Prior to Le Saint Hubert

We are not certain about when we will get a chance to drive around France again, but there are some things we do know will be on our list when we do. So, this story is about the events we are looking forward to and one visit in particular in Provence.

We know that soon after arriving in Paris we will definitely be heading to Le Doyenné, the restaurant of James Henry and Shaun Kelly, two experienced and highly talented chefs who have devoted the last few years to planting an orchard and garden and restoring the buildings on an enchanting site in Saint-Vrain which is about 40 kilometres south of the CBD.

There are many other places we enjoy in Paris and some of these are in our survey of Paris eating and drinking here.

We will also be driving far and wide to visit our natural wine producers who are scattered all over France. We will particularly be looking forward to revisiting the Jura where we have many producers and to visit Le Claquets one of our favourite places in France to eat and drink.

And, of course no visit to France would be complete for us without a visit to the Auberge de Chassignolles where there is always wonderful food to consume and amazing wines to learn about.

There is also the compulsory visit to Provence where the Milan family produce wonderful wines. This is an area we know well from owning a house there for almost fifteen years. So while we are in the area we will visit the two cities of Marseille and Nice to reacquaint ourselves with developments there including the wonderful Pure & V in Nice and La Mercerie in Marseille.

Le Saint Hubert

And while we are in between these two cities we will definitely divert into the Luberon to revisit Le Saint Hubert in the quaint town of Saint-Saturnin-lès-Apt. This is a beautiful hotel and restaurant in a beautiful town in a beautiful area.

It will be a very nostalgic experience for us to take the easy drive from Avignon along the D900 towards Apt in the Luberon region of France. The drive is quite flat even though on either side there are villages sitting atop peaks. You see Gordes high above the plain to the north and well-known villages such as Menerbes, Lacoste and Bonnieux on the hills to the south.

As we approach the town of Apt we divert onto the D943 and head north towards the narrow streets of Saint-Saturnin-les-Apt.

Why do we look forward to coming back to Le Saint Hubert? Comfort. The dining room is comfortable without being pretentious. There is also comfort in the service. The staff here are anxious to help without being pushy. They want you to enjoy the dining experience.

We first visited Le Saint Hubert early in 2019 not too long after Lise Kvan and Éric Monteleon took over the site. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal as you can read from our Instagram post at the time, which we have replicated below.

We were delighted with charming service, the skill with which the food had been prepared and the fact that there was an interesting selection of wine to order.

So this is what we posted about Le Saint Hubert in 2019:

We’re putting the end of the meal at the beginning in this post because this apple tart at @le.saint.hubert in Saint-Saturnin-lès-Apt was next level – great finesse without any sacrifice of flavour.

But everything else was delicious too. Other photos are a not quite classic chocolate fondant (it was made using buckwheat flour, which was a big success), a classic Provençal daube, which was surprisingly good with Domaine de la Tournelle’s 2017 l’uva, chicken – a thigh braised on the bone with ratatouille – which was brilliant with the wine, and a lentil salad to start.

Thanks @lefooding and @marcfournie for the review which led us here.
We love this cuvée of Poulsard, a grape it’s rare to find in Provence despite its compatibility with so much of the food here, and especially appreciate any Jura wine from the cruel 2017 vintage, where many producers lost 80% or more of their harvest.

As you can see from the above description of Le Saint Hubert at the time we were very impressed with the food and wine selection at Le Saint Hubert. Each dish was interesting and delicious and there were natural wines from which to select and, even though the wine we chose was a red wine it matched with both the daube and the chicken. This is because Ploussard from the village of Pupillin produces a rather light red wine that is very food friendly.

So our next opportunity arose to visit Le Saint Hubert in late 2022 and once again we were delighted with our meal and the overall experience.

When we perused the menu shown below we wanted every dish listed, but even we understand that we have to be at least a little restrained.

Notice also that there is even a special offering for children with all time favourites chicken nuggets, potato chips and a choice of vanilla, chocolate or strawberry ice cream (two scoops).

The quality of the ingredients (like the leaves in this first photo of a caillette entree (cold, which was unexpected but good)) and good things to drink help separate it from the plethora of other choices in this region (and its lovely staff too of course).

As well as the caillettes we ate sardines, lamb ragout, sériole (amberjack seems the best translation) and finished with a very good rif on Mont Blanc.

Above is the fish and below is the Mont Blanc.

This was a great meal with delicious flavours. We hope we get the opportunity to return soon!

Le Saint Hubert is featured in our story about where to eat in France outside Paris here.

You can check for opening times and other details on their Web site here.