Welcome to Toulouse’s budget Michelin-star scene

Top-notch cuisine doesn’t have to break the bank in France’s pink city, finds Damien Gabet

Foodies flock to the Languedoc’s historic capital (Patrick Daubert)

Haussmann boulevards fringed with pollarded planes. Endless bent-wood rattan sprawling from bars and brasseries. Dented Renaults beeping a little too often.

Toulouse has all the hallmarks you’d expect of France’s fourth city. But there’s something about the Languedoc’s historic capital that’s different. And not just the ferrous brick that gives La Ville Rose (the ‘Pink City’) its sobriquet.

The people, for one. I know that sounds trite, but they are a bit different. To the residents of Toulouse’s three big sisters (Paris, Marseille, Lyon), that is. More affable, less… French. Why? That’s a conversation to be had over a bottle of négrette (the local grape) in Le 5, the city’s best wine bar.