Le Parc, Carcassonne

S decided to help restore my blip mojo by taking me out to lunch at a restaurant we've been meaning to try for a while, Le Parc, which got its second Michelin star last year. We don't eat at Michelin-starred restaurants often -- can't afford it! -- but Franck Putelat has thought of this, and if you go at lunchtime you can have a 3-course "business lunch" with a glass of wine for 35 euros -- which is very reasonable for this exceptional standard of cooking.

As ever in this type of restaurant, the service was a bit nannyish -- every time I prepared to take a photo, a staff member would appear at my elbow offering bread, topping up water, or supplying cutlery. I don't like to make a big performance of taking photos in restaurants anyway, so I only took a few. This is my aperitif, which was really delicious: wild cherry syrup and Campari, topped up with blanquette de Limoux. I'm glad I didn't ask the price before I ordered it though, because it turned out to cost 14 euros. It certainly bumped up their profit margin on our meal :) Go large to see the bubbles (and the cherry).

The food was superb, especially the dessert, created by an artist of patisserie: a chocolate millefeuille with juniper sorbet and a cube of gorgeous grapefruit mousse encased in a bright pink chocolate coating. It's the modern molecular style of cuisine, but it is not over-fussy, and features intensely concentrated and classic combinations of flavours. As in all classy restaurants, attention to detail extends to the simplest things -- beautiful sourdough bread with Bordier salted butter that I wanted to wrap up and take home with me. Someday when we are feeling flush I'd like to go back and try the tasting menu.

After lunch we thought we needed a bit of fresh air and exercise, so we went for a stroll round the Cité, during which we found bits of Carcassonne we have never discovered before -- very close to the tourist hub, yet just as run-down and dilapidated as the rest of Carcassonne. I took some photos, but they were all repeatable ones, so I decided to blip this glass of fizz instead.