L'Ambasside has been given a recent refit and would not be out of place in London or New York with plenty of glass, wood panels and a high ceiling. A good sign is that nothing fancy has been done to the loos.

We plumped for the menu Balande at 43 € that offers two dishes for each course. Ordering one of each avoided making hard decisions. A taster of dorade on creamed moreau with a pimento sauce set the tone. Encornets with haricot beans, Iberico ham and tomato salad was light and simple with interesting textures. Seared foie gras came on a pain d'epices and a balsamic reduction. Line caught sea bass filet presented a seared skin and was endowed with palourdes and leaks. A loosely wrapped ravioli of oyster paired with courgette flower stuffed with crab has plenty going on. Charalais beef with ceps on a summer truffle mash focused on basic flavours while chicken leg stuffed with ceps and girolles accompanied by a ravioli of offal was a crescendo of ingredients. After the cheese trolley the dessert menu appears seriously large, but on inspection it cleverly allows one to opt for the combination of you fancy. Our choice illustrates this - a sablet basket of figs and raspberries with vanilla ice and raspberry coulee contrasting a fig and raspberry gratin with vanilla ice. The wine list is up to date with many regional new wave growers.

Chef Patrick Olry has worked in Beziers for 12 years and on this evidence has come far and paced his career well. What lets them down is the staff who one senses would make fair naturals if it wasn't for the regime of the maître d'hôte. It's been quite some time since we've had to work so hard and still get virtually no explanation of the cheese. Nevertheless, this was a very fine meal and be our first choice for a classic meal in the area.

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