Restaurant/Hotel Château de la Pioline****
Aix-en-Provence, France

Chateau de la Pioline, just outside Aix-en-Provence, in 2003, offered a really good menu at lunch and so attracted many business lunchs in its area. Today, however, they have cut way back and only serve lunch to guests or, if you have made reservations well in advance, will serve guests who just want to eat. But the menu is very restricted, which is a shame in view of what the cuisine once was. A sign of the times I am afraid. Now the meals are light with a salad, omlet or light fish dish. It is still good but not what it once was..

In the last few years, there has developed a trend in many hotels and restaurants in France of providing "businessmen’s" lunch specials. Prix fixed and sometimes offering a couple of choices for each course, these represent a real deal. The prices are very modest for the quality. In France, it is the practice for business people to eat a decent lunch rather then wolfing down a bugger and fries or a pizza kept warm on the computer terminal. Frankly it is a lot healthier as well as providing a less stressed environment in which to either take a break from the office or with a little physical distance, gain a better perspective of the problems that need solved. It also offers an opportunity for a little interpersonal interaction that is not steeped in just office relationships.

Plain tree shaded dining terrace

zoom+ Fruit and ice cream dessert. Traditional dining room filled with old world charm.

Dining is either in the formal dining room painted a warm and welcoming soft yellow or in nice weather, out under the plain trees on the flagged stone terrace in the back.

We can only speak to the food since we have not yet had a chance to stay a night. But the food alone makes a visit worth the trip. Set in 8 acres (4 hectares) of lovely parkland with huge old trees with equally old wrought iron gates that screech open when you arrive, it seems locked in time. This is the atmosphere that we seek when we go to France. It is a perfect place to stay a first night on arrival in Provence. With the airport in Marseilles just 15 minutes away or the TGV just 10 minutes away and the center of Aix just about the same depending on traffic, the location would be perfect if it were not for the fact that a sprawling commercial development is sandwiched between the autoroute and the estate. But once that eyesore has been navigated, it is as though you are miles from the nearest human habitation