Le Doyenne Saint-Vrain, France

There is something wonderfully audacious about Le Doyenne. Leave Paris behind, drive into the countryside and arrive at a restaurant whose most important ingredient may be the patch of earth outside its windows.

Set in the former stables of Chateau de Saint- Vrain, Le Doyenne is the creation of Australian chefs James Henry and Shaun Kelly. Here, the garden is not a supporting act. It's effectively the menu. The estate's regenerative farm supplies vegetables, fruit and herbs, and what is ready to harvest dictates what reaches the table.

Vegetables arrive raw, charred, fermented, smoked or transformed into sauces and accompaniments, retaining enough character to remind you where they came from. Recent menus have included everything from tuna with fennel, pistachio and marjoram to duck with bearnaise and courgette flower, followed by the sort of inventive dessert - fennel, blackcurrant and coffee, for instance - that makes you reconsider vegetables as a dessert course.


The glass-and-wood dining room, overlooking the grounds, completes the bucolic spell. Le Doyenne succeeds because its philosophy never feels bolted on: the farm, kitchen and landscape are one continuous idea.