France Revisited asked Jenny Eagle, a British journalist living in Montpellier, to introduce our readers to her adopted city and its surroundings and to suggest several luxury hotels and gastronomic restaurants in that Mediterranean city and region where Provence gives way to Languedoc. Jenny writes:

Tell your American friends that you’re going to the south of France and they’ll likely think you’re headed to Provence and the Côte d’Azur. Immediately, they’ll start telling you about their own experiences in sunny squares, lavender fields, hilltop villages, Aix-en-Provence, Cannes, Nice, Saint-Tropez, Marseille, and all of southern France that lies east of the Rhone River.

Yet southern France isn’t limited to its eastern Mediterranean coast as it edges toward Italy and the Alps. It also follows a western and southwestern arc toward Spain and the Pyrenees. Curve right as you approach the Mediterranean from the north, as the train does, and you’ll soon reach Montpellier, perhaps the least known (to Americans, at least) of France’s ten largest cities. Montpellier weighs in at number seven, with a population of about 320,000, or over 800,000 including the metropolitan area.

Here, just eight miles inland from the Mediterranean, where Provence has given way to Languedoc, lies a dynamic southern city where medieval streets and grand private mansions meet contemporary architecture, a vibrant university scene, noteworthy gastronomy and a robust if lesser-known wine region right on its doorstep. It has many of the ingredients that make destinations to cities in Provence and along the Riviera attractive—history, culture, food, wine, sunshine and the Mediterranean—but it’s a city that feels less defined by tourism.

Nevertheless, tourism is on the upswing, and while Americans naturally lag in numbers behind European and Mediterranean travelers, it may not be too long before one of those friends to whom you mention the south of France tells about his or her first trip here.

Before suggesting several luxury hotels where you might set down your bags to explore Montpellier and its surroundings and offering several suggestions for a gastronomic meal, here’s a brief introduction to the city itself.

The Écusson and other highlights

The historic center of Montpellier is known as the Écusson, meaning heraldic shield, for its shape. It’s the obvious place to begin. Its medieval streets open onto elegant squares and reveal a remarkable collection of private mansions built when Montpellier was a prosperous center of commerce, scholarship and medicine.

The Place de la Comédie, dominated by the 19th-century Opéra Comédie and the fountain of the Three Graces, is the city’s popular meeting place. From there, the streets lead towards the late-17th-century strollway called Promenade du Peyrou, the Arc de Triomphe (1691), and the late-Gothic Saint-Pierre Cathedral.

The Jardin des Plantes, founded in 1593, provides a living reminder of Montpellier’s intellectual heritage. Created for teaching at the city’s medical school, it is one of Europe’s oldest botanical gardens. The medical school itself, which can also be visited and continues to flourish, was founded in 1220!

Yet Montpellier is not a city preserved in amber. Its newer districts have become showcases for contemporary architecture, from Ricardo Bofill’s monumental Antigone to more recent buildings around Port Marianne and the Lez River. This mixture of old and new is one of the city’s defining characteristics.

Montpellier is also distinctly youthful. Its universities and prestigious institutions of higher learning called grandes écoles attract the city a student population of 80,000, which partially explains the proliferation of cafés, wine bars, cultural venues and restaurants. The result is a southern French city with an especially energetic atmosphere.

The Mediterranean is close enough to shape the atmosphere without dominating it. Beaches can be reached within a short distance, while the Étang de Thau, Sète and the vineyards north of the city offer easy excursions. Montpellier, capital of the department or subregion of Hérault, is also a natural base for exploring the Languedoc wine country. (See Beyond Montpellier at the bottom of this article.)

The city’s cultural and sporting calendar is anything but provincial. FISE Montpellier, created in 1997, has grown into one of Europe’s largest urban-sports events. Held in May on the banks of the Lez, the event brings together 2700 amateur and professional athletes and hundreds of thousands of spectators for competitions in BMX, skateboarding, roller, freestyle scooter, parkour, breaking and other disciplines.

In September, the Arabesques Festival provides a completely different expression of Montpellier’s Mediterranean identity. The two-week festival celebrates contemporary creations and heritage of the Arab world through concerts, dance, cinema, literature, visual arts and discussion.

Whatever time of year you might visit, be sure to check out the schedules of Montpellier’s premier stages, the Domaine d’O for theater, dance and more, and the Opéra Comédie for concerts and opera. Also look into the permanent and temporary exhibitions at Musée Fabre, the city’s major art museum. Information of upcoming and seasonal events in the city and its surroundings can also be found on the official site of the Montpellier Tourist Office.

Overall, Montpellier is a dynamic historic Mediterranean city with a contemporary, international cultural identity… and some fine hotels and restaurants.

Choice luxury hotels

Hôtel Richer de Belleval brings together history, art and gastronomy at a single address. It’s difficult to overlook in the hotel- and restaurant-scape of the city.

This Relais & Châteaux member property occupies a restored 17th-century mansion on Place de la Canourgue, one of the prettiest squares in the Écusson. Its restoration combines historic decoration and contemporary art.

The hotel is home to Jardin des Sens, the restaurant of Montpellier’s celebrated Pourcel brothers, Jacques and Laurent. Their original restaurant helped establish the city as a serious gastronomic destination, and the current address continues that connection. Its menu proposes a modern take on Mediterranean cuisine, drawing on the ingredients and flavors of the wider Languedoc. Olive oil, Lucques olives, Pélardon goat cheese, oysters from the Thau lagoon and local wines sit alongside regional specialities such as tielle (a savory octopus tourte), rouille de seiche (a cuttlefish stew) and macaronade (a pasta and tender meat dish).

