choice mentioned 'tomate.' We asked our waiter if it really was tomator and he said it was. So we decided to order it (to share, as is our custom), rather than go for the safe choice of chocolate, and I'm very glad we did. It was both delicious and fun, and made me wish we also tried the one based on beets. What arrived was a sweetened tomato terrine topped by a lighter, and also sweetened, tomato mousse, drizzled with a tomato sauce which had some additional ingrediants that I had trouble identifying but definitely worked. Even if this was served in a normal way, I would have been happy and impressed. But when the waiter walked over, the dessert was emitting a fog! The tapered glass container with the dessert was placed in another glass bowl that had dry ice and water in it, that both kept it cool and looked good.

Wine is another strong point. I was impressed at the number of quality half bottles on the wine list. We were able to find a very reasonable Chez Simone white and a '95 of one of the La Tour winerys' reds in 375 ml.

I would only change two things: 1) Service: overall, the service was quite good, but our waiter consistently didn't notice that our wine glasses were empty. The bottles were within easy reach on a service table, so this wasn't much of a hardship, but it wasn't consistent with the quality of the restaurant. 2) Lighting in the garden. The beautiful garden was well-lit at night, but the quality of the lighting design detracted somewhat. The lights along the main walkway were too blue and made the foliage look false. I counted four different lighting technologies used in the garden (incandescent, halogen, CFL, and metal vapor/halide - the ones that were too blue.) It wouldn't take much to fix this. We went for a walk in the garden after dinner, encouraged by the Maitre D', which was a perfect ending to a great evening.

We spent slightly over 200 Euro for the two of us, all up, and there was no doubt in our mind that we enjoyed it more than Clos de la Violette in every respect. It was good enough that we even compared it to Le Formal in our post-dinner conversation, but Le Formal's more innovative and modern cuisine keep it at the top of the list. Still, we highly recommend Le Riviera.

By the way, Hotel Pigonnet seems like a great place for a honeymoon or romantic getaway. The building is an old Bastide, or summer mansion, that has the combination of age, quality, and attention that is hard to duplicate, the location is excellent, being both close to everything and quiet, and, as said before, the gardens are beautiful. This would be my first choice for a romantic hotel in Aix of the few I've seen.