Darling

Found it! The best restaurant in Nîmes (besides Alexandre). 'Darling', 40 rue de la Madeleine, Nimes 0466 67 04 99, in the old part of town, is run by chef Vincent Croizard and jolly talented he is too.

The menu, either 39 or 43 euros depending on whether you have a cheese course and pudding or only one of them. The choice is from 4 starters, 6 main dishes, 3 cheese dishes (more of that later) and 4 puddings.

Bob and Lynne, who had also noticed and wanted to try the resto, and us pretty much chose the same starter. Three of us chose the Foie Gras mi-cuit au tandoori, pickels (their spelling not mine), croquant de filo, banyuls, huile d'olive. What we got was a small piece of foie gras, wrapped in a delicate thin layer of filo, with a sweet banyuls sauce and olive oil dressing. Excellent. Lynne chose sardines fraiches, tomates, gaufrette au ras el hanout (I'm surprised that Jan didn't because she like sardines) and pronounced it excellent as well.

(OK, so we realise that you've got a copy of the menu so please spare us all the details - Ed.) I'll spare you all the details (thank you - Ed.) but the following courses carried on in the same vein. The cheese course was not cheese in the regular sense but a selection of dishes made with cheese. Jan's choice was particularly interesting, Brousse de brebis en creme brulee, tym et romarin, miel de kumbawa et citron. Brebis flavoured with the above but with a crackling honey glaze. Unusual and very tasty.

A lot of the wines were local and not massively overpriced. It was Monday night and they were turning away people at the door. I have always said, 'make your offering good, open on Monday when most restaurants are shut and you can't fail'. We'll be back, highly recommended.