Sitting alone at a linen-draped table in the south of France, I am about to dip my spoon into the crackled top of a foie gras crème brûlée crowned with a swirl of green-apple mousse.
This is the starter for a six-course lunch I've been dreaming about for weeks. When the chef, thirty-eight-year-old Anne-Sophie Pic, received her third Michelin star, this past year, for the exquisitely original cuisine she prepares at the Maison Pic, in Valence, she became one of only four women to achieve the honor in the seventy-seven-year history of the Guide Michelin; she's also the only female three-star chef in France today. I love food, and I love the south of France, yet these two passions had never led me to the city of Valence, on the Rhône River in the Drôme region, two hours from the coast.
But that was before Anne-Sophie, the daughter and granddaughter of three-star chefs, was awarded her own three stars. This was historic. I made it my mission to visit Valence, which I had formerly considered old but uninteresting, and dine at the Maison Pic, eventually reserving a table at the restaurant seven weeks in advance. With my first bite — the crème brûlée is as sensuous as a kiss, the crème satiny and slightly sweet on the tongue, its richness tempered by the cool sweet-and-sour green-apple mousse — I'm convinced it was worth the wait. I would return to Valence just for this dish.
The Maison Pic sits outside central Valence, overlooking an unprepossessing block of the Nationale 7, an iconic old road that winds its way from Paris to just beyond Cannes. In 1937, three years after he received his third Michelin star, Anne-Sophie's grandfather André Pic moved his restaurant from the nearby village of St.-Péray to Valence. In creating at this new location a large, comfortable restaurant, André sought to bring his celebrated cuisine to a food-obsessed public that traveled the Nationale 7 on its summer migrations south. The Maison Pic, a small hotel as well as a restaurant, quickly became a gastronomic destination, a status it maintains to this day. Its popularity owes something to its proximity to Paris: you can take a midmorning train from the Gare de Lyon, as I did, and arrive in plenty of time to linger over a long lunch chez Pic.
Beyond the stuccoed façade, which takes up half a block, lies another world: an inviting lobby overlooking courtyard terraces and gardens, a vast, softly lit bar area and three understated dining rooms, each embellished by its own rich hue (burgundy, burnt orange and dill green). Before lunch I visited the Maison Pic in the company of Anne-Sophie, who, guided by her husband, David Sinapian, recently transformed the old-fashioned premises into what she now deems a Zen-inspired interior. Downstairs were low-slung sofas, banquettes and broad, armless chaise longues swathed in saffron and taupe fabrics, while upstairs were fifteen spacious, minimalist bedrooms: no ruffles, no flourishes, just nice marble bathrooms, indirect lighting, sycamore paneling and large mirrors. "I wanted a property that was luxurious, soothing and serene, with lots of light streaming in through French windows," Anne-Sophie told me. "It would have contemporary furniture with clean lines."
As I savor bites of my second course, a pea mousse sprinkled with bright green pea jus and accompanied by a dollop of caviar and sweet-onion ice cream, I think about how different Anne-Sophie's dishes are from her father's classic butter- and cream-based cooking. Jacques Pic, who received his third Michelin star in 1973, was esteemed for entrées like sea bass enrobed in cream sauce and topped with osetra caviar, and Bresse chicken stuffed with truffles and roasted in a pig's bladder (a legacy from his father). Anne-Sophie took over the kitchen at the Maison Pic in 1997, five years after her father's sudden death at fifty-nine from a heart attack and following a stint during which her elder brother, Alain, was in charge. She immediately devoted herself to two daunting tasks: regaining the Pic's third Michelin star, lost after her father's death, and creating a new kind of cuisine. "It was my goal in life," she says, "to take the restaurant back to the top."
The pursuit of perfection often ends in tears. In Anne-Sophie's case, it ended in triumph and joy, but there were tears of anguish and uncertainty along the way. She is virtually self-taught, an autodidacte, as she says, who never endured the rigors of working her way up through professional kitchens. Instead, she spent five years in international business management before she felt the call, almost an atavistic pull, of the kitchen. "I think I had to do something else first," she says, "to realize where I truly belonged, heart and mind."
Newly installed at the helm with the blessing of her mother, Suzanne, Anne-Sophie worked obsessively, up to eighteen hours a day, running the restaurant and creating a cuisine that was completely her own. She conceived dishes that were lighter and airier than her father's, with more vegetables, more play of sweet and sour (among other things, she enjoys developing unusual chutneys, like a citrus and tarragon variation), more froths and mousses and unexpected ingredients.
My two fish courses highlight the signature elements of Anne-Sophie's cooking: an almond emulsion, rather than a traditional sauce based on butter, white wine and cream, lightly bathes a slim, tender slice of turbot; a frothy coconut mousse caps a small rectangular fillet of John Dory that is saffron-hued with turmeric. "I am constantly seeking out the subtleties of flavor in every ingredient," she says.
Yet Anne-Sophie was always burdened by doubts. How could she live up to the achievements of her father and grandfather? She was also burdened by the staff of the ancien régime. A recalcitrant, macho kitchen brigade, resentful of her appointment, heaped sarcasm on her and often didn't follow directions. But she stood her ground. Employees who underestimated and mocked this tough and determined woman were quickly replaced.
