The Midi-Pyrenees and Languedoc-Roussillon Restaurants

As a rule, the closer you get to the Mediterranean coast, the later you dine and the more you pay for your seafood platter and that bottle of iced rosé. The farther you travel from the coast, the higher the altitude, the more rustic the setting you'll find yourself in, and the more reasonable the prices will be. During the scorching summer months in sleepy mountain villages, lunches are light, interminable, and bien arrosé (French for "with lots of wine"). Here you can also find that small personal restaurant where the chickens roasting on spits above the open fire have first names and the cheese comes from the hippie couple down the road who came here in the '60s and love their mountains, their goats, and the universe in general.