Although Bob Geldof lives just down the road - well, OK, a few miles down the road, but we're close enough - my invitation to what Var-Matin calls "a sort of re-confirmation" of his wedding in April to Jeanne Marine must have been lost in the post.
So as Jagger and his ex-Jerry Hall (she's an even nearer neighbour when not on Richmond hill), Sarah Ferguson, Kate Moss, Bono, Demi Moore and Richard Branson joined in the revelries at Le Rayol-Canadel, where the couple have their home, we went west.
It's good to end the French part of our year on a high. No, I do not mean we were relieved not to be among the wedding guests.
After months of being disappointed or cheated, and only very occasionally pleased, in the restaurants of the south of France, we found a little gem in the village of Les Goudes on the gorgeous Calanques outside Marseille.
L'Esplai du Grand Bar des Goudes looks like a shabby cafe from the street. It looks rough-and-ready from the other side. But once inside, or on the terrace, the view over the port and out to sea from is magnificent, the food is sublime and the service is as efficient as it is friendly, a commendable mix of knowledge, attentiveness and restraint.
The view from our table
The restaurant specialises in seafood so I resorted to what is known in these parts as "doing a Bill Taylor". I ordered meat, as our old friend Bill did when visiting two or three years ago and studying the menu at one of the finest fish restaurants in or near Le Lavandou (the Tamaris at Saint-Clair).
My duck, an entire magret cooked pink with a gratin dauphinois, was delicious, as were Mme Salut's more suitably chosen coquilles Saint-Jacques served with risotto.
Having shared a huge plate of hot and cold entrées - prawns, seiche (cuttlefish), roasted red peppers with anchovies, a potato and cod purée and more - neither of us could quite finish our main courses, though we happily saw off a perfect rosé accompaniment, a Chateau Vallon des Glauges.
The one female member of staff to visit our table - we were not sure but she may have been the owner's wife - talked to us a lot.
Hearing we'd come from Le Lavandou, she spoke admiringly of Le Rayol-Canadel, though not in the context of the wedding none of us knew about. And when a mutually known name was mentioned - the Marseille film producer Richard Pezet, with whom Mme Salut has worked and whom M Salut has interviewed - I showed her an image of one of his films, Qui c'est les plus forts? , an adaptation of the hit Paris play Sunderland, relocated for a French audience to Saint-Etienne.
The bill came to €115, but was worth every centime and converts in any case these days to a reasonable £83. I imagine the Geldofs' guests ate well too, but we were happy with our alternative.
There was time for a brisk walk up to the Cap Croisette before the car, parked inched from the cliff edge (it must be murder finding a space at the height of the season).
This was a revitalising antidote to all those dismal meal taken in Le Lavandou and elsewhere this summer. A €75 meal for two that is poor or simply unmemorable, or comes with wretched service, stings the pocket a lot more than @115 for the marvellous experience of a visit to l'Esplai du Grand Bar. We said à bientôt as we left and meant it.
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