The new stars of Provence

It’s been the week of the Michelin stars and everybody in Provence is very excited. Le Petit Nice on the old port in Marseille has become the only restaurant in the region to achieve the coveted three stars and the Luberon has two new starred restaurants - Le Vivier in L’Isle Sur La Sorgue and Les Bories near Gordes.

Like Obelix and the magic potion, Patrick Fischnaller the newly starred chef of Le Vivier, whose lifelong love of cooking took him to London for 15 years working for the Conran group, said: “I fell in the fish soup when I was a little boy.”

It’s also been a very windy week…so windy in fact that gusts reached 110km an hour in Avignon knocking chimneys of roofs and enabling Antoine Albeau to break the record for the fastest speed for sail powered travel on a windsurfer on the Saint Maries canal in the Camargues. The speed reached was 90.91 kmh, the fastest ever over a 500m stretch of water.