Offer of wines by the glass of importance

Since Wednesday and until Sunday evening, Gérardmer lives to the rhythm of the Festival of fantastic film, and it is the excitement in the city. A festival which is a sort of rehearsal for the best hotels and restaurants in the city, the brigades take legs, before the massive influx of February snow lovers.

City Centre, the Grand Hotel, historic flagship of the hostellerie gérômoise (it was founded in 1860), a rating. Two restaurants, the Grand Cerf (solemn) and the base of the cock in the ass (Vosges farm decor). The latter used a pork feet pastilla which, followed by a tartiflette or a sauerkraut Strasbourg, comfort after a day of skiing.

At the Lake, at the Hotel Beau Rivage, the roof of Lake, restaurant Lounge Bar located at the top of the hotel is the meeting place for those who want to appear "up to date". In the menu, view on the Lake, cool decor, buffet of entries way antipasti, and meat or fish to grilled.

For a light snack (plate of raw ham omelette with herbs, cheese, fatty liver House, and pastry plate) how tea room, in the hollow of a charming hotel, try lunch the Manoir du Lac, overhang of the latter.

Outside the walls of the city, but close, the Hostellerie des Bas Rupts - Le Chalet Fleuri, a Relais & Châteaux is the local institution. The Chief, Francois Lachaux, best worker of France, remains "traditional" while introducing a bit of modernity here and there, sometimes next to the plate, as with this basmati (sic!) with mushroom risotto and veal shank. Good idea however, entries and dishes in half. This is the case of the liver and duck in terrine of Pike quenelles poached gently on fragments of meal and shellfish coulis, and guts to riesling, all on the line of ridges of refined classicism and good-natured. Comfortable cellar rich in bordeaux.

More later in the mountains, two chiefs to follow. The first, Olivier Lapotre, trained by Pierre Gagnaire in Saint-Etienne and Michel Bruneau at Caen, who succeeds a skillful marriage between tradition and modernity as well in the kitchen and room in his charming cottage, the collar, to the col of the Schlucht. The ideas are there, and well selected products. Vinaigrette of leeks verrine and snout of beef, poultry livers reverse cream and bread and Sesame grilled, nicely feed the appetite, which is not weakening when attack peasant sausage (in provenance as the black pudding from Alain Tisserand, excellent boucher Xonrupt-Longemer deli nearby), lenses apples peeled dress, the saint-jacques snackées juices of beets and mashed as"MOM". Desserts are quality. Recommended, the Black Forest and slush sour with snap in the mountains, a pair of skis in sablé. The dining room is divided into two, the kitchen opens on a part, and the other, a plasma screen to monitor the work of the brigade before its blast furnaces.

Philippe Laruelle, solid gaillard of thirty-five years, installed in the heart of the Valley of the Valtin, in the small village of the same name, is the other challenger. Student at the time of Joël Robuchon and of Alain Ducasse, which is not obvious, successful performance in his village lost to taste cuisine based on selected products. A map of Val Joli, squeezed bread of spices and foie gras chutney mirabelles, cream hot chestnuts crispy wild boar Bacon, pigeon Valley and foie gras in puff pastry étuvée green cabbage, or COD Valtin turnips sauerkraut ALE butter, régalent finesse. Menu truffles well tied. Offer of wines by the glass of importance. When it sleeps on the spot, we can see, early in the morning, cows and deer almost before Windows.