A humid morning with promise of heat later.

Patrick Giffon’s bag of culinary tricks held one more surprise for us—at petit dejeuner, two magnificent white peaches a few hours past fully ripe. We appreciated not only the peaches, but the chef’s faith that we had enough sense not to be put off by the brown blemishes on the fruit’s surface.

Preparing to leave the hotel before the majority of the other clients, we faced the prospect of some tricky maneuvering to get our car out of the cramped Parking. But the chef, still apparently under the misapprehension that we were persons of consequence, came to our assistance and personally saw to it that several cars were moved to give us clear passage.

The total at Hôtel-Restaurant Patrick Giffon was F702.

We headed north on the Autoroute into the Franche-Comté, bypassing Lyon by way of A46 looping to the east. For once we paid no attention to lunch, simply kept driving until we arrived at our dinner destination:

Hôtel Voyageurs, Chaussin

We filled in the temporal void before dinner watching the Coupe Davis on television (correct and steady Krishnan versus wild-swiping Gilbert) and the spatial one resulting from the absence of lunch by nibbling mass-produced versions of the Provençal noches, nougat and calissons.

We had no sooner taken our places in the bright and modern-styled dining room and picked up menus when we realized we had been to Chez Bach before, only a few years earlier. The menu contained the same regional specialties that we remembered with some affection from our previous visit—for example frog’s legs, which Mme Vernay told us had been a fixture on the menu since the restaurant’s founding in 1932. But now the old favorites were presented in a sleeker format with a confident new emphasis on quality and variety over quantity.

Petite mise en bouche: First, a pair of gougères—pastry puffs—one with the cheese flavoring as usual in this region, and the other without cheese. An interesting confrontation of the rich and savory with the merely rich. Second, a tangy beurre citron topped with caviar. Our reaction—wow! Third, a sliver of saumon fumé. Fourth (we were starting to feel agreeably coddled), a lightly poached, exquisitely fresh pétoncle, a tiny scallop.

We drank a Côtes de Jura Chardonnay et Savagnin (Rolet) 1989, a hard-edged regional white wine with lots of the barley-sugar character we particularly appreciate.

Assiette Jurassienne: An assortment of regional products including a liver-studded terrine Franc-Comtois, and filmy thin slices of jambon de montagne and of the air-dried and lightly smoked beef known as braisi du Jura. Also presented were tasting portions of noix—just a few walnut halves, but what flavor!—a salade of frisée, and a few thin strips of comté, the aged cow’s-milk cheese of the region.

Feuilleté de quenelles de volaille au vin jaune d’Abois: Chicken dumplings napped with a creamy sauce, with puff pastry. The characteristically penetrating sherry-like bite of the wine used in this preparation was not noticeable, having been tamed to project the wholesomeness of chicken.

Grenouilles fraîches façon grand-père Bach: A substantial heap of frog’s legs with backs, served with hot with a sauce of melted butter, garlic and parsley. The finger bowl was an essential accessory to this rustic feast.

Filet de sandre au vin jaune: A central pile of chunks of fresh-water perch on a delicately-flavored white sauce. It was ringed by overlapped cucumber slices making a scalloped pattern around the edge of the plate. Again no trace of the aggressive side of vin jaune, and again a fine sauce.

From the cheese tray we took first a sturdy Comté. Then, a moderately strong and satisfying Brie de Meaux matched with an Edel de Claron, a cheese of the region similar in style and quality to the Brie. Our cheese frenzy continued with a morsel of Reblochon. Finally we consoled ourselves for the absence of Roquefort with a luxuriously creamy Bleu de Bresse.

As precursor to dessert, crème brulée: A spoonful of delectable custard, served in a tiny pan.

Marjoleine sur sa crème anglaise et sa glace vanille, biscuit chocolat-praliné: A rectangular piece of the sumptuous three-layer sponge cake, and to the side vanilla ice cream nestling in whipped cream and topped with a spoked wheel of chocolate praline.

Assiette de sorbets et ses fruits frais: A trio of fresh-tasting sorbets with fresh fruit.

Of the generally good mignardises, the outstanding one was a chocolate-dipped physalis complete with tent. The collision of the tartness of cape gooseberry with the voluptuousness of chocolate produced a pleasant shock to the palate.