La Pinède

The grill decides the plate

Whole fish reaches the fire before the plate is composed at La Pinède on Ile de Porquerolles, a room built for directness. Jérôme Forschelet leads the kitchen, and the restaurant sits inside Le Mas du Langoustier, but the craft here belongs to the terrace and the pass: seafood chosen for sharing, heat kept close to the product, and a Provençal-Mediterranean carte built on natural flavours rather than ornament. La Pinède asks for control of a particular sort. The cooking has to carry across a shaded terrace, not a hushed dining room; it has to let grilled langouste, poisson entier grillé, tomato, olive oil and herbs remain legible while still reading as a chef’s work. The house’s public language is seasonal and bistronomique, with Mediterranean seafood at its center. On the bench, that means restraint: the fish is not a vehicle for technique, the technique is there to keep the fish precise.

Seafood measured by arrival and fire

The program is à la carte and seasonal, shaped by arrivage rather than by a fixed procession. Grilled whole lobster and whole fish sit at the center because they suit both the island and the table: a platter set down for several hands, flesh lifted from bone, sauce and garnish kept in proportion. Around that spine, the kitchen works in a Provençal-Mediterranean grammar: carpaccio of cœur de bœuf tomatoes with burrata and basil oil, local octopus confit, tagliatelle with crustacean bisque, chapon bouillabaisse, rouget de roche with saffron potatoes, and grilled Limousine entrecôte matured 5 weeks. The measurements that matter here are not only weights or temperatures. They are the distance from terrace to sea, the maturity of the beef, the number of plates that can leave the pass while the fish is still hot, the timing of bisque, grill and garnish so the table receives one clear gesture. The wine program follows the same scale, curated toward Mediterranean pairings rather than cellar theatre, with Rolle from Domaine de la Courtade named alongside loup au pistou.

Under the pines, close to the water

The room is mostly outside, shaded by pine trees and set just meters from the Mediterranean. That proximity changes the pace of the craft. The counter and pass serve a terrace where the meal carries the sound of cicadas, low conversation and cutlery against shared plates. Le Mas du Langoustier gives the place its seclusion, a 50-acre estate on Porquerolles with the feeling of a house apart from the port, but La Pinède keeps the service relaxed enough for families and friends to divide a grilled fish without ceremony. The setting can make any plate look generous; the discipline is not to lean on the view. A tomato dish still needs ripe fruit and proper oil. A bisque still needs depth. A lobster still needs the grill watched by someone who knows when to stop.

A terrace after gastronomy

La Pinède now carries the more convivial side of the Mas du Langoustier table, after the property’s former fine-dining room, L’Olivier, did not reopen as of 2023. The shift gives the island a different kind of craft address: less formal, still exacting, and built for the way Porquerolles eats in season. The signature is not a flourish. It is the shared shell and bone left after langouste grillée on La Pinède’s pine-shaded terrace.