Le Petit Resto du Four, Aix en Provence

Aix en Provence is a beautiful city, with a fountain around every corner – there are over 100 of them – and many excellent restaurants. We chose however to do something somewhat different and went to a small vegetarian restaurant. It is run by a young couple who do all the cooking themselves, and as the food is served buffet-style they have a rule: If you leave anything on your plate there is a surcharge of 2 Euros which goes to a charity called Action Contre la Faim. An excellent initiative to stop food wastage!

The buffet was laden with vegetable dishes – pumpkin, leek and carrot soup, spinach and goat cheese lasagne, tomato and safran clafoutis, onion and tomato tart, beetroot salad, endive and apple salad, hard boiled eggs – on and on it went. And none of us left anything on our plates because it was all so delicious!

The all you can eat buffet was Euros 14.50 and the home- made desserts, such as apple tart, chocolate moelleux or raspberry fools, were Euros 3.It was a real pleasure to taste all those wonderful vegetables – and we followed the experience with a trip to the Aix market, where there was more wonderful fruit and vegetables, cheeses and sausages in all shapes and sizes and stalls strewn with herbs for sale. But we weren’t hungry any more!