There is a restaurant so good in the region that you might expect to find it in London, New York or Paris. In fact, it might be easier to find La Raffinerie in one of these cities, rather than tucked away by the Canal du Midi on the Quai du Pont Neuf in Béziers. However, if you manage to circumnavigate the city’s one-way system you will arrive at a large industrial building, formerly used to crush sulphur shipped from Sicily for distribution in the local vineyards, hence its name. The first impression is of a large purple painted wall, the remnant of an old millstone. Walking into the restaurant, you find yourself in a triangular room, rich and sombre, brown, and with comfortable chairs. Knowledgeable staff is on hand to guide you through the menu, offering French based international cuisine, paying homage to Spanish and Italian cooking. For instance there is black risotto and calamari, or cannelloni made with goat’s cheese on a bed of courgettes and asparagus. There is also pork curry, sea bream, and lamb among the main courses. Portions are adequate rather than ample. The wine list is one of the best in the region, culled largely from the cellar of Philippe Catusse, a Béziers-based supplier who has cultivated many of the best winemakers for a number of years. Take your pick from some of the best Saint Chinians’, Faugères’, or Roussanne’s, ranging from €16-€24. Probably better value is Domaine de l’Arjolle’s Clos St Gabriel at €14.50. Wine boffs might baulk at the fact that there is not a bottle of Burgundy or Bordeaux in sight, but it proves that you don’t have to go outside of the region to drink well. It is no surprise to see the mayors of Béziers and Pézenas dining there, as well as a healthy sprinkling of local winemakers and local bourgeoisie. Holidaymakers lured by the bright lights of the coast are missing a treat, particularly eating out on the terrace at night overlooking the canal. The huge plane trees are theatrically lit, attracting a cloud of moths and bats that provides a cabaret of romance. Fancy a pudding? You can choose from crème brulée, pot au chocolat, fruits and sorbets. Coffee? It is good and strong. The cheese board, like the wine list, is culled from a good regional selection. The owner and manager claims that his inspiration for the place came from Chez Philippe, the celebrated restaurant in Marseillan. Here you can catch a waiter’s eye and he will actually respond rather than wink at you. For our money, Stefan has improved on the original, bringing flair, along with good manners and service to La Raffinierie. If this refined version maintains its dazzling start, this will be a place for many a memorable lunch and dinner. As yet, it is not booked up months in advance, but make sure you go there while you can still get a table. Prices around €25 per head including coffee.

I agree this is a great place to eat, and have had some very good food here. My only complaint is the service I had, I called on a saturday night to book a table for three and asked to arrive as late as possible (not a good start in France) but they took my booking for 9pm and we arrived on time. We had a very warm welcome and were shown to the table...after that it all went down hill fast, our waiter was clearly not happy at having to serve us so late, no smiles at all from him, he even started to clear the plates before my partner had finished eating. It spoiled what would have been a great evening, It's the first time in my life I have left and not given a tip! I would go back but with a grudge and that's not what it's about. So if you go, go early and you will maybe have the service you are paying for!!

The situation is perfect: canal-side setting with plane trees and so quiet it's hard to realise that Beziers' railway station and main through road are 100 m away. The restaurant is converted from an old sulpher refinery (sulphur for spraying vines against fungus). The decor can only be described as "stark" with the only decoration a pair of pictures of Bull-fighters with totally morose countenances. The staff at La Raffinerie take their cue from the Bull-fighters - no-one smiles and the woman behind the bar smokes constantly. The place was full of young black-suited Beziers salesmen on expenses which may tell you something. The lunch menu seemed a trifle pricey at €20 for two dishes (entree+plat chaude or plat chaude+dessert). I ordered smoked salmon followed by fish - Dorade. The smoked salmon was miniscule, around 12 grammes I'd say, and served on top of a sodden blini. I couldn't eat the blini and the salmon disappeared in one-and-a-half mouthfuls. When the Dorade appeared I thought they had served the wrong fish. It looked like boiled hake with the skin still attached on one side. (You can leave skin on some fish as long as it's fried - but boiled? No!) I'd ordered a half-bottle of St Chinian rosee but there arrived a Vin du Pays Doc. La Raffinerie must do better than this.

There has been much talk recently about Muslim integration into French society. It is hard for an outsider to see whether this is happening. However, compared to Britain - which has seemingly done rather well in integrating its immigrant population - one is struck by an overwhelming fact. What is Britain’s national dish? Fish and chips? Steak and kidney pudding? Actually it’s chicken tikka masala - as former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook famously attested to in his speech on immigration a few years back. It is now a rite of passage for young Brits to gather in Indian curry houses of an evening. This may have started out as a lark, or simply because there was nowhere else that stayed open late and served edible food. But the fact that Brits were prepared to eat curry, rice and popadoms showed a certain tolerance towards its immigrants, and may have helped them feel welcome. In contrast, in France, you struggle to find anywhere that even serves couscous. The last foreign dish the French adopted was probably Chicken Kiev, and that was centuries ago. Maybe it takes French palates a couple of generations to adapt to new tastes. But in the meantime, where do five million Muslims from North Africa go for dinner? Around Béziers, the discerning few go to Le Couscous Royal, where one can enjoy a Maghreb dinner of high quality and few pretensions - reminiscent of a curry house in a provincial English town. Hidden away in the old town of Béziers, just around the corner from the cathedral, it sounds like it has been nicknamed by Quentin Tarantino. The décor is North African, and the lighting bright rather than subdued. But the crowd that gathers is lively. They enjoy the large portions, the Moroccan wine with its unpronounceable and forgettable name, and the stewardship of its jolly manager. She will advise you to cut back on the order if you try to order too much food, as we did. Many of the dishes on the menu, such as the tagine, can only be ordered at the weekend and 24 hours in advance. However, the couscous is always available, served with chicken, meat or merguez sausages. If you need more sauce you will be given it. Going to Le Couscous Royal may be a small step in showing solidarity with France’s Muslim population, but it is also an enjoyable way to spend an evening. Price around €20 per person

To celebrate 4 years in Languedoc we went out to this restaurant after hearing many good reports - and were not disappointed. It was a Tuesday night so the place was a bit quiet but we were soon joined by 8 other diners which helped to liven the place up a bit.
The restaurant decor is smart and modern but lacks soul. Made up of 4 dining-rooms and a covered patio. The staff (and there was no shortage of them) were delightful and very helpful with the menu. We chose a special 6 course ‘discovery’ menu which we all had and asked that it include two particular dishes that we liked the sound of.
Entree: scallops served on a hot rock (still cooking) with a bowl of potato ‘foam’ with spinach and parmesan flakes to dip them into. Beautiful scallops and the foam was light in both texture and flavour so the delicate scallops came through.
Fish: fillet of Rouget served on a bed of calamari cooked in ink, with new potatoes. The fish was beautifully cooked and the bed of calamari delicious.
Meat: Moroccan lamb - the most tender piece of lamb I have had in a long time cooked to perfection with subtle spices served with various sauces on the plate, red pepper, a wonderful lemon sauce that gave the dish a new dimension and a harissa sauce.
Cheese: an impressive selection of cheeses the Margual was excellent.
Desserts: the first a divine pear soufflé with a spoonful of pear souorbet dropped in the middle and then a dash of Poire William - so light and with an intense flavour. Then can a chocolate affair with caramel brittle - looked amazing but disappointing.
Overall the prentation was stunning and we ate like Kings. Even though it sounds like a huge amount of food we were not over-full as the portion size was well judged. The wine menu was interesting and covered many other regions of France and included a choice of magnums too which was nice to see. Cost per head for this menu (including two bottles of wine) €75, however if you ate from the carte the cost could be considerably less.
I would recommend this place as the food is certainly not 'run of the mill' and Fabien Lefebvre is producing some exciting food from local produce.

I find it so much more difficult reviewing the food serverd at 'fancy' restaurants. The trick is to peel away all the pretention - the decor, the presentation, the rarity of the ingredients, the deferential showmanship of the staff - and judge just the food. And the food at Octopus is good - but just not that good when you consider the high prices. It's very imaginative, experimental, and beautifully presented. But I found the flavous a little mute and some of the combinations just didn't work. The food at L'Ambassade is better - even though the decor is atrotious and the service awfully stiff. The decor at Octopus was pleasant - but really not that special. Not compared to similarly priced restaurants in London. It was a little like an upmarket PizzaExpress to be honest. I suppose that's where the French really stumble when it comes to food. Too much deference and pretention - and an inability to question a prevailing food 'authority 'that holds prissy decorativeness and expensive ingredients above flavour.

Fab little restaurant. Traditional food with a modern twist.And not a bite wasted! (My husband was most upset that he didn`t get a share of my steak!) Cooked to perfection and beautifully presented. Decor; walls covered in autographed pics of all the great film stars, lots of antiques in a tranquil, lamplit atmosphere.Tempted to keep it a secret!

