Even if it hadn’t been recommended, we still would’ve been intrigued by the name.
L’Auberge du Petit Bistro roughly translates as “the inn of the little cafe”.
It is the biggest restaurant in Vinsobres, France. Considering the size of the village, it is a surprisingly large restaurant. Our guess is that between all the seating areas, the bar, inside dining area and two outside dining areas, they could seat well over a hundred customers. The village population including the surrounding farms is only around 1200 people. That means they can seat around one-tenth of the entire village population.
We showed up to Domain Jaume for a wine tasting around lunch time, so they requested we go eat at the Bistro and they’d be ready when we got back.
The Bistro
They told us to leave our car at the winery as it was pretty close to a two minute walk to the bistro (only 100 meters, check out the sign!).
To say the village is quaint is an understatement. Walking around you can imagine how nice it would be to live there. The village is well kept and extremely clean.
The bistro has two dining areas outside. One small area directly in front of the original front door. The other across the mini-square. If the weather had been slightly warmer, we would definitely have eaten outside.
The square has four small roads coming into it. The roads will barely pass two cars simultaneously. Even smaller trucks have a tight fit. Based on the layout of the village and surrounding roads, this must’ve been the original “town square”.
Inside is almost unbelievable. It starts out with the old original bar room in front, then down some stairs to a good sized dining area. The lower area is where the main door is. The dining area is fairly modern and chic. And as you can see from the pictures, there’s plenty of room. We were there on a Friday for lunch, and it was pretty full.
The Food
Ah yes, the food. You never know what you’re going to get when you go to a village where one restaurant does the bulk of the village’s dining experience. Our improptu repaste at various local restaurants has gone any number of ways for us (you only read about the good ones, feel free to read about why that is in JMO Reviews and Articles).
This place pleasantly surprised us for a number of reasons. While we like pubs (which is what the building kind of looks like from the outside), but when you’re in France, bistro food is a must. They had everything you could ask for from a bistro. Even escargots!
Even though we would soon be tasting wine at Domain Jaume, we decided to have wine with our meal. France is a great place to have wine at lunch!
The Village
We were so intrigued by our short walk of the village from Domain Jaume to the Bistro, we decided to stroll through the rest of the Centro portion. The original village is absolutely georgeous. It’s set on a small hill at the base of the French Alps and the views are extroardinary. As expected, most of the houses are remininscent of the old style European look. Very charming, and unbelievably quiet.
As we walked through the village, we literally imagined ourselves living there. We almost stayed in the bed and breakfast in the village, and will always wonder what it would’ve been like if we had.
If we come back, there’s a good chance we’ll do that.