Designed by starchitect Tadao Ando, visitors to the Arts Center can dine at this recently opened restaurant that features a stunning choice of homemade dishes. Guests can order Caesar salad, goats' cheese tarts with spinach and pine nuts, pasta and flakey fruit pies before setting on their art walk through the pine-shaded sculpture trail. La Coste’s vineyard’s boutique/ café offers wine-tasting and light lunches with a variety of charcuterie and cheese platters, copious salads and tarts made from fruit and vegetables plucked from the Louis Benech-designed garden.

This veritable Aix landmark on the tree-lined Cours Mirabeau is named after the two waiters who bought it in 1840 and transformed it into the city’s first café (locals refer to it as the “2G”). It was a hotspot for intellectuals, politicians and artists of the day, including Cézanne and his friend, Emile Zola, as well as Edith Piaf, Jean Cocteau, Churchill, Sartre and Camus. It was also one of Picasso’s rare haunts during his reclusive years in Vauvenargues. The magnificent décor remains unchanged, with antique chandeliers, ceiling fans, gilded mirrors and a frieze of golden angels and classic waiters in black vests and white shirts. Try the fresh oysters and assorted shellfish platters, or the reliably good plat du jour.

Set back on a country road between St.-Rémy-de-Provence and Eygalières, this luminous modern restaurant is always buzzing with well-heeled locals who come for the delicious three-course lunch specials. The Belgian owners, Michèle and Michaël Roumain—who is also the chef—excel in a small, changing menu of market-driven dishes: beef tartare heaped with parmesan shavings and arugula, sea bass à la plancha with stuffed vegetables, free-range roast chicken with rosemary-infused zucchini cannelloni, and local goats' cheese or a mouthwatering baba au Cointreau with vanilla whipped cream for dessert. Diners sit in a pretty, refurbished barn with a white minimalist décor. Book in advance, since the unbeatable prices at this friendly stylish haunt have put Mollèges—an otherwise unremarkable village—on the map.