Raymond Blanc of Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, Great Milton, Oxford

I return to France for most of my holidays. One of my favourite places is the beautiful La Bastide Saint Antoine, near Grasse – a “Relais Gourmand” restaurant with rooms set in wonderful parkland.

Here I enjoy the excellent cuisine of Jacques Chibois, in his terrace restaurant. His food is all about Provence – unpretentious, generous, colourful and fresh – all cooked to the highest level.

Another of my favourites is completely different, but equally fabulous and has become my favourite hotel – Le Club de Cavalière, near St Tropez. This hotel is the only one I know in the South of France that is right on the beach and is all about absolute relaxation.

It’s run by two great hosts, Monsieur and Madame Ruchti. The restaurant serves delicious, simple, local food that is uncomplicated and unfussy. La Bastide Saint Antoine, 48 avenue Henri-Dunant, Grasse (00 33 4 93 70 94 94, www.jacques-chibois.com). Le Club de Cavalière, Le Lavandou, near St Tropez (00 33 4 98 04 34 34, www.clubdecavaliere.com).

Skye Gyngell of Petersham Nurseries Café, Richmond, Surrey

I go to Ibiza every August and stay with an old friend who has a house there. The food is always good, just simple grilled meat and fish, and lovely vegetables. I love that big, bold, punchy cooking. I couldn’t give a toss about Michelin-starred restaurants, I find them boring and uptight.

We have one favourite place we love going to on Esterant Beach near Cala d’Hort. It’s off the beaten track, next to a national park, and there’s only one restaurant there – with no name, and no menu.

When you sit down you have to tell them whether you want fish or meat. They bring olives to the table, and padrón peppers – which the kids love, and a big bowl of aioli, and fruity olive oil, and thick-crusted peasanty bread.

There are always tiny deep-fried fish – I’m not sure what they are – a bit like anchovies, delicious. And we eat daurade roasted in a big paella pan with finely sliced potatoes, always green pepper, and lots of tomatoes, which they fillet at the table for you.

Rose Gray of River Café, Hammersmith, London

My favourite place to dine alfresco is Da Delfina in Florence. It serves unusual, old-fashioned Tuscan countryside food. My favourite is the springtime fritto misto made with wild calendula, borage, zucchini flowers, sage branches and anything else they might just have got in.

The restaurant is set among olive groves next to the Medici hunting lodge, Artimino. It has a beautiful terrace, overlooking the groves and the villa.

Ristorante Da Delfina, Via della Chiesa 1, Artimino, Florence (00 39 0 55 87 18 074, www.dadelfina.it).

Sat Bains of Restaurant Sat Bains with Rooms, Nottingham

I love Majorca. I’ve been to four Michelin-starred restaurants there – not that this place I’m going to recommend has one, but it should do; it’s brilliant.

It’s a beautiful Relais & Chateaux hotel a stone’s throw from the beach in Pollença, called Cala Sant Vicenç. We had this amazing seven-course olive-oil tasting menu sitting out on the terrace. Best was the braised young lamb in olive oil – a bit like a confit. It was mind-blowing, with aromatic herbs and wonderful citrus flavours. The whole menu worked well.

What did we wash it down with? A local wine for £11 a bottle. They recommended it – even though they had a posh wine cellar. I like that – they didn’t try to rip us off. Hotel Cala Sant Vicenç, calle Maressers 2, Cala Sant Vicenç, 07469 Pollença, Majorca (00 34 971 530 250, www.hotelcala.com).

Shane Osborn of Pied à Terre, Charlotte Street, London

There’s this little place in Roses on the coast of northeast Spain that we love to go to after visiting El Bulli. You need something to chew on, something with a bit of substance, after eating there.

Called La Barretina, it’s in the backstreets of Roses, behind where we usually stay – a little hotel right on the seafront called Hotel Terraza.

La Barretina serves these huge plates of tellina clams – a bit smaller and sweeter than palourdes – cooked with white wine, garlic and parsley. They serve sparkling fresh fish – it’s cooked in a big wood-fired oven and eaten off the bone.

Then we head back to Barcelona for a night or two. I love eating tapas at the CervecerÍa Catalana on Calle Mallorca, north of the Ramblas. It’s great to sit at the bar and watch these guys in their white jackets serving you. We feast on stuffed peppers and hot chorizo, croquetas and these lovely little sandwiches. Then we contrast it with something modern, such as the tapas at Comerç 24 in the Born district, or head to 7 Puertas on Passeig Isabel II for suckling pig and roast baby lamb.

La Barretina, Cap Norfeu 29, Roses, Girona (00 34 972 255 699); Hotel Terraza, Passeig MarÍtim 16, Roses, Girona (972 256 154, www.hotelterraza.com). CervecerÍa Catalana, Calle Mallorca 236, Barcelona (932 160 368). Comerç 24, Carrer del Comerç 24, Born, Barcelona (933 192 102, www.comerc24.com). 7 Puertas, Passeig de Isabel II 14, Barcelona (933 192 950).

Richard Corrigan of Lindsay House, Soho, London

It’s not the nicest part of the Med, San Vincenzo on the Tuscan coast, but my favourite restaurant is there – Gambero Rosso, owned by chef Fulvio Pierangelini. For starters, I was one of the only chefs to get into his kitchen to work with him – he’s a bit rude to chefs is Fulvio.

The restaurant has only 18 covers, and it’s pretty special. It’s not full of young chefs looking for their next job in a three-Michelin-starred restaurant; it’s a family kitchen, staffed by people who have been there for years.

Fulvio’s food is stonking – he cooks from the hip; no recipe is set in stone. I do a variation of one of his signature dishes at Lindsay House – the chickpea purée with gambas. And his olive oil – it’s the oxygen of life. Gambero Rosso, Piazza della Vittoria 13, San Vincenzo (00 39 056 570 10 21).

Barny Haughton of Bordeaux Quay, Bristol

My favourite spot is not on the Med – but not too far away, on the l’île d’Aix, the smallest of a cluster of islands off the Charente-Maritime coast. It’s a funny little place; less than five miles of coastline with no cars and no policemen.

I first went to Le Pressoir in 1974 with a mad French girlfriend who lived in Royan, and was struck by its bohemian atmosphere: flagstone floor, open kitchen with an enormous raised fireplace with wrought-iron grillade, whitewashed stone walls, