Les Morainieres

Les Morainieres opened in 2005.  It is located in the vineyard-covered hills above Jongieux in Savoie, between the Rhône River and Lac du Bourget. It gained a Michelin star in 2007, a second in 2012 and the ultimate third star in 2026. Its head chef is Michael Arnoult, who trained at Flocons de Sel in Megeve, becoming senior sous chef there before opening Les Morainieres. The restaurant is in a building that was once a wine storage facility, set on a hillside in the Savoie wine country. The restaurant is about 80 minutes’ drive from Lyon airport and has an associated guest house with half a dozen rooms. This is a few kilometres from the restaurant but a shuttle van runs between the restaurant and the guest house.

There is a beautiful view out over the valley below Les Morainieres, and an outside terrace for drinks. The dining room itself is downstairs, with generously spaced tables and picture windows with a fine view out. Two tasting menus were available. The shorter one was priced at €220 (£190) and the longer one at €280 (£241).

The wine list was extensive and had dozens of wines below €100, which makes a change from central London these days. Examples included Domaine les Mangeux d'Pierre Berlance 2023 at €60 for a wine that you can find in the high street for €17, Vignoble Deleu Litote 2024 at €75 compared to its retail price of €36, and Laurent Tribut Chablis 2022 at €85 for a bottle that will set you back €36 in a shop. For those with the means, Domaine de Trevallon 2009 was €370 compared to its retail price of €295, and Chave Hermitage Blanc 2022 was €480 for a wine that has a current market price of €279. Some of the top wines were very fairly priced. For example the Domaine de la Romanée Conti Echezeaux 2020 was listed at €2,650 compared to a current market value of €3,504.

An initial canapé had two different cheeses topped with a local fruit along with polenta and pepper. This was pleasant but unremarkable. Better was a cigar-shaped mushroom roll, served warm, which had good flavour and nice texture (16/20 canapés, just about). This was followed by arctic char mousse with potato. This fish has firm flesh and a flavour somewhat like trout or salmon; it is related to both. I liked this dish, which had pleasing texture, the potato being a nice flavour complement to the richness of the fish (17/20). Squash leaf with garden nuts was quite aromatic and had a good balance of textures. There is a limit to how exciting this was ever going to be, but it was light and enjoyable (16/20).

The first formal dish was one of concentrated tomatoes from a Loire vegetable supplier Maison Huitric, made with fresh cheese and marigold. On the side was a glass of tomato water, and also toasted mouillettes (essentially bread soldiers i.e. thin strips of toasted bread dipped in egg). This dish worked well, the tomatoes having excellent deep flavour and working nicely with the toast (17/20). 

River Trout from Beaufort came with carrot, lemon and cumin sauce. The trout itself was pleasant rather than exciting, but the dish was lifted by the lovely sauce, the cumin working nicely and the acidity of the lemon balancing the richness of the trout (17/20). Next was catfish with potatoes, onions and pike caviar with a herb sauce. Catfish has a mild, almost sweet flavour and is a fish that is widely used in Cajun cuisine. This dish worked really well, the fish having excellent flavour, the potatoes being a good pairing and the excellent herb sauce bringing plenty of aromatic flavour (18/20).

Crayfish from the local river Rhone arrived in two forms. First was a crayfish tartare in a ring of herbs with mandarin butter. In a separate dish was crayfish tail, and finally there was brioche with crayfish butter. This was a very good dish, the crayfish tails tender, the tartare working well and nicely cut through by the acidity of the mandarin (17/10). Seasonal mushrooms were next, a pretty display including girolles and Paris mushrooms, along with ground ivy, which did not add much but also did not distract from the good girolles. On the side was a glass of excellent mushroom broth (strong 17/20). 

Lake Bourget whitefish (fera) with zucchini, broth and courgettes was correctly cooked and had a pleasant ratatouille broth. However, courgettes are just not that exciting as a flavour. For the fish, I have had better versions of fera, a firm-fleshed whitefish that occurs in Alpine lakes. The best version I ever had was at Marc Veyrat’s legendary three-star restaurant in Annecy, where the cookery was so precise that I can still recall the dish decades later. The version here was good rather than memorable (16/20).

Shoulder of confit veal with tarragon and mustard was served alongside veal sweetbread. The two different interpretations of veal were both very good indeed. The sweetbread was light and airy while the confit veal had excellent flavour. There was also a deeply flavoured mushroom broth, which was lovely (18/20). An alternative meat dish was Charolais beef with tomatoes, which I also tasted, and was similarly very good. 

In place of a cheese board was goat cheese and shallots wrapped in a ball of lettuce. This was distinctly unremarkable, the lettuce not an obvious complement to the goat cheese (14/20). An initial sweet comprised garden herbs, fermented milk and meringue. This was very herbal but quite refreshing. However, I just don’t think that this kind of greenery in desserts is a good plan, popular as it is with trend-chasing pastry chefs these days (14/20). 

A dessert of rhubarb with elderflower was pleasant but had rather a chunky texture, though it was not too sharp (14/20). Better was a dish of strawberries with mild Faisselle cheese, fir buds and strawberry ice cream, which had excellent flavour. This dish used farmed strawberries rather than gariguettes, but they were nonetheless very good, and the ice cream texture was silky smooth. Strawberries and cheese sounds like an odd combination but somehow this worked (17/20). A range of mignaridise appeared to go with coffee, including a soufflé of chocolate and chartreuse. 

Service was lovely, with an excellent female sommelier and friendly waiting staff. The bill came to €970 each (£837) but that was because we splashed out on some very expensive wine, one bottle of which (Oliver Leflaive Le Montrachet 2017) was a relative bargain, well below its retail price. If you opted for the shorter menu and shared a modest bottle of wine (and there were plenty available) then you could easily get away with spending around €280 (£241) per person.

Overall, this was a very good meal in a pretty location, with charming staff and a fabulous view from the dining room. It wasn’t 3-star level in my view, but that is an issue for Michelin rather than the restaurant, which is producing some very good food at a price that is quite fair by the standards of fine dining.