Last week I had one of the most enjoyable meals I’ve had all year - and also one of the best value - at a tiny restaurant you almost certainly won’t have heard deep in the heart of rural France. That’s remarkable in itself as it’s been a struggle for country restaurants to survive with the draconian French drink-driving laws and the 35 hour week

La Falaise is different. You find it at the entrance to the tiny town of Cahuzac-sur-Vère in the Tarn* - a striking modern building oddly at variance with its ancient stone clad neighbours. At a summer lunchtime all the tables were outside under cream-coloured parasols and the lowering cliff from which the restaurant presumably takes its name.

The menu is short and impeccably modern. We felt confident enough to order the no choice 19 euro option and were glad we had. It kicked off with quite the prettiest, most striking and delicious starter you could want on a hot summer’s day (above), full of Mediterranean flavours: fresh anchovies, marinated in olive oil beautifully arranged over a square of thinly spread piment-spiked red pepper purée, scattered with raw artichokes, peppers and radishes, decorated with tiny blobs of basil puree and accompanied with a carefully spiced aubergine purée. You wouldn’t find a better starter in Provence.

The second course swung back to the region offering a modern spin on duck confit  which had been carefully de-greased, coated in maize (a local product) and deep-fried then - just as you might have been tempted to feel virtuous - accompanied by perfect duck fat-fried chips and crisp slivers of rose garlic. It was a surprisingly good match with the exotic white, Mauzac-based non classified vin de table from Michel Issaly we were drinking (Les Cavailles Bas Zérosept) which the sommelier decanted - as the winemaker suggests.

The cheese plate too showed rare imagination. A little goats cheese, festooned with flowers and a slice of aged Cantal (I think) served with melon pickle and ‘black olive oil’, emulsified, I imagine, by some clever centrifugal device.

Only the dessert - while perfectly suited to the temperature - was not up to this dizzying standard. Fresh peaches topped  garishly with a rather too minty herb granita accompanied a nougat-like semi-freddo (half frozen) dessert of cream and nuts. I would say the chef Guillaume Salvan was not a dessert man but we had some gorgeous delicately spiced marshmallows with our coffee that rather disproves that theory.

The wine list, which is short but full of good names, is also all you could wish for in a small restaurant, including some of the interesting new Gaillac winemakers like Issaly who are focussing on natural winemaking techniques. The sommelier, Joel Pinosa, is a mine of knowledge and takes great pleasure in sharing it.

In short this restaurant ticks all the boxes. Great looking, delicious, imaginative food and first class service at a very fair price.  More ambitious Michelin restaurants such as the hugely disappointing Anne de Bretagne we ate at in Brittany earlier in the week would do well to take note on all counts.  Salvan is one to watch.

La Falaise, Route de Cordes, Sahuzac-sur-Vère www.lafalaiserestaurant.com