Around Montpellier, from Sète to Pézenas

Montpellier was first and foremost a city of physicians, and its oldest confectionery bears the traces of that heritage. Tradition traces the birth of grisettes to 1150, created by an apothecary of the faculty of medicine: small balls of liquorice and honey, black beneath their white sugar. Merchants in the city reportedly handed them out as small change to pilgrims on the way to Santiago de Compostela. Their name is said to come from the Montpellier women of bygone days, stylish and dressed in grey. Today, they are made in a workshop holding the Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant label.

In Sète, the cuisine has the accent of the Gulf of Naples. The tielle is attributed to fishermen from Gaeta who settled here: an octopus pie spiced with tomato and chilli, recognisable by its crimped edge. To the same Italian families we owe the macaronade, macaroni in a tomato sauce with beef brageoles — the only meat dish the town claims. The sea returns with rouille de seiche, a dish from the fishing port: cuttlefish simmered with saffron, white wine and tomato, bound with a garlic rouille.

Between Sète and Mèze, the Thau lagoon is lined with some 2,500 shellfish tables. Oysters were already harvested here in Gallo-Roman times: excavations at the Loupian villa showed that they were shipped as far as Rome. Modern farming began in the canals of Sète, before water pollution pushed the beds towards the shores of Bouzigues at the start of the 20th century. Around 450 oyster farmers now produce nearly 13,000 tonnes of oysters and mussels a year here. This is also the home of the brasucade: lagoon mussels cooked in a large pan over a fire of vine shoots, and eaten with your fingers.

In 1768, Lord Clive, Viceroy of India, stayed in Pézenas to be treated in Montpellier. His Indian cook served his guests small stuffed pastries whose secret he closely kept; upon leaving, Clive is said to have offered the recipe to the town. The petit pâté de Pézenas is what remains: a bobbin-shaped cylinder of pastry filled with lamb, brown sugar and lemon zest. Around 250,000 are made each year, and a brotherhood has watched over the recipe since 1991. A few kilometres away, Lézignan-la-Cèbe has been cultivating the cèbe for four centuries: a flat, mild, sweet onion, harvested from June to August and sold on the markets of the Hérault by around ten producers.

To the east, the plain opens onto the Camargue, a land of ranching before one of cooking. The taureau de Camargue lives here roaming free outdoors, reared extensively to preserve its wild character; it is inseparable from the Camargue horse and the gardians who herd it. Its meat is eaten as a gardiane, the 'daube des Gardians': marinated for hours in red wine, then gently simmered over a low heat. Alongside the manades, the delta's paddy fields yield riz de Camargue, with PGI (IGP) status.

Before heading home, stock up on provisions that travel well: the lucques, a crescent-shaped green olive, and huile d'olive du Languedoc, both with PDO (AOP) status; pélardon, a small raw-milk goat's cheese, also holding a PDO. Everything you need to recreate, far from the lagoon, an aperitif with the scent of the garrigue.

Entry written on 05/10/2026 — Last updated: 05/10/2026