Why the Auvergne is Your Subsequent Culinary Vacation spot

It was an extended strategy to go for a cheese sandwich. However what a sandwich! True, I’d simply climbed the Puy de Sancy—90 minutes of huffing to the highest of an extinct volcano—so something would have tasted good. This was a particular one, although: made with the famend St.-Nectaire, purchased outdoors the city in central France that gave the cheese its title. Tucked between slices of house-made bread pilfered from the resort breakfast and savored with views of hawks drifting on mountain currents, it was higher than something I’d eaten in Paris on the primary leg of my journey—and I’d eaten quite a bit.

This was the second I’d traveled for: an ideal chew on a shocking hike. In northern Italy’s Dolomite mountains final summer season, I’d found that the pairing of heart-racing views and glad exhaustion make each meal memorable—particularly when the meals gives an opportunity to each style and discover the terroir. “Hike to eat” turned my new journey mantra.

I had chosen Auvergne, a area in France’s Massif Central mountain vary, as this 12 months’s vacation spot, as a result of I’d been instructed by a trusted good friend that regardless of the panorama’s magnificence (UNESCO declared the Chaîne des Puys, the area’s emerald necklace of 80 extinct volcanoes, a World Heritage website in 2018), it’s an extended prepare experience from Paris, and thus largely missed by vacationers. Associates who work on this planet of meals and pure wine had additionally raved a couple of resort, Auberge de Chassignolles, and, specifically, its restaurant. The volcanic soil, they stated, makes for magic on the tongue. 

On my stopover in Paris, I observed that among the metropolis’s most enjoyable eating places served beef from Auvergne’s Salers and Aubrac cattle; cheese equivalent to Cantal, Salers, Fourme d’Ambert, and Bleu d’Auvergne; lentils grown within the Puy area; and cult pure wines from the likes of Patrick Bouju and Marie and Vincent Tricot, who work with one of many largest concentrations of pre-phylloxera vines in France. Volvic water? From the Auvergne, too.

As soon as I tuned in to the Auvergne, I started to see it in every single place. (Puy lentils: Now I get it!) François-Régis Gaudry’s important e book Let’s Eat Paris! particulars how the Auvergnats, following their arrival within the capital within the 1850s, got here to run lots of the metropolis’s most iconic eating places, bars, and motels—locations equivalent to Café de Flore, Les Deux Magots, and Maxim’s, that are at present synonymous with Parisian hospitality. 

The little-known area even impressed certainly one of New York’s finest French eating places, Libertine. Co-owner Cody Pruitt shares Auvergnat water and wine, and mixes cocktails with gentian liqueur produced from Alpine flowers at a bar backed by Salvador Dalí’s Auvergne poster for French Railways. “Auvergne is somewhat wild and tough across the edges—nearly somewhat feral,” Pruitt instructed me. “It’s really idyllic.” He’s so in love with Auvergne, which he found by means of visits to winemakers, that he not-so-jokingly instructed his girlfriend that at some point they might transfer to the facet of a volcano.

A couple of diners, impressed by the Auvergnat wines at Libertine, have adopted Pruitt’s recommendation to go to the world—some even DMing him selfies from outdoors Auberge de Chassignolles. “I felt unhealthy sending them into the center of nowhere,” he stated with fun. Fortunately, they cherished it.

Boarding the prepare on the Gare de Bercy, in Paris, my boyfriend and I bought the primary trace as to simply how middle-of-nowhere Auvergne is. I used to be anticipating an iteration of the station subsequent door, the grand Gare de Lyon. As a substitute, the taxi dropped us in entrance of a squat Nineteen Seventies terminal, the place weeds grew from certainly one of six platforms for trains serving the Bourgogne-Pays d’Auvergne areas. 

