TOM PARKER BOWLES tries the world’s best buffet: It has a seven-month waiting list, unlimited lobster and caviar – all at surprisingly low price

According to Michel Guérard, it is the famous legend of French gastronomy, “the greatest culinary theater in the world,” an edible extravaganza so spectacular, so deliciously magnificent, that it has reduced even the most seasoned gourmets to dizzying raptures of greedy exuberance. Some call it the Disneyland of déjeuner, others the Sistine Chapel of serious eating.

Everyone agrees that Les Grands Buffets, an all-you-can-eat restaurant in the south of France, is not only the most sought-after reservation in the country but also, with an estimated annual turnover of €24 million (around £20 million) and more than 380,000 guests last year alone, probably the highest-turnover restaurant.

Les Grand Buffets is no ordinary buffet, though. Forget the stuff-your-gob shame of your average pile-it-high stodge party.

Here ‘Le chef vous suggest’… quail stuffed with foie gras, whole roasted turbot and beef tenderloin. Along with 50 types of pastries and puddings, and a cheese board that, with its 111 different cheeses, has been certified by Guinness World Records as the largest selection of any restaurant in the world.

The famous lobster tower Cascade de Homards

What is even more spectacular is that you only pay €57.90 per person to eat as much as you want. There are no limits, except the constrictions of the stomach.

But first you have to get that table. The restaurant has a seven-month waiting list, but miraculously, when I logged onto the website in early February, I managed to find a table for four for lunch in mid-May, meaning a wait of just three months. We have a reservation for 12:45 PM, but we can stay until closing time at 4:30 PM. Dinner guests may stay until midnight.

And so we have lunch, on the most glorious day of late spring, with a hunger whetted and a belly ready for battle. The restaurant is located on the edge of Narbonne, part of the Espace de Liberté sports complex, in the middle of an inconspicuous industrial estate, wedged between an ice rink and a swimming pool.

Le Moulin de Mougins is not. As we enter the restaurant, whose walls are covered with cherry wood and polished copper, there is a plaque with a quote from Rabelais, that great writer and bon vivant: ‘Fay ce que vouldras’. Or “Do whatever you want.”

And there is something wonderfully Rabelaisian about the whole place, a temple to sybaritic pleasure. The service is brisk and charming, as in any Michelin-starred restaurant, and within moments we are seated in the garden in the cool shade of a large parasol, accompanied by the tinkling of little waterfalls and the clatter of knife and fork.

There are linen napkins, good glasses and cutlery of a generous weight. No paper cups or disposable plates here.

At this point, early in the day, everyone’s eyes sparkle with the same slightly manic joy. Do we get value for our money? That fear was quickly dispelled. We get a map of the restaurant, along with the wine list (which is both extensive and surprisingly good, considering drinks are not included in the buffet price) and plan our attack.

Always remember: this is a marathon, not a sprint.

One of the waiters holds up a canard au sang – or pressed duck

The chocolate fountain is part of an epic spread. It would take ten visits to even do it justice

Half a rooster crab and a pair of Alaskan king crab legs. Then a big dollop of mayonnaise and back to the table.

So we trot into the main room, and straight to la cascade de homards, the famous lobster tower, a multi-tiered Moulin Rouge of vibrant pink crustaceans, all shrouded in a translucent, cooling mist. A few of those, a dozen oysters, half a rooster crab and a bunch of Alaskan king crab legs. Then a big dollop of mayonnaise and back to the table.

Our hunger sated, we begin to relax as we all send separate groups of plunderers to different parts of the buffet—the foie gras section or the rotisserie, glowing with radiant heat, where whole piglets and chickens slowly turn on spits. You line up, order one dish (and only one dish, though you can come back as often as you like), and then wait for your number to be called.

The only place that seems perpetually empty is the raw food buffet. It seems that no one wants to eat a raw carrot stick, organic or not.

There are stations for canard au sang, a wonderful old restaurant dish made with a duck press that resembles a medieval torture device; lamb à la ficelle (hung on strings and roasted).

Another cart for crêpes suzette, the chef’s face lit up in a flash of burning liquor; the nine types of ham on the bone; battalions of metal braziers filled with slow-cooked beef stew; that cool, musty church of cheese, piled high with truckles, pyramids and cylinders. And the puddings and the ice creams and the chocolate fountain and the… Well, I could go on. It would take ten visits to even do justice to this epic spread.

The tower is a multi-story Moulin Rouge, full of bright pink crustaceans, all shrouded in a translucent, cooling mist

As for actual quality, well, many of the dishes are excellent. Cool, salty oysters; terrines as graceful and beautiful as the mosaics of Pompeii; fish soup with all the drunken bravado of a sailor on leave; the sweetest suckling pig; excellent charcuterie; a slice of côte de boeuf, a rich pink; one of the best stewed tripes I have ever tasted. And those tarts and puddings – sheer pastry perfection.

Not everything is exciting. How could it be? The lobsters are probably Canadian and a bit overcooked; the caviar is ersatz, or at least not sturgeon caviar – unlimited beluga caviar at this price would be something truly miraculous; kidneys in Madeira sauce are tough and chewy, having been sitting too long in their braziers, while some of the nicer hors d’oeuvres have the chilled smell of airline catering about them.

When you cut through all the pomp and circumstance, it’s cooking on an industrial scale. Although it is very well done.

The kitchen knows exactly what they are going to cook each day and for exactly how many people. There is minimal waste and all leftovers are used for staff meals. No matter how hard they try, few guests will eat their entire €57.90 worth of food. They are a brilliant company.

But I’m unnecessarily picky.

Because this is more than a buffet, it is a glorious ode to French gastronomy, from haute cuisine (lobster dish, braised hare), through bourgeois cuisine (veal stew, lemon tart) to the resolutely rustic (tripe, snails, frogs’ legs).

It also celebrates the dying art of the rotisseur and saucier. Of course, you’ll probably find superior versions of most dishes elsewhere. But that’s not the point.

As Michel Guérard rightly points out, this culinary theater is of the most delicious kind. Although more burlesque than Samuel Beckett. Mon dieu, it’s nice, slowly simmered in an abundance of generosity. Les Grands Buffets is a passionate cri de coeur, not only one of the best lunches you will ever eat, but, in the words of the restaurant’s owner, Monsieur Privat, a Louvre of classic French cooking.

It’s not so much a culinary sensation as a museum of good taste.

For more information, visit lesgrandsbuffets.com