L'Impertinent

Fabian Feldmann opened L'Impertinent in 2016 in a narrow shopfront off the Rue Mazagran, in the heart of Biarritz's shopping quarter. Trained under Régis Marcon in Saint-Bonnet-le-Froid and at Sa Qua Na in Honfleur, Feldmann arrived in Biarritz committed to chef-driven bistronomy in a town whose reputation had until then been built on seafront palaces. Michelin awarded the star in 2018.

The restaurant seats just 24 across a single open room, with the pass visible through a half-glass partition. The menu is a single no-choice tasting — six courses at €85 for lunch, nine at €165 for dinner — that rotates every four weeks and draws heavily on Atlantic seafood, Basque Country cheeses, and the Landes' duck and foie gras. Signatures include a scallop with smoked butter and yuzu, a pigeon in three services, and a dessert of local strawberry with lovage and cream.

Feldmann's wife Marjorie Hess runs the floor and the wine programme, which is precise and heavily weighted to Irouléguy (the Basque appellation), Jurançon, and small Loire producers. The no-pairing option is strong; the full pairing is better than most one-star offerings in France.

The room is lively at lunch, intimate at dinner. Feldmann is frequently at the pass and will greet tables personally during service; regulars are remembered by dish preference.

L'Impertinent is Biarritz's definitive first-date room. The scale (24 covers) means no table is more than two metres from another, which creates the right register of quiet animation. The no-choice tasting removes decision friction. The lunch menu at €85 is a rare Michelin-starred price point in France. And Feldmann's floor presence — warm, approachable, unhurried — sets the emotional temperature correctly for a first meeting. Request a table along the banquette rather than in the window; the light is better and the angle more conversational.