On restaurant menus and in conversations among enthusiasts, the expression regional cuisine comes up everywhere. It promises dishes that tell the story of a place, a season, a story, well beyond just local cuisine. From the snow of Haute‑Savoie to the rocks of the Mediterranean, certain French chefs have chosen to let the landscape guide their actions rather than their speeches. And in their homes, the decor no longer remains on the edge of the plate.
From Megève to Cassis, six chefs have taken this idea very far: Emmanuel Renaut, Ingrid and Michaël Arnoult, Dimitri Droisneau, Amélie Darvas, James Henry and Shaun Kelly, Julien Gatillon. At home, the mountain becomes a pantry, the Mediterranean dictates the arrivals, the vegetable gardens create micro-seasons and a private chalet is transformed into a table for just a few guests.
From Megève to Jongieux, the mountain as a common thread
In Megève, three-star Emmanuel Renaut never saw the mountain as a simple backdrop around . He walks the trails, picks, observes the seasons and brings wild game, fish from Lake Geneva, mushrooms, plants and herbs directly into the kitchen. A 500 m² vegetable garden, a few meters from the restaurant, extends this link by providing herbs, flowers and vegetables to the rhythm of the seasons, to the point that the mountain determines as much the way he cooks as the way he looks at each product.
A little further away, in Jongieux between Lac du Bourget and the Rhône, Ingrid and Michaël Arnoult built almost from scratch in 2005, in a ruined building in the middle of the vineyards. Twenty years later, the house won a third Michelin star in March 2026, without straying from its immediate geography: freshwater fish, wild herbs, seasonal vegetables, neighboring producers and Jongieux wines. Every week, Michaël Arnoult heads to the market halls of Chambéry to adjust the menu to what the land and fishing make possible.
From Cassis to Hérault, when sea and vegetation impose their rhythm
Facing Cap Canaille, in Cassis, Dimitri Droisneau works with an immediately readable pantry: full-frame Mediterranean. With his wife Marielle, he shaped this house, which became three Michelin stars in 2022, around local fishing. Sardines, shellfish, crustaceans, samphire and samphire arrive every day and serve as the starting point for the dishes. His cuisine deliberately remains legible, precise and direct, so that each product retains its identity; here, Cassis doesn’t just surround the room, Cassis actually enters the kitchen.
In Hérault, in Beaulieu, Amélie Darvas has opened a new chapter. The chef imagined a house where cuisine, landscape, stone, wood and light tell the same story. His work takes a very plant-based orientation: vegetable garden and neighboring markets supply vegetables, herbs, fruits, berries and herbs. She relies on freshness, acidity and bitterness to give relief to the plant without transforming it unnecessarily, letting the vines and limestone soils of Beaulieu frame her intuition.
Saint-Vrain and Megève, total regional cuisine experiences
In Saint-Vrain, 45 minutes from Paris, James Henry and Shaun Kelly are reinventing regional cuisine on the scale of a 130-hectare estate. Housed in the former stables of a castle, the restaurant operates with a farm, a garden and eleven rooms. The heart of the project is in a vegetable garden cultivated in regenerative agriculture, where nearly 130 varieties of vegetables and around a hundred fruit trees grow. The menu follows micro-seasons of a few days, the products only travel a few meters from the garden to the kitchen, and customers can sleep, walk, watch what they find on the plate grow.
In Megève again, Julien Gatillon has taken the opposite view of the great gourmet restaurant with , installed since 2020 in his private chalet shared with his wife Sonia. Only one reservation is accepted per service, for two to twelve guests. A few days before their arrival, customers discuss with the chef to imagine a menu based on a season, an ingredient, a memory or a theme linked to the region. And then the territory becomes as much raw material as it is a subject of conversation, changing everything for gourmets looking for a very personal experience:
- a tailor-made meal around their relationship to the place;
- products chosen as closely as possible to the moment and desires;
- the impression of sharing, during a service, a fragment of local life.
Between mountains, vineyards, sea, scrubland and cultivated countryside, these six houses show how the territory ceases to be a marketing argument to become a real way of working, organizing and welcoming.
What is regional cuisine?
Territorial cuisine designates an approach where the place really organizes the way of cooking: products, seasons, pace of work and sometimes architecture of the restaurant, as at Flocons de Sel or at Doyenné.
Which chefs embody regional cuisine in the mountains?
In Megève, Emmanuel Renaut with and Julien Gatillon with work directly with the mountains, while in Savoie wine-growing Ingrid and Michaël Arnoult have fashioned around the lake, the vineyards and neighboring producers.
Which chef represents regional cuisine in the Mediterranean?
In Cassis, Dimitri Droisneau takes this approach by cooking local fishing, samphire and samphire facing Cape Canaille, with a menu guided by arrivals from the Mediterranean.
Can we stay on site at Le Doyenné in Saint-Vrain?
Yes, offers eleven rooms in the heart of its 130 hectare estate, which allows you to eat, sleep and walk on the land where vegetables and fruits served in the restaurant are grown.
