The Hiely-Lucullus—an unprepossessing place of Art Nouveau mirrored walls run by Richard Vinatier—offers fabulous cuisine with an emphasis on luxury ingredients. The set-price menu (few diners go à la carte here) is a worthwhile splurge, combining a mix of modern touches and Provençal traditions. Expect dishes such as seared perch served with potato gnocchi and truffle oil.

Jacques and Laurent Pourcel, identical twins born in 1964, created a restaurant empire based on French colonial trading posts in 17th-century India, marketing a sort of modern nomad-chic. Though the Pourcels have since sold the restaurant, the tripartite menus—vegetarian, Mediterranean, and exotic—and global music nights remain. The Avignon Comptoirs has the very special setting of the School of St. Nicolas d'Annecy, a 14th-century convent with handsome cloisters now outfitted with giant cushioned couches and long trestle tables, grass-green curtains, red walls, and palm trees. Here you eat chilled zucchini soup with fresh herbs, tomato salsa, and Parmesan ice cream; lobster tajine; grilled calamari with preserved lemon; prune-lacquered duck with cold sesame soba; or a grilled côte de taureau,— that is, bull—a meat popular in the nearby Camargue.

Closed Sundays and Mondays.

Chef Sébastien Aminot operates the restaurant at the chic La Mirande hotel, installed in an elegant and softly lit room hung with oil paintings and a Brussels tapestry inside the 14th-century palace that houses the hotel. Aminot's specialties include roasted sea bass with a rougaille sauce and lamb chops in an herb crust served with stuffed vegetables. The Mirande also offers cooking classes taught by some of the region's top chefs, including the heads of kitchen at the Restaurant of Hotel d'Europe and Christian Etienne.

The eponymous chef of this restaurant—who left a career at the Ritz in Paris to return to his native turf and earn his Michelin star—specializes in a style of cooking he calls "régional inventif." There's an emphasis on fish and game, such as roast pigeon with a coffee-infused jus and a fondant of apples and shallots. The simple set menu is a good value but rarely as ambitious as the more expensive menus on offer. The restaurant's setting—rough-beamed ceilings and zebra-striped walls inside, plus a sunny terrace for summer dining—is downright historic: The 800-year-old structure just south of the papal palace served once as part of the Pope's court, and as the town hall in the 19th century.

Closed Sundays and Mondays.

This is the very formal, very expensive, and rather overlit restaurant of the Hôtel d'Europe. On warm evenings, you can eat out in the courtyard and discover why Michelin has blessed inventive young chef Bruno d'Angélis with a star rating. Standouts include the roast mullet with asparagus, bacon, and lemon verbena sauce served with a crispy Parmesan biscuit, and the veal rump au jus with lavender honey, sautéed violet artichokes, and new onions.