The story
In the perched village of Peillon, a short drive from Nice, Les Plaisirs occupies a stone house that feels both intimate and timeless. Chef Romain Clavel, who opened the restaurant at just 21 years old, runs the kitchen with a quiet perfectionism that has earned the restaurant a Michelin Bib Gourmand – an award for good quality, good value cooking. The dining room, decorated like a welcoming home, looks out over the valley through small windows, and a hearth adds warmth in cooler months.
Clavel’s cooking is rooted in the land. He grows vegetables and herbs in a potager hidden behind the village, harvests olives for the restaurant’s own oil, and bakes bread with levain he maintains in-house, using French label Rouge flours in a long fermentation. The charcuterie comes from quality pork, raised outdoors, sourced locally or directly from producers in the Southwest. Eggs are from a bio farm in Vence. The menu changes daily, dictated by what is ripe and ready. “Our cuisine is based on products of great freshness, we are therefore dependent on nature,” the restaurant explains. “For this reason, we do not publish our menus.”
Clavel’s approach is a bridge between tradition and lightness – revisiting childhood flavours with modern precision. A clafoutis uses the recipe passed down from his grandmother, filled with cherries from the garden. The wine list, built through relationships with passionate growers, spans regions and price points, chosen to complement the food. Les Plaisirs has been a member of the Collège Culinaire de France since 2014, a network that promotes artisanal, locally-minded French gastronomy.
Lunch is served daily, with two menu formulas: entrée-plat-dessert for 38 €, or entrée-plat or plat-dessert for 28 €. The restaurant also offers charcuterie produced on site for purchase. In this small, sunlit room above the village, the focus is clear: product, place, and the quiet pleasure of a meal made from scratch.
Recognition
Ambience
Details
History
good quality, good value cooking
In 2010, a 21-year-old Romain Clavel, the grandson of Aimée Millo (the former chef at the Auberge de La Madone) and Bernard Clavel (winner of the Prix Goncourt in the 1960s), opened a bistro in the former home of Claude Brasseur and Catherine Sauvage, tucked away in the picturesque fortified village of Peillon. Forteen years later, the classically trained chef (who did stints at the Hôtel Hermitage in Monaco and the Mandarin Oriental in London) continues to delight diners at his restaurant done up with wood, stone and exposed rafters, with its priceless views of the valley below. The day we went for lunch, sent out from the tiny kitchen and served by Marie-José, Romain’s mom, there was all of the following: incredibly simple yet delicious homemade sourdough topped with tomatoes, spring onions and translucent pancetta; top-notch and perfectly crispy pissaladière, or tender eggplant with homemade sausage; slow-cooked beef fillet or pork chops from Breil-sur-Roya, served with a medley of slow-roasted vegetables and incredible gratin dauphinois potatoes; before a perfectly made seasonal fruit tart with a shortbread crust and a strawberry and apricot topping. // Lenny Vega
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