La Côte d’Or (Relais Bernard Loiseau)

The story

The house, a former coaching inn turned hotel, was bought by Paul and Élise Budin in 1904 and won its first MICHELIN star in 1926. Alexandre Dumaine bought it in 1932 and held three stars from 1935, making Saulieu an obligatory halt on the old road south from Paris. Bernard Loiseau arrived as chef in 1975, bought the property in 1982 and regained the third star in 1991. After his death in 2003, Dominique Loiseau kept the house going, with Patrick Bertron at the stove for two decades; the third star was lost in 2016, and the restaurant took back its historic name, La Côte d'Or, in 2019.

Louis-Philippe Vigilant left his native Martinique at seventeen to train in mainland France and spent around fourteen years within the Loiseau group before succeeding Bertron in September 2023. His wife, Lucile Vigilant, is in charge of desserts. The two stars were confirmed under his name in the 2024 guide and again in the 2026 selection.

The cooking

The kitchen keeps the Loiseau creed: the ingredient first, flavours that read clearly, and intense jus and reductions in place of heavy cream and butter sauces. Vigilant works with the house's long-standing producers, including foragers from the Morvan, and allows himself some land-and-sea pairings, while the à la carte still offers Bernard Loiseau classics such as frogs' legs with garlic purée and parsley. A vegetable tasting menu, first devised by Loiseau in 1984, runs alongside the main tasting menu, and the cheeses come from the Meilleur Ouvrier de France affineur Ludovic Bisot. Lucile Vigilant builds each dessert around one dominant flavour and keeps sugar in check. The cellar runs to some 15,000 bottles and about 900 references under executive sommelier Eric Goettelmann, Meilleur Ouvrier de France 2019, and Burgundy is its backbone.