L'AUBERGE DE LA CROISADE ♥

L'AUBERGE de la CROISADE - 34 310 Cruzy

The restaurant is beautifully located on the Canal de Midi. Their speciality is fish but they also serve excellent meat dishes. They offer a number of set menus to surprisingly reasonable prices. The service is very friendly and there is no problem if you have special demands. They are more than ready to alter the set menues to your liking. They have a large selection of local wines to affordable prices.
The most expensive menu - Lo Regal - is of seven courses and cost around 50 Euros. It is a lot of exellent food so you have to be very hungry and have a lot of time, Their three course lunch menu is under 20 Euros including a glass of wine and coffee.

At our first visit we were a birthday party of six people. The meal started with a taster which was a fluffy foam or rather purée made of fish and herbs. It should be spread on pieces of bread. This was just to warm up our taste buds a bit. Then of course obligatory homemade Foie Gras, which was perfect with unusual accessories as artichoke, sprouts in balsamic vinegar and some other odd thing. Too large portions though.

The third dish was a very nice fish in a tomato sauce and tapenade. After the fish we had a tiny little dish to make room in our stomach. It was lemon sorbet with a little Eau de Vie Langedocien. Then came the main course! Half the party had glazed veal liver and the other half had the lamb racks. Both were served with a polenta that was stirred together with cream and grated parmesan cheese to make it lighter than polenta normally is. Both dishes were very good but did not have to be so rich.

After this we had the small cheese plate, which contained a series of cheeses with an ash-rolled chèvre, a Tomme, something I forgot, a Camembert, and finally a Roquefort stirred with cream and muscat wine in a brown bread with figs. It should be eaten in that order. After this I was quite full so I thought Café Gourmande should be something little. That was a mistake, but it was fantastic. We washed all this down with white wine from the grapes Rolle and Viogner and a red Saint-Chinian wine from Château Prieuré des Morgues.

Revisited 2012 to try the lunch menu: It was excellent as we expected.
Revisited July 2013: Excellent food and friendly service as always!
Revisited June 2014: Very nice food and perfect and friendly service as usual. My wife's cod had a few parts that were not properly cooked which we told the head-waiter. He compensated us with two glasses of very nice sparkling wine even if we did not asked for any compensation. At this restaurant they are always willing to meet my wife's problem with sugar and sweet fruits. This time they prepared a lovely dessert on fresh kiwi for her. We like this place better and better.
Revisited twice in April 2015: Excellent the first time and good the next time.
Revisited July 2018: This is always a place that delivers and lives up to expectations.

WEB: http://www.auberge-de-la-croisade.com/index.php?page=accueil
LATEST VISIT: July 2018
NUMBER OF VISITS: 8

Reasons for the ♥:
Fantastic set menus and always high gourmet quality to a reasonable price. The service is very friendly and makes you happy even on a bad day.