Three and a half hours later we reached Clermont-Ferrand, the area’s primary metropolis and certainly one of France’s oldest, precisely described by Pruitt as being “half ugly-industrial or generic-brutal—and never in a great way.” (The opposite half, he stated, seemed like a post-medieval village.) However as soon as seated at a family-filled outside café close to the dramatic Gothic cathedral, which was constructed from volcanic rock, I bought a way of town’s medieval appeal. Or possibly it was my delight on the tartare of prized Aubrac beef and a bronze-capped wheel of broiled St.-Nectaire cheese, scooped up with potatoes and charcuterie. 

As we drove out of Clermont-Ferrand, we took word of which villages we wished to return to. We by no means made it again to any of them. Chadeleuf, the place our first resort, Le Clos Dagobert, was hidden, had sufficient attraction to maintain us strolling till our dinner in close by Montpeyroux, a restored hilltop city from the eleventh century that, low season, was heaven to discover within the golden night gentle. Whereas a number of parking heaps on the base of this former wine-making city spoke to its recognition with vacationers through the summer season, in early October our fellow diners within the tiny sq. outdoors the restaurant L’Artwork-Koze had been largely native. The plating of the dishes felt nearly as dated because the city’s medieval tower, however beneath all of the tweezered microgreen garnishes had been scrumptious, correct French sauces—surprisingly laborious to come back by today. 

Within the morning, it was tempting to linger at Clos Dagobert. The restored inside of this grand 1850s constructing is straight out of a French interiors journal, from the Yves Klein–blue ceramics area of interest to the Memphis-style rest room that you’ll certainly end up posting movies of. Even the chickens roaming the pool space had been fashionable sufficient for their very own Instagram account. (Additionally ’grammable: their scrumptious, orange-yolked eggs.) But it turned out the younger hoteliers, Marine and Alexis Raphanel, had been certainly human and intensely candy, guaranteeing that there was all the time a slice of cake in our room and shelling out recommendation in regards to the area with nice satisfaction. 

However the mountains had been calling: it was time to fill our napkins from the buffet and go. Being simply over an hour away from the Massif Central, Le Clos Dagobert makes a beautiful base for village walks. The drives towards them had been beautiful and practically empty. If we wished to drag a U-turn to {photograph} a merchandising machine promoting baguettes, or cease in the midst of the highway to admire an indication with arrows pointing towards cheese makers in all instructions, the largest risk was the occasional tractor or a semi hauling pine timber.

Most guidebooks will let you know that to succeed in the highest of the Puy de Sancy, the best volcano within the vary at 6,184 toes, you possibly can take the cable automotive. Not throughout our go to, you couldn’t. Our choices had been to hike the steep service highway till we reached the primary path, or to make our method by means of a valley with a trickling stream and wildflowers, over a cross lined with boulders which have been pixelating into geometric shards for millennia, and as much as a dramatic scramble between rock formations that my boyfriend felt sure had been the setting for an episode of Recreation of Thrones. We selected the Cinemascope route. Then we climbed the 864 steps to the highest. 

Blitzed on adrenaline on the prime of Sancy, I seemed out at pristine views stretching in nearly each path and was reminded that the world can nonetheless really feel pure. As I wiped away sweat and tears, the panorama got here into focus. I started to note the various trails snaking by means of a valley, noticed the crimson cap of a hiker on one other peak, noticed one other lake within the distance, and realized: We will go to that excellent place, too! And there! And there. And there… 

And so the Auvergne dependancy started, and we started plotting our transfer to the facet of a volcano.

A number of of the younger restaurateurs and winemakers who’ve moved to the Auvergne got here to their fierce love of the area by means of Auberge de Chassignolles. This Nineteen Thirties resort in a village tucked away among the many pines was purchased by a British gastropub chef, Harry Lester, and his spouse, Ali Johnson, in 2006. On the time, Lester did many of the cooking himself—however subsequent house owners got here up with the thought to ask cooks from around the globe to prepare dinner and bake and make merry at breakfast, lunch, and dinner from April by means of October. The scruffy appeal is appreciable sufficient that rooms are nonetheless troublesome to come back by, particularly in summer season. 

