Baranis

Fans of A Year in Provence without the price of a Vaucluse villa should colonise Baranis – the funky, brick-lined cellar bar attached to restaurant Cigalon. Throw boules in Britain’s only indoor pétanque alley & go pleasantly off-piste on anise-based cocktails: pastis Henri Bardouin is a highlight, while sipping perroquet, tomate & mauresque to the sound of 60s’ pop musique reprises balmy soirées spent under Aix-en-Provence’s plane trees. Otherwise, thyme daiquiri, Gentiane julep & the non-alcoholic white peach St Clement are summery joy. To eat? Small plates ranging from pissaladière, mussels with fennel or lamb & rosemary brochettes to Corsican sausages with lentils can be enjoyed with a fine cross-section of that island’s under-appreciated wines – a 2004 Patrimonio Domaine Cordoliani, for example. In all, this is a must for Med-heads.