Le Formal is set into a barrel-vaulted seventeenth-century cellar a few steps off the Cours Mirabeau. Chef Jean-Luc Le Formal turns out a fixed-price menu of modern Provencal cooking — pigeon with figs, sea bream with fennel, chocolate desserts that are taken very seriously — and the service is friendly without being fussy.
The two- and three-course lunch menus are reasonable for the quality on the plate; dinner climbs into a more elaborate tasting territory. The room seats only thirty and books up fast, especially in festival season; reserve a week or two ahead in July.