Don’t go to France without it! Pudlo France 2008-2009 lists and describes thousands of the most desirable restaurants and hotels in villages, towns, and cities throughout France, from the Mediterranean to the French Alps. Pudlo France 2008-2009 is:
• comprehensive: Pudlo France lists accommodations of all sizes and for all budgets and tastes and restaurants at every level of sophistication—all held to Gilles Pudlowski’s exacting standards of quality and service;
• detailed: the description of each hotel or restaurant includes ambience, menu items, amenitites, and a wealth of enlightening information;
• completely up-to-date: unlike Michelin, Pudlo is the only guide that updates each entry yearly;
• authoritative: Gilles Pudlowski is France’s most respected food critic, and the Pudlo guides, both for Paris restaurants and hotels and restaurants throughout France, are “the guides everyone [i.e. the French] trust.” The Pudlo guides have appeared yearly for almost 20 years. This is the first appearance of Pudlo France in English.

Any guide as thick and dense as Pudlo France tends to look encyclopedic—and it is. But banish any thoughts of the words monotony (as in monotone) or exhaustive (as in exhausting). Each page of this panoramic view of the landscape of French cuisine is filled with thrills, discoveries, and passion.

Gilles Pudlowski is a zealous chronicler of the restaurants of France and a fierce advocate of regional cooking—huge advantages for the traveler driving the back roads of France.

No snob, he’s as appreciative of a plate of briny oysters, straight from sea, eaten in a shack on the coast of Brittany (and he seems to know all the back roads) as of a magnificent meal in a much-reviewed legendary restaurant (and he’s not shy about saying which ones are—and are not—worthy of their reputations). You can expect some skepticism of trendy establishments (can be more than a little impatient with using customers as “guinea pigs” for the newest gourmet gimmicks) but unrestrained adoration of the fragrances, traditions, landscapes, and flavors of the French countryside.

Pudlo France is a marvel if only for the complete listings, addresses, phone numbers, prices, and menu samples for more than 3,000 restaurants. In addition, Pudlo France reflects Gilles Pudlowski’s standards as France’s most respected restaurant critic, his personal and distinctive voice, and includes reviews of recently opened establishments.

And, in a departure from the format of Pudlo Paris, Pudlo France includes reviews of more than 2,000 hotels in every city, town and village. Whether a traveler is looking for a modest pensionne in a medieval village or luxe accommodations in a château in the Loire Valley, a seaside hotel on the Riviera or accommodations overlooking a vineyard in Burgundy, Pudlo France offers an inexhaustible array of choices.