This Remote Region of Central France Has Spectacular Food and Wine—and Even More Spectacular Hiking.

Travel + Leisure

a day ago

It was a long way to go for a cheese sandwich. But what a sandwich! True, I'd just climbed the Puy de Sancy—90 minutes of huffing to the top of an extinct volcano—so anything would have tasted good. This was a special one, though: made with the renowned St.-Nectaire, bought outside the town in central France that gave the cheese its name. Tucked between slices of house-made bread pilfered from the hotel breakfast and savored with views of hawks drifting on mountain currents, it was better than anything I'd eaten in Paris on the first leg of my trip—and I'd eaten a lot.
This was the moment I'd traveled for: a perfect bite on a stunning hike. In northern Italy's Dolomite mountains last summer, I'd discovered that the pairing of heart-racing views and happy exhaustion make every meal memorable—especially when the food offers a chance to both taste and explore the terroir. 'Hike to eat' became my new travel mantra.
I had chosen Auvergne, a region in France's Massif Central mountain range, as this year's destination, because I'd been told by a trusted friend that despite the landscape's beauty (UNESCO declared the Chaîne des Puys, the region's emerald necklace of 80 extinct volcanoes, a World Heritage site in 2018), it's a long train ride from Paris, and thus largely overlooked by tourists. Friends who work in the world of food and natural wine had also raved about a hotel, Auberge de Chassignolles, and, in particular, its restaurant. The volcanic soil, they said, makes for magic on the tongue. Local cheeses at Auberge de Chassignolles.
On my stopover in Paris, I noticed that some of the city's most exciting restaurants served beef from Auvergne's Salers and Aubrac cattle; cheese such as Cantal, Salers, Fourme d'Ambert, and Bleu d'Auvergne; lentils grown in the Puy region; and cult natural wines from the likes of Patrick Bouju and Marie and Vincent Tricot, who work with one of the largest concentrations of pre-phylloxera vines in France. Volvic water? From the Auvergne, too.
Once I tuned in to the Auvergne, I began to see it everywhere. (Puy lentils: Now I get it!) François-Régis Gaudry's essential book Let's Eat Paris! details how the Auvergnats, following their arrival in the capital in the 1850s, came to run many of the city's most iconic restaurants, bars, and hotels—places such as Café de Flore, Les Deux Magots, and Maxim's, which are today synonymous with Parisian hospitality.
The little-known region even inspired one of New York's best French restaurants, Libertine. Co-owner Cody Pruitt stocks Auvergnat water and wine, and mixes cocktails with gentian liqueur made from Alpine flowers at a bar backed by Salvador Dalí's Auvergne poster for French Railways. 'Auvergne is a little wild and rough around the edges—almost a little feral,' Pruitt told me. 'It's truly idyllic.' He's so in love with Auvergne, which he discovered through visits to winemakers, that he not-so-jokingly told his girlfriend that one day they would move to the side of a volcano.
A few diners, impressed by the Auvergnat wines at Libertine, have followed Pruitt's advice to visit the area—some even DMing him selfies from outside Auberge de Chassignolles. 'I felt bad sending them into the middle of nowhere,' he said with a laugh. Luckily, they loved it. From left: Lunch on the terrace at Alta Terra; Peter Taylor, a former owner of Auberge de Chassignolles.
Boarding the train at the Gare de Bercy, in Paris, my boyfriend and I got the first hint as to just how middle-of-nowhere Auvergne is. I was expecting an iteration of the station next door, the grand Gare de Lyon. Instead, the taxi dropped us in front of a squat 1970s terminal, where weeds grew from one of six platforms for trains serving the Bourgogne-Pays d'Auvergne regions.
