ANTHONY PEREGRINE

WNo sane person would accuse the French of false modesty. They maintain they have the world’s finest cuisine. And, right now, they are designating the Rhône valley as the International Valley of Gastronomy. This is one of those amorphous, mega-projects favoured by the French, embracing exhibitions, visits, festivals and anything else promoting eating as a tourist draw.

This has to be the French food destination of 2020 – and Valence (pop: 63,000) is the town to head for. The Rhône has been a communication corridor for millennia, not least swinging French holidaymakers to the Med on the RN7. Valence has been feeding travellers for a long time and top-class vittles flow in from all around: Rhône wines, fruit and veg from the Drôme plain, freshwater fish, and meat from the Massif Central.

Take these ingredients to their culminating point and you arrive at Maison Pic where, between the wars, king-sized grandad André already had three Michelin stars. More recently, his granddaughter Anne-Sophie has regained them at what is one of

France’s finest, dearest, tables (annesophie-pic.com; dinner menus from £152). A bouncier bistro honours

André, menus from £33.

But Valence also has a squad of young chefs bursting through to the sunlit uplands. In the jazz-tinged Flaveurs (0033 475 560840; menus from £32), Baptiste Poinot’s talent for improvisation has bagged a Michelin star, as has Masashi Ijichi’s marriage of Japan and the French south at La Cachette (0033 475 552413; menus from £25). More trad eateries also thrive and the Saturday morning market on Place des Clercs is unmissable as, at the Nivon bakery (nivon.com), are the local suisses: sugar-crust pastry figures inspired by Papal Swiss guards (long story). They look like Captain Pugwash. It all comes to the boil with the Valence en Gastronomie festival in September (valenceengastronomiefestival.fr). It is, though, wonderful at any time, with an Armenian heritage summed up in the first-rate Centre du Patrimoine Arménien (le-cpa.com), and is minutes from the mountains. How to go Trains from St Pancras via Paris cost from around £174 return (en.oui.sncf). Or fly to Lyon, take the shuttle to Part-Dieu station and an onward train to Valence. Stay at the Maison de la Pra, a superbly renovated 15th-century town house (0033 475 436973; maisondelapra. com; doubles from £122).

Based in Languedoc for 30 years, Anthony Peregrine is

destination expert for France.