A couple of years later, for his youngsters’ education, Lester moved to Clermont-Ferrand, the place he now runs the Comptoir Central des Bazars, a restaurant, wine retailer, and ice cream store. The auberge is now owned by Poppy Saker-Norrish, a 34-year-old winemaker who labored in its kitchen and backyard in 2022. Saker-Norrish had simply been accepted right into a creative-writing grasp’s program in her native New Zealand when she was requested if she’d wish to take over. “As soon as I used to be dwelling, all I may take into consideration was the auberge and the Auvergne,” she recalled. She has maintained its rumpled confidence and real bonhomie, with its 9 easy, just-right rooms and the impromptu neighborhood of friends, younger workers, and visiting winemakers who smoke and play foosball within the tiny city sq. till late. 

Staying at Chassignolles felt somewhat like having a walk-on half in a regional theater manufacturing—one during which a French staffer in a bikini prime and large glasses rushes in earlier than lunch, exclaiming over the wild mushrooms she discovered within the forest that morning. These cèpes starred in a superb risotto at lunch, and at dinner, they surrounded a quivering egg yolk completely ready by Mathilde Denuncq, a younger chef who had taken day off from her restaurant close to Biarritz to make beautiful meals, together with the nice and cozy baguettes and staggering fruit compotes, pots of just-made yogurt, and jars of granola that made up the breakfast unfold. The espresso’s legit. The teas are wonderful. And the wine record reads like a who’s-who of pure winemakers, with hard-to-get bottles that make the visiting house owners of Parisian natural-wine bars sigh. 

Chassignolles isn’t about mountain treks. Every morning, we might ask the bartender/sommelier if we may borrow the resort’s floppy laminated map, after which we’d simply set out in any path. Every stroll felt like a tour of Center Earth. The paths and slender roads had been empty, all main by means of forests of whispering pine timber with comfortable moss beds and borders of blackberry bushes and passing by means of occasional clusters of stone homes that appeared empty, however not deserted. 

This stability of solitude and wild, surprising magnificence shortly turned a theme. One night, the proprietor of Auberge de Chassignolles booked us into Courtroom La Vigne, a restaurant within the minuscule medieval city of Lavaudieu. There we had been met by a good friend from Paris, who had taken the prepare down to affix the journey.

The place was breathtaking—and empty. As was the restaurant, with nobody answering the door, and nobody downstairs as soon as we’d hesitantly let ourselves in. We ventured upstairs and had been greeted by a imaginative and prescient: a room lined with life-size work and witchy curios, the place a lady in her seventies with kohl-rimmed eyes greeted us with glee as experimental accordion music performed on a loop. The kitchen, with its heart-shaped door deal with, despatched out duck terrine, veal with mushrooms, and rockfish with greens. There was one different couple within the room. It was so odd, so beautiful, that we tipped over into church giggles when the squeaky previous cheese trolley was laboriously wheeled out. Our stomachs, sore from laughter, had been comforted by lemon verbena sorbet doused in gentian liqueur.

Tipsy within the moonlight, we explored the city. Take a look at this completely intact museum of artisanal crafts! We must always come again! We learn the word on the door: it had closed for a 12 months of renovations, starting that afternoon.

The subsequent day, we briefly left the eat-hike-sleep idyll to drive my boyfriend again to the prepare in Clermont-Ferrand. Then, in quest of one other hike earlier than dinner, we used the AllTrails app to pick a stroll alongside the drive again, as soon as once more parking in a beautiful, one-café village. But once more, we had been entranced by the sunshine and storybook surroundings, attracted by the great thing about shaded glades and brooks till we reached the beginnings of sundown over the cow-dotted hills. By the point we neared Chassignolles—the roads changing into ever smaller and crazier till we had been satisfied there might be no city on the finish—the sundown demanded that we pull over to marvel. We had been additionally curious to seek out the close by home on the market whose itemizing was posted on the auberge’s bulletin board. We had been pondering like Cody Pruitt and his good friend, who had e-mailed him the itemizing the week earlier than with one phrase: “Halfsies?”

