When Anthony Filipe and Kevin Menuet, two childhood friends with a passion for cooking, decided to open up their own cave à manger in a former clothing shop, they didn’t hold anything back: an open kitchen, lemon yellow concrete floors, vintage furniture and a killer music selection. And the cuisine isn’t half bad either, made with a selection of carefully sourced ingredients. The night we went, we savored all of the following: a combo of rosette salami crostini with a zing of scallion and pickled asparagus, beautiful local new potatoes sprinkled with fresh herbs from the garden (including some incredible fresh oregano!) and a smokey rosemary cream; a fabulous Corrèze duck breast that was dried and smoked in house, paired with miso white asparagus, prepared both roasted and in raw slivers, bathed in a generous shrimp mousseline sauce that tasted like a delicious bisque; before a Belle-Hélène pear poached in vanilla syrup and topped with a chocolate whiskey sauce, plus vanilla ice cream and buckwheat crumble. And for something different at lunch, there’s Limousine flank steak with sauce bordelaise, free-range chicken mafe that feels like it was made by a Senegalese mama, and a springtime grilled cheese sandwich that looked pretty fantastic! // Lerouge

FEELING THIRSTY? : Very good wines that come mainly from the Cave du Pic Vert wine shop, many of which are from the Southwest: a Bergerac blanc from the Château Barouillet (€4.50 a glass), La Castagne, a Lot red from La Maison Castagné (€26 a bottle), Serpent à Plumes, a cahors from the Domaine La Calmette (€59 for a magnum)…
PRICE: : À la carte €22-48 (lunch), €25-53 (dinner).