Mushroom-based activities in the Sud region | Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Tourism

Learn how to find and recognize mushrooms

Let’s start with the basics: know how to ferret out and identify mushrooms! Several professionals offer outings to transmit their mushroom hunting know-how. At the end of September, around La Fare-en-Champsaur, Doctor of Pharmacy Mme Lamonerie will be your guide for a mushroom picking in the Forêt de Bois-Vert. At the end of October, the Alpilles Natural Regional Park offers a free nature walk with one of its agents and a pharmacist-mycologist who will teach you to recognize the different species of mushrooms. You’re coming to the Var with kids? You can organise discovery walks with referenced naturalist guides like Fabien Tambolini. Last of all, Sud region mushrooms also mean truffles! Try a ‘cavage’ (truffle digging) outing and set off to find the black diamond with professionals like Robert Florent and his truffle dog in Gordes, or Pépinières Christian in Valréas. Les Pastras also offer mushroom and truffle hunts in English, with breakfast included. Happy picking!

Robert Florent - Truffle Grower

Pépinières Christian

Fabien Tamboloni - naturalist guide

Discover mushroom-based events

Another way to easily discover the mushrooms of the Sud is to go to the fairs and markets which focus on them. For example, every year in the middle of October, the village of Saint-Trinit hosts the Festival Ventoux Saveurs which gathers keen mycologists and many gourmets for the Champignons en Fête event. On the menu, conferences, markets, tastings, entertainment and above all stalls full of boletus, Caesar’s mushrooms, chanterelles and many others! A bit later in October, the Foire Mycologique in Serres is a mushroom lover rendez-vous. And everywhere in the Sud, you’ll find markets where the truffle reigns as queen, such as the Richerenches market, a real reference, and also the Grand Marché aux Truffes in Rognes, in Aix-en-Provence and even the Provencal market in Carpentras, where you can also fill your basket with other tasty local products.

Grand Marché Truffes et Gastronomie

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Outstanding Provence Market at Carpentras

Visit producers: get a tasting!

Go beyond the market stalls and directly to the source – the producers in the region. In Monteux, the Frères Jaumard propose a day of truffle discovery every weekend from November to mid-December, and from mid-January to mid-March. Follow their truffle dogs, Mirette and Polka, all the way to the most delicious part of the experience: the tasting. Don’t forget to book ahead! In Manosque, from mid-November to mid-March, the Barbe family and their truffle dogs will take you to see the truffle field and invite you for a tasting in the shop after the walk. If you’re going to be in Marseille, visit the Mycotopia urban mushroom farm at Le Talus, a social and environmental third place with a big shared vegetable garden. You can discover their shiitaké and grey oyster mushroom beds and maybe a few yellow or pink oyster mushrooms, and even reishi growing trials and strange mushrooms known as “lion’s mane”.

La Truffe du Ventoux – Truffle grower

La Truffe Noire de Villedieu

Mycotopia

Enjoy mushroomy recipes

You’ve worked up an appetite with all this talk about mushrooms! The good news is that the Sud is filled with good cookery addresses. At Le Mas des Grès, in Lagnes, try a gustatory weekend based on truffles, with demonstrations in the kitchen and totally truffle menus from Friday evening to Sunday. Chez Sevin, in Avignon, discover the taste-filled Truffe Noire menu which puts the Rabasse du Mont Ventoux or Richerenches in pride of place. In Lorgues, head for Chez Bruno, whose nickname is “the Truffle Emperor”, to enjoy one of his truffle-based starred menus. We’re still in the Var, in Bauduen, and Le Domaine de Majastre welcomes you to its guesthouse and gourmet restaurant with, on the menu, brouillade aux truffes, feuilleté aux truffes, cappuccino aux cèpes et truffes, agneau confit aux truffes… Truffles in all shapes and sizes! Further East, in Théoule-sur-Mer, several restaurants offer an Autumn menu, such as Le Coup d’Fourchette or Chez Philippe, for instance, with good dishes with boletus, morels, chanterelles, oyster mushrooms or shiitakés.

Learn how to cook mushrooms

Want to try your hand at cooking mushrooms? When you love them, it’s a real pleasure to cook them! In Avignon, the sublime, historic La Mirande hotel regularly welcomes the greatest chefs in Provence to give themed cookery lessons. Mushrooms are very often part of the autumn workshops, and you’ll learn how to cook boletus and chanterelles! Remember to book ahead, these top-level cookery lessons are much sought-after. In, Puyméras, La Maison Plantin has created the Truffle Institute, an educational and teaching area which offers total immersion in the world of the black diamond. La Maison Plantin organises cookery workshops to learn how to prepare it and show you all the tools which are indispensable for cooking truffles like a professional. Lastly, in the Luberon, Nicolas Monnier organises “Connaître et Cuisiner la Truffe” stays over weekends. He has dreamed up a fantastic programme around the famous mushroom, from harvest to plate.