After a ultimate breakfast—throughout which we each vowed, as soon as dwelling, to set out a bowl full of mismatched egg cups à la Chassignolles—we headed southwest towards Cantal. This agricultural space is likely one of the poorest, and most sparsely populated, in France due to its isolation and dependence on fluctuating market costs. Tourism, whereas a promising strategy to reverse the world’s fortunes, is generally restricted to French guests, who go there to hike and bike in summer season and ski in winter.

After passing by means of the what-counted-for-bustling city of Murat, we stopped within the village of Dienne, enchanted by the homes’ hand-cut, teardrop-shaped slate roof tiles, the Twelfth-century church, and the rumored presence of cheese makers. However an previous man tending his backyard instructed us that all the things within the village had closed down. Solely the indicators remained. 

And so we realized one other lesson: in the event you see one thing open, cease! Bakeries, grocery shops, and eating places are few and much between. Many communities lack important providers, equivalent to colleges, hospitals, and even pharmacies. That charming bread merchandising machine isn’t Instagram bait; it’s actuality. 

Again in Murat, we discovered Tendances et Saveurs, a diner with a biker-bar aesthetic that occurred to dry-age its personal beef. We ordered our meat with a facet of truffade, the regional specialty of garlicky, lard-cooked potatoes with melted cheese curd—a.ok.a. the unique cheese pull, a.ok.a. my new favourite meals, particularly when served with rosy slices of native ham.

“I would like a second of silence,” stated my good friend, pointing her fork towards the truffade. Even the fries had been excellent.

Too early to verify in at our subsequent resort, Alta Terra, we drove for a couple of extra miles and took certainly one of many trails winding as much as the Puy Mary, an extinct volcano that’s labeled as a Grand Website de France and sees 500,000 guests every 12 months. Strolling alongside a ridge path flanked by timber, we handed thick-maned horses and stumbled on a barefoot younger lady in a tree, foraging for nuts to make oil. We saved questioning which fairy story we had discovered ourselves in. Grateful for our climbing poles, we bought so far as the snack bar on the base of the steps main as much as the height. We stood and admired the views of mountains and tree-lined valleys from beneath one of many crimson umbrellas that rippled within the wind outdoors an old school chalet restaurant and reward store. Hikers, bikers, motorcyclists, and day-trippers all lingered, soaking all of it in.

The tinkling of distant cowbells that had accompanied our hike was a Symphony in C Main from the sector reverse Alta Terra. On getting into the century-old chalet, we had been hit by the comforting scent of slow-roasting pork. A go to to the hammam and sauna coddled us additional, and by the point we sat right down to dinner on the communal desk, the place we had been the one first-time friends, we fully felt at dwelling. Co-owner Virginie Serre is as adept at steering dialog amongst strangers as she is at getting ready scrumptious meals from native produce, be it a cabbage-and-chestnut salad with foraged mountain thyme or hearty squash lasagna on vegetarian nights. (Her cooking had simply been featured in Le Monde.) Sleep got here simply within the charming cabin for 2 constructed behind the resort, with the solar rising from past the mountains as our alarm.

A sustainable ethos permeates each facet of Alta Terra, right down to the reusable wrap used for the cheese sandwiches that Serre packed for the hike. After spending a couple of days in this pristine area, you wouldn’t wish to muck it up, both. After our picnic, my good friend returned to her fashionable life in Paris, her telephone full of addresses for subsequent 12 months’s trip in the midst of nowhere. After a couple of extra formative hikes and filling meals, it was my flip to go. My final hike was comically picturesque, strolling by means of a mossy allée into wildflower-dotted fields the place cows dozed beside a stream, then as much as a mountain cross, the place one may maintain going for days in any path. Like the fantastic thing about Auvergne, the choices had been infinite. 

A model of this story first appeared within the September 2025 subject of Journey + Leisure underneath the headline “Over the Hills and Far Away.”