Numéro 75, Avignon France

Avignon was our base for our time in Provence, but we only ventured inside the fortified walls of the old city once, for dinner. (Well, technically we ended up inside once or twice more while trying to leave town, thanks to some confusing roundabouts and signage!)

Numéro 75 is located in the old Pernod mansion, and it appears in lots of guidebooks – which probably explains the many other tourists we saw there.

It’s a small restaurant; when I called to make a reservation earlier in the afternoon, all the tables were already booked so they arranged for us to sit at low tables in the petit salon. I was a bit hesitant about the idea, but it’s such an open and airy room that it was perfectly lovely to sit at one end and look across to the tables on the other side.

D started with the terrine de volaille, or chicken terrine, with pistachios and mushrooms. It’s the kind of homey, yet elegant dish that seems very French to me.

I had risotto with purple artichokes and wild mushrooms, which was simple and delicious. The rich, creamy risotto was studded with slices of asparagus, and then the rest of the vegetables were piled on top. D had a lamb daube that smelled heavenly.

There’s a long list of desserts but they’re not listed on a menu; instead, our server rattled them off in rapid-fire French. Fortunately, dessert French (crème brûlée, mousse au chocolat, etc) is relatively easy to understand, so I caught most of it.

I picked the chocolate sablé tart, a crisp cookie base topped with whipped cream and a coronet of fresh raspberries. The sablé had a fine, sandy texture (the word means “sand”, after all), and a dark cocoa flavor; the tart raspberries and the sweet, soft cream were just the right contrasts.

Despite being completely off-the-cuff, this ended up being one of my favorite meals – from the walk through the streets of old Avignon, to the cozy low couches, to the lovely food and wine.

I’m glad we made it inside those walls…