Les Thermes Restaurant & Brasserie
Tucked beside the grand thermal spa complex on Allées des Coustous, this well-loved brasserie is where locals celebrate birthdays and where hikers coming off the mountains reward themselves with a proper Gascon meal — cassoulet, confit de canard and garbure soup made from actual Tarbes beans, not a tin.
What to Order
The garbure bigourdan — a thick, smoky soup of cabbage, preserved duck and Tarbes haricot beans — is the dish that defines this corner of the Pyrenees, and the kitchen here makes one of the most faithful versions in town, served in an earthenware pot with a raft of toasted bread.
Follow it with magret de canard from the Bigorre valley, cooked pink and served with sarladaise potatoes; finish with a slice of pastis gascon, the flaky, armagnac-scented apple tart that is the region's answer to strudel.
Atmosphere and Practicalities
The dining room is cheerfully old-school — tiled floors, checked tablecloths, a chalkboard plat du jour — and the pace is unhurried in the best French provincial tradition; lunch here easily stretches to two hours if you let it.
A three-course weekday lunch menu typically comes in under €18, making it one of the best-value sit-down meals in the Hautes-Pyrénées département.
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