Domaine de Verchant, another Relais & Châteaux member, provides an alternate interpretation of Montpellier luxury from just beyond the city’s edge. Set among 42 acres of vineyards in Castelnau-le-Lez, this five-star combines a historic estate with contemporary design, restaurants, wine touring and a spa.

For travelers who want the atmosphere of a wine estate without sacrificing access to the city, it is an especially appealing option. The vineyards begin almost at the city gates, so Montpellier’s center is a short ride away.

Domaine de Biar offers a more intimate alternative in Lavérune, also just beyond the city limit but in the opposite direction. This four-star property, where modern comfort meets nature on a historic estate, has just 13 rooms and suites. Its rooms deliberately retain traces of the building’s history, with stone, exposed beams and period details, while introducing contemporary interiors.

Since disconnection is increasingly part of the luxury-travel equation, there are no televisions in the rooms, and the property encourages guests to reconnect with the surrounding landscape. The restaurant, La Table de Biar, provides a gastronomic reason to both disconnect and reconnect over a slow, relaxed, delicious meal.

Back in central Montpellier, four-star Maison Soleil presents yet a different take on contemporary southern hospitality. This 10-room boutique hotel occupies a Mediterranean house near Saint-Roch, with individually designed rooms that retain the character of the original building while introducing a more modern sensibility. There is no conventional reception; the hotel operates through a fully digital, self-service system, although guests have access to 24-hour assistance. It is an interesting example of a new generation of Montpellier hotel, intimate and rooted in the city’s architecture, but decidedly modern in the way it operates.

Further afield, Château & Village Castigno offers perhaps the most unusual stay in the wider Languedoc. In the tiny wine village of Assignan, about an hour west of Montpellier, this “sustainable wine resort,” as it calls itself, is spread across the village itself rather than contained in a single building, with rooms occupying restored houses painted in vivid colors that have made Castigno famous. Created by Belgian couple Marc and Tine Verstraete, the project grew from their passion for the local vineyards into a village-wide hospitality concept encompassing accommodation, restaurants, wine touring and a spa. It’s an eccentric but compelling example of what can happen when a hotel becomes inseparable from its landscape and community.

Select gastronomic restaurants

The Pourcel brothers remain central to Montpellier’s culinary story, but they are far from the only reason to come hungry.

The city has an impressive concentration of Michelin-starred restaurants, including Jardin des Sens, La Réserve Rimbaud, Leclère, Pastis, Reflet d’Obione and Ébullition, each of which carries one star at this writing.

At Reflet d’Obione, chef Laurent Cherchi’s cooking draws strongly on the region, connecting produce from the Cévennes to the Mediterranean.

La Réserve Rimbaud, set beside the Lez River beneath mature plane trees, has become a Montpellier institution. Chef Charles Fontès has retained its Michelin star since 2010 and describes his return to the restaurant as a retour aux sources, a return to his roots. He first came here as a child with his father.

Leclère offers something more unusual. Hidden behind an understated doorway on Rue André-Michel, the restaurant is reached through a narrow, stainless-steel-lined passage before opening into a striking space of stone, granite, tile and vaulted ceilings. The former medical-supply depot was transformed by chef Guillaume Leclère himself, who designed the room around the open kitchen, where he undertakes a deliberately pared-back approach to cooking. His single fixed-price menu changes with the day’s arrivals, with diners given only a list of ingredients rather than a preview of the dishes, part of the element of surprise that has become central to the dining experience here.

Montpellier as destination and base

One of the city’s greatest advantages for travelers is that Montpellier works equally well as a destination and as a base.

Sète, with its canals, fishing traditions and artistic heritage, is an obvious excursion. The Étang de Thau provides a landscape of oyster farms and lagoons that feels very different from the nearby beaches.

North of Montpellier, the vineyards of Pic Saint-Loup offer wine tasting against a backdrop of limestone hills. Further west lie the villages and landscapes of the Terrasses du Larzac. Nîmes, with its extraordinary Roman heritage, is close enough for a day trip by train or car. By car, Montpellier can be the point of departure for or return the lesser-known zone of western Hérault covered in this article on France Revisited or the rugged region of the Cévennes to the north.

As previously mentioned, the region also has a strong connection between wine and tourism—this despite lacking well-known appellations or designations of origin. Montpellier’s metropolitan area has developed its own Vignobles & Découvertes (Vineyards & Discovery) network, with estates near the city offering cellar visits, tastings and other activities.

This combination makes Montpellier particularly well suited to travelers who want more than urban exploration. A visit of several days or more will lead to contrasting experiences: medieval architecture one day, vineyards the next, followed by oysters beside the lagoon, a gastronomic meal, an evening performance, and more.

This is a city with enough history to satisfy the traditional Francophile, enough contemporary architecture and culture to interest the curious traveler, enough gastronomy and wine to justify a serious culinary trip, and enough proximity to the Mediterranean and the Languedoc countryside to make it an effective base for exploring the wider region. Visiting Montpellier offers the chance to discover a corner of southern France that feels established rather than staged, cosmopolitan without losing its regional identity, and increasingly confident about what it has to offer.

The fact that your friends think that you’re referring to Provence and the Riviera when you mention “south of France” could even be part of its appeal.

© 2026 by Jenny Eagle

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