L'Abri

Cheers to L’Abri! High above the city on Saint-Victor hill, once home to vineyards, Edgar Baudin and Franck Pasquier have settled down with their wine tanks and knives in tow. A long urban winery housed in a former mechanic’s garage, it’s now filled with bottles of natural wine that are vinified on-site, using their organic grapes grown in the Alpilles. In the kitchen, the cheeky chef Pierre Meynet plays with quality ingredients (local seafood, vegetables from Le Paysan Moderne, Camargue oysters), and sent out all of the following the night we went: flavor-packed palourde clams in garlic and parsley butter; potatoes drizzled in two types of sauce (homemade sriracha for a kick and blue cheese sauce for some creaminess); meagre gravlax which was a little salty for our tastes, warmed up by a strawberry and chili coulis; incredibly simple asparagus from Provence with artichoke crudo, served with a creamy and herbaceous fromage frais dipping sauce; a whole burrata paired with hazelnut pistou; before a perfect pistachio cake with strawberries and Chantilly cream; or a more decadent chocolate-coffee ganache with praline, dripping with caramel sauce. // Maude Zarella

FEELING THIRSTY? House wines, of course, which are blended and vinified in the stainless steel tanks behind the kitchen: Le Rougé which is a grenache-cinsault blend (€6 a glass), Moussaillon, a mourvèdre pet’ nat’ (€6.50), and La Mer à Boire, a saline white combining grenache blanc and vermentino grapes (€29 a bottle). Plus a few wines from the outside world, including a pinot noir from the Domaine Bonnardot (€50) or a patrimonio from Antoine Arena (€49).
PRICE: : Shared plates €8-22.