You can't expect too much from Asian restaurants in France, let alone Languedoc, but this Thai restaurant in the centre of Beziers is not bad at all - and a very welcome relief to months of French food. The dishes aren't terribly authentic and not hot at all, and probably as Chinese as they are Thai (I imagine the owners are Vietnamese) but the ingredients were good and fresh, and the food very tasty and quite diverse. The parwns in sweet chili sauce were delicious - large, plump and juicy, and the fried chicken in lemon sauce was also very good. The staff are very friendly, and the manageresse lots of fun - espeically when she proudly brough out her collection of pornographic shot glasses - it was a nice touch of 'Pat Pong' to round a good evening off...

Really interesting simple small Wine Bar-Restaurant, serving French dishes and Tapas. Concentration on range of good Wines. Good ambiance and friendly service.

This most French of French restaurants offers some truly spectacular food - the sort you'd probably pay a small fortune for in London or Paris. But the €28, €38 and €54 menus are really very reasonable when you consider the quality of the fare. After a d'amuse bouche of frothy cream of artichoke broth with nut oil and hazlenuts, I dove into a delicious starter of foie gras, boudin (blood sausage) on top of mashed potato and a glazed slice of apple. My main of pigeon breast (incredibly tender) and livers was also superb. After a pre-dessert the ordered deserts looked like something out of the museum of modern art - very architectural and spectacular and very rich. Unfortunately, like so many French restaurants, the ambiance was lacking. The decor, strangely circa 1985, felt more like a dated office suite than a restaurant. And the service was very formal and stilted, lots of grastronmic deferance and pomp and circumstance. Overall, though, I don't mind sitting in an office and waited on by nervous staff when the food was quite this superb. I haven't had food any better than this anywhere in Languedoc. If they could just move the whole thing into a space more fitting, with heavy wood panneling, perhaps, antiques and an open fire, it would be perfect. I have to add that this is also a place for the wine connoisseur. The wine list is an impressive book with a fantastic collection of wines from all regions and this is backed up with knowledgable Somellier. We chose a wonderful AOC Chablis Grossot to go with the starters (most of the party was eating fish) followed by 1995 Hermitage Grippat and then an excellent local Pinot Noir from Bedarieux, VDP d'OC Clovallon 2005. A place for a celebration or just that special occasion.

The restaurant, which is situated in Les Halles, has a young, animated clientele. There are large screens around the bar area, on which I have only seen football and rugby matches. However, there is not the atmosphere of a sports bar, and conversation at the table is not drowned out. On Thursday nights they have concerts, which I cannot comment on as I have never been on a Thursday night. The food ranges from pizzas and their house hamburger to minced magret de canard served with fried fois gras. All the dished I have ordered have been excellent quality, and superb value for money. The service has only ever failed once, when we had to ask for a coffee three times. Altogether, it is a very pleasant evening out. You could easily imagine yourself in London, New York or Paris. Note that there is a doorman that will not let you enter if you are wearing jogging trousers. I don't know yet if shorts will be permitted in summer, as the restaurant only opened last Autumn.

we ate here on Sunday and it was disapointing. We opted for a tapas platter which arrived nicely decorated however it was mainly bruscheta which was impossible to eat so we just ate the toppings! we had hamburgers to follow which were Ok not great and there was no fois gras (to be fair the menu no longer says this). As it was quiet the staff sat aroung reading the newspaper and having a cigarette, i had to go to the bar to get a glass of wine. Things did improve when a new waiter came on duty he stopped at each table to check all was ok and was very pleasant.

This is one of our favourite restaurants. The cuisine is extremely good and of very high quality. We go there regularly for lunch after shopping, as it is close to Les Halles. The menu though small is satisfyingly innovative and the specials absolutely deserving of the name. Real favourites are prawns with coconut milk risotto and lasagne of moules in a citronella sauce. Every visit is a true gourmet experience. We cannot recommend Le Petit Monmartre highly enough

This is one of our favourite restaurants. The cuisine is extremely good and of very high quality. We go there regularly for lunch after shopping, as it is close to Les Halles. The menu though small is satisfyingly innovative and the specials absolutely deserving of the name. Real favourites are prawns with coconut milk risotto and lasagne of moules in a citronella sauce. Every visit is a true gourmet experience. We cannot recommend Le Petit Monmartre highly enough

Everything about the evening meal we recently had at le Petit Monmartre was excellent. There was a small unpretentious menu of top quality food cooked to perfection. We are very grateful to the previous review which prompted us to visit and we'll most definately be back.