Barely five feet tall, with the pale, luminous face of a Renaissance Madonna, Anne-Sophie commands her white-and-orange-tiled kitchen and its staff of eighty with intense concentration and quiet authority. Every dish that leaves the kitchen — one minute, a thick slice of pan-roasted foie gras drizzled with a peppery jus; the next, veal sweetbreads atop a bright orange bed of baby carrots scented with lavender—passes before her eyes for approval. In a world where top chefs can be loud, brutal and unforgiving, the soft-spoken Anne-Sophie describes herself as "fair but exacting."
She radiates calm, both in and out of the kitchen. She is less obsessive, more relaxed, she says, than ever before. Anne-Sophie credits her newfound serenity not to her three stars but to the birth of Nathan, her adored two-year-old son. "Nathan is my greatest joy," she says. "He has centered my life and brought balance to my days after so many years of being consumed with the restaurant."
My Pic meal continues at a leisurely pace. The service is discreet, attentive and refreshingly unpretentious. The amiable sommelier, Denis Bertrand, has chosen the wine — with my first course, two glasses of a dry, floral white, a 2006 St.-Péray Pic, grown and bottled at the family's vineyard, nearby — from a historic cave 25,000 bottles deep. With my later courses, I sip a lightly tannic red 2005 Crozes-Hermitage from Yann Chave and gaze from my window table at my neighbors. The diners, some in shirtsleeves at lunch (dinner is dressier), are subdued and respectful, almost in awe of the food. The clientele is mostly French today, including several tables of wine-flushed businessmen. In the center of the room is a table of six Swedish visitors who made a pilgrimage here from Stockholm. I am the lone American, but that will change later in the summer, when at least 15 percent of the tables are booked, often four months in advance, by travelers from the States.
The meal concludes with a small, elegant raspberry construction by award-winning pastry chef Philippe Rigollot. The red-pepper flavor of the sorbet is extremely understated, present mainly as heat, but it enhances the delicate, sweet taste of the raspberries and the chocolate whipped cream significantly. I need one bite, then another and yet another before my brain understands the complexity of the flavors.
My luncheon leaves me dazzled and sated. Afterward, I take a late-afternoon stroll from the restaurant to the Champ de Mars Esplanade, a broad open park overlooking the Rhône and surrounding an ornate 19th-century bandstand. At sunset I return to my hotel, near the Maison Pic (all of whose guest rooms, alas, were booked), thinking I will not eat again until morning. But at nine o'clock, shameless gourmand that I am, I decide to try a meal at Anne-Sophie's new bistro, Le 7, which is next door to the main restaurant and named and decorated in honor of the road. The open kitchen offers a $44 three-course menu of savory reinterpreted bistro fare that includes, on the night I am there, a fillet of salmon artfully posed on a spring roll and a ragout of rabbit served in a small glass crock. Both are sublime.
After a night's rest and a modest breakfast of a buttered baguette and strong tea, I set off in my rented Peugeot to explore a bit of the bucolic Drôme region, slowly making my way south to Provence. It's been just twelve hours since my last Pic meal, but already I'm plotting how to get back. This spring, Anne-Sophie will launch a cooking school called Scook, and I dream of attending a class or two. If I could learn to re-create chez moi even one of the singular flavors I experienced at the Maison Pic, I muse as Valence slips from my rearview mirror, I'd be in heaven.
Double rooms from $365, suites from $530. Prix-fixe menus from $160 (lunch) and $285 (dinner). 285 Ave. Victor-Hugo, Valence; 011-33-4-75-44-15-32; pic-valence.com.
The small city of Valence dates from the Roman Empire, though not much character is left here. Its center is a hodgepodge of mid-19th-century buildings, low-rise apartment houses, car dealerships and supermarkets. The busy autoroute cuts the city off from the Rhône River. But beautiful, little-known parts of the Drôme region — often called the gateway to Provence — lie just beyond Valence's borders.
You could certainly spend a day in the Rhône Valley, visiting some of the great Hermitage and Crozes-Hermitage wineries, such as Paul Jaboulet Aîné (jaboulet.com), M. Chapoutier (chapoutier.com) and, in the village of Mauves, the legendary Jean-Louis Chave (by appointment only; 011-33-4-75-08-24-63). If you're addicted to shoes, your next stop should be a half hour northeast of Valence in Romans (ville-romans.com), the center of France's shoemaking industry. Here you can find entire outlets dedicated to Robert Clergerie stilettos, Stéphane Kélian boots and Charles Jourdan pumps for up to 70 percent off retail. There's also a shoe museum, the Musée International de la Chaussure (Rue Bistour; 011-33-4-75-05-51-81), for true fetishists.
Southeast of Valence is the old pottery town of Dieulefit (paysdedieulefit.eu), the home of rustic, gorgeously glazed earthenware in traditional brown and mustard tones. A few miles away is Grignan and the Château de Grignan (011-33-4-75-91-83-55), where the prolific 17th-century letter writer Madame de Sévigné spent time visiting her daughter.
There are great road trips to take as well, notably on Route D4 from Montélimar tojust south of Grignan and on the serpentine D538, which runs north and south from Dieulefit.
For more information, log on to drometourisme.com.