At the Col de la Couillole, on the edge of the Mercantour National Park, Pauline and Christophe Billau run a former mountain refuge as an inn with seven rooms and a single seasonal menu – one MICHELIN star, an hour and a half from Nice.
In this story · 3 sections
The Col de la Couillole is a high pass above the village of Roubion, on the mountain road between the Tinée valley and Beuil, at the edge of the Mercantour National Park. Here, at 1,700 metres and about an hour and a half from Nice, a former refuge has become one of the most unlikely starred addresses on the Riviera map.
Pauline and Christophe Billau met on the Île de Ré in 2000, work together as they live together, and settled in the Haut Pays Niçois in 2009. In spring 2017, after months of hard work on the building, they opened Auberge Quintessence: a restaurant with rooms, in a silence that is almost total.
Auberge Quintessence
Restaurant · Col de la Couillole, Roubion
© OpenStreetMap contributors · OpenFreeMap
- Address
- Route du Col de la Couillole, 06420 Roubion
- Opened
- Spring 2017
- Altitude
- 1,700 metres, Col de la Couillole
- MICHELIN Guide
- One star – won 2019, lost 2020, regained 2025, kept 2026
- Service
- Dinner only, at 19.30, Thursday to Monday
- Groups
- Lunch possible for groups of 15 to 25, on request by phone
- Rooms
- Seven, with king-size beds and mountain views
- Payment
- Visa, Mastercard, cheque or cash
- Source
- Official website auberge-quintessence.com and MICHELIN Guide, checked 25 October 2026
Pauline and Christophe Billau's auberge in a former mountain refuge at the Col de la Couillole: a single seasonal menu from mountain and valley produce, seven rooms and the Mercantour National Park at the door.
01A star lost and found
The auberge won a MICHELIN star in 2019 and lost it the following year. "The star came too quickly. We were still renovating," Christophe Billau told the trade paper L'Hôtellerie Restauration. On the advice of the three-star chef Laurent Petit, the couple simplified. Where there had been three menus at lunch and dinner, four people in the kitchen and twenty covers, there is now one evening service, one menu and two cooks. The star returned in 2025, and the 2026 guide kept it.
02One menu, from the mountain
Christophe cooks and Pauline runs the dining room. His rule is a seasonal menu built around the producers of the surrounding valleys – not always easy at this altitude – and a wild garden he has planted around the auberge. The MICHELIN inspectors describe a single set menu inspired by the mountains: a creamy cappuccino of mountain nettles, roasted white asparagus with candied citrus or a sabayon, lightly smoked Mediterranean tuna cooked confit and lifted by oxalis, and veal from the Plateau de Longon with confit shallots and a courgette flower filled with pine nuts and herb cream, followed by carefully matured cheeses. "There's nothing superfluous or artificial about this place," they conclude.
Insider tipDinner only, Thursday to Monday at 19.30; book by phone or email.
The wine list leans local, with a particular interest in wines from mountain vineyards. "When people come all the way to us, to this pass an hour and a half from Nice, we have no right to disappoint them," the chef has said.
03Staying the night
After dinner at this height, most guests stay. The seven rooms have king-size beds, walk-in showers and views of the mountains, and some have a sitting area; the auberge also sells a package for two with the room, breakfast, a house aperitif and the gastronomic dinner. In winter the surroundings offer alpine skiing, snowshoeing, biathlon and fat-bike rides; in summer there is hiking in the Mercantour straight from the door, climbing and via ferrata at Roubion, and canyoning in the neighbouring Vésubie valley. Afterwards, there is the terrace or the fireside.