Three and a half hours later we reached Clermont-Ferrand, the region's main city and one of France's oldest, accurately described by Pruitt as being 'half ugly-industrial or generic-brutal—and not in a good way.' (The other half, he said, looked like a post-medieval village.) But once seated at a family-filled outdoor café near the dramatic Gothic cathedral, which was constructed from volcanic rock, I got a sense of the city's medieval charm. Or maybe it was my delight at the tartare of prized Aubrac beef and a bronze-capped wheel of broiled St.-Nectaire cheese, scooped up with potatoes and charcuterie.
As we drove out of Clermont-Ferrand, we took note of which villages we wanted to return to. We never made it back to any of them. Chadeleuf, where our first hotel, Le Clos Dagobert, was hidden, had enough appeal to keep us strolling until our dinner in nearby Montpeyroux, a restored hilltop town from the 11th century that, off-season, was heaven to explore in the golden evening light. While multiple parking lots at the base of this former wine-making town spoke to its popularity with tourists during the summer, in early October our fellow diners in the tiny square outside the restaurant L'Art-Koze were mostly local. The plating of the dishes felt almost as dated as the town's medieval tower, but beneath all the tweezered microgreen garnishes were delicious, proper French sauces—surprisingly hard to come by these days. From left: A horse grazing near the Puy Mary; a foggy hike through the Mont-Dore ski area.
In the morning, it was tempting to linger at Clos Dagobert. The restored interior of this grand 1850s building is straight out of a French interiors magazine, from the Yves Klein–blue ceramics niche to the Memphis-style toilet that you will indeed find yourself posting videos of. Even the chickens roaming the pool area were stylish enough for their own Instagram account. (Also 'grammable: their delicious, orange-yolked eggs.) Yet it turned out the young hoteliers, Marine and Alexis Raphanel, were indeed human and extremely sweet, ensuring that there was always a slice of cake in our room and dispensing advice about the region with great pride.
Montpeyroux, a restored hilltop town from the 11th century, was heaven to explore in the golden evening light.
But the mountains were calling: it was time to fill our napkins from the buffet and go. Being just over an hour away from the Massif Central, Le Clos Dagobert makes a lovely base for village walks. The drives toward them were stunning and nearly empty. If we wanted to pull a U-turn to photograph a vending machine selling baguettes, or stop in the middle of the road to admire a sign with arrows pointing toward cheese makers in all directions, the biggest threat was the occasional tractor or a semi hauling pine trees.
Most guidebooks will tell you that to reach the top of the Puy de Sancy, the highest volcano in the range at 6,184 feet, you can take the cable car. Not during our visit, you couldn't. Our options were to hike the steep service road until we reached the main trail, or to make our way through a valley with a trickling stream and wildflowers, over a pass lined with boulders that have been pixelating into geometric shards for millennia, and up to a dramatic scramble between rock formations that my boyfriend felt certain were the setting for an episode of Game of Thrones . We chose the Cinemascope route. Then we climbed the 864 steps to the top. From left: A vending machine dispensing baguettes near the Clos Dagobert hotel; preserves, wine, and sauces for sale at Clos Dagobert.
Blitzed on adrenaline at the top of Sancy, I looked out at pristine views stretching in almost every direction and was reminded that the world can still feel pure. As I wiped away sweat and tears, the landscape came into focus. I began to notice the many trails snaking through a valley, saw the red cap of a hiker on another peak, spotted another lake in the distance, and realized: We can go to that perfect place, too! And there! And there. And there…
And so the Auvergne addiction began, and we began plotting our move to the side of a volcano.
Several of the young restaurateurs and winemakers who've moved to the Auvergne came to their fierce love of the region through Auberge de Chassignolles. This 1930s hotel in a village tucked away among the pines was bought by a British gastropub chef, Harry Lester, and his wife, Ali Johnson, in 2006. At the time, Lester did most of the cooking himself—but subsequent owners came up with the idea to invite chefs from around the world to cook and bake and make merry at breakfast, lunch, and dinner from April through October. The scruffy charm is considerable enough that rooms are still difficult to come by, especially in summer. The exterior of Alta Terra.
A few years later, for his kids' schooling, Lester moved to Clermont-Ferrand, where he now runs the Comptoir Central des Bazars, a restaurant, wine store, and ice cream shop. The auberge is now owned by Poppy Saker-Norrish, a 34-year-old winemaker who worked in its kitchen and garden in 2022. Saker-Norrish had just been accepted into a creative-writing master's program in her native New Zealand when she was asked if she'd like to take over. 'Once I was home, all I could think about was the auberge and the Auvergne,' she recalled. She has maintained its rumpled confidence and genuine bonhomie, with its nine simple, just-right rooms and the impromptu community of guests, young staff, and visiting winemakers who smoke and play foosball in the tiny town square until late.
Staying at Chassignolles felt a little like having a walk-on part in a regional theater production—one in which a French staffer in a bikini top and big glasses rushes in before lunch, exclaiming over the wild mushrooms she found in the forest that morning. Those cèpes starred in an excellent risotto at lunch, and at dinner, they surrounded a quivering egg yolk perfectly prepared by Mathilde Denuncq, a young chef who had taken time off from her restaurant near Biarritz to make lovely meals, including the warm baguettes and staggering fruit compotes, pots of just-made yogurt, and jars of granola that made up the breakfast spread. The coffee's legit. The teas are excellent. And the wine list reads like a who's-who of natural winemakers, with hard-to-get bottles that make the visiting owners of Parisian natural-wine bars sigh.
Chassignolles isn't about mountain treks. Each morning, we would ask the bartender/sommelier if we could borrow the hotel's floppy laminated map, and then we'd just set out in any direction. Each walk felt like a tour of Middle Earth. The trails and narrow roads were empty, all leading through forests of whispering pine trees with soft moss beds and borders of blackberry bushes and passing through occasional clusters of stone houses that seemed empty, but not abandoned. From left: Soup made with foraged mushrooms at Auberge de Chassignolles; exploring Montpeyroux, a hilltop town that dates back to the 11th century.
This balance of solitude and wild, unexpected beauty quickly became a theme. One evening, the owner of Auberge de Chassignolles booked us into Court La Vigne, a restaurant in the minuscule medieval town of Lavaudieu. There we were met by a friend from Paris, who had taken the train down to join the trip.
The place was breathtaking—and empty. As was the restaurant, with no one answering the door, and no one downstairs once we'd hesitantly let ourselves in. We ventured upstairs and were greeted by a vision: a room lined with life-size paintings and witchy curios, where a woman in her seventies with kohl-rimmed eyes greeted us with glee as experimental accordion music played on a loop. The kitchen, with its heart-shaped door handle, sent out duck terrine, veal with mushrooms, and rockfish with greens. There was one other couple in the room. It was so odd, so lovely, that we tipped over into church giggles when the squeaky old cheese trolley was laboriously wheeled out. Our stomachs, sore from laughter, were comforted by lemon verbena sorbet doused in gentian liqueur.
Tipsy in the moonlight, we explored the town. Look at this perfectly intact museum of artisanal crafts! We should come back! We read the note on the door: it had closed for a year of renovations, beginning that afternoon. From left: Extinct volcanoes along the road to the Puy de Sancy; country pâté and fried pizza dough with mushrooms at Auberge de Chassignolles.
The next day, we briefly left the eat-hike-sleep idyll to drive my boyfriend back to the train in Clermont-Ferrand. Then, in search of another hike before dinner, we used the AllTrails app to select a walk along the drive back, once again parking in a lovely, one-café village. Yet again, we were entranced by the light and storybook scenery, attracted by the beauty of shaded glades and brooks until we reached the beginnings of sunset over the cow-dotted hills. By the time we neared Chassignolles—the roads becoming ever smaller and crazier until we were convinced there could be no town at the end—the sunset demanded that we pull over to marvel. We were also curious to find the nearby house for sale whose listing was posted on the auberge's bulletin board. We were thinking like Cody Pruitt and his friend, who had e-mailed him the listing the week before with one word: 'Halfsies?'
The tinkling of distant cowbells that had accompanied our hike was a Symphony in C Major.
After a final breakfast—during which we both vowed, once home, to set out a bowl filled with mismatched egg cups à la Chassignolles—we headed southwest toward Cantal. This agricultural area is one of the poorest, and most sparsely populated, in France because of its isolation and dependence on fluctuating market prices. Tourism, while a promising way to reverse the area's fortunes, is mostly limited to French visitors, who go there to hike and bike in summer and ski in winter.
After passing through the what-counted-for-bustling town of Murat, we stopped in the village of Dienne, enchanted by the houses' hand-cut, teardrop-shaped slate roof tiles, the 12th-century church, and the rumored presence of cheese makers. But an old man tending his garden told us that everything in the village had closed down. Only the signs remained. From left: Marine and Alexis Raphanel, owners of Le Clos Dagobert, a hotel in the village of Chadeleuf; breakfast at Le Clos Dagobert.
And so we learned another lesson: if you see something open, stop! Bakeries, grocery stores, and restaurants are few and far between. Many communities lack essential services, such as schools, hospitals, and even pharmacies. That charming bread vending machine isn't Instagram bait; it's reality.
Back in Murat, we found Tendances et Saveurs, a diner with a biker-bar aesthetic that happened to dry-age its own beef. We ordered our meat with a side of truffade, the regional specialty of garlicky, lard-cooked potatoes with melted cheese curd—a.k.a. the original cheese pull, a.k.a. my new favorite food, especially when served with rosy slices of local ham.
'I need a moment of silence,' said my friend, pointing her fork toward the truffade. Even the fries were perfect. From left: Preserves, wine, and sauces for sale at Clos Dagobert; bunk beds in a guest room at Alta Terra.
Too early to check in at our next hotel, Alta Terra, we drove for a few more miles and took one of many trails winding up to the Puy Mary, an extinct volcano that's classified as a Grand Site de France and sees 500,000 visitors each year. Walking along a ridge path flanked by trees, we passed thick-maned horses and came upon a barefoot young woman in a tree, foraging for nuts to make oil. We kept wondering which fairy tale we had found ourselves in. Grateful for our hiking poles, we got as far as the snack bar at the base of the stairs leading up to the peak. We stood and admired the views of mountains and tree-lined valleys from beneath one of the red umbrellas that rippled in the wind outside an old-fashioned chalet restaurant and gift shop. Hikers, bikers, motorcyclists, and day-trippers all lingered, soaking it all in.
The tinkling of distant cowbells that had accompanied our hike was a Symphony in C Major from the field opposite Alta Terra. On entering the century-old chalet, we were hit by the comforting scent of slow-roasting pork. A visit to the hammam and sauna coddled us further, and by the time we sat down to dinner at the communal table, where we were the only first-time guests, we completely felt at home. Co-owner Virginie Serre is as adept at steering conversation among strangers as she is at preparing delicious meals from local produce, be it a cabbage-and-chestnut salad with foraged mountain thyme or hearty squash lasagna on vegetarian nights. (Her cooking had just been featured in Le Monde .) Sleep came easily in the charming cabin for two built behind the hotel, with the sun rising from beyond the mountains as our alarm.
A sustainable ethos permeates every aspect of Alta Terra, down to the reusable wrap used for the cheese sandwiches that Serre packed for the hike. After spending a few days in this pristine region, you wouldn't want to muck it up, either. After our picnic, my friend returned to her stylish life in Paris, her phone filled with addresses for next year's vacation in the middle of nowhere. After a few more formative hikes and filling meals, it was my turn to go. My last hike was comically picturesque, walking through a mossy allée into wildflower-dotted fields where cows dozed beside a stream, then up to a mountain pass, where one could keep going for days in any direction. Like the beauty of Auvergne, the options were endless.
A version of this story first appeared in the September 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline "Over the Hills and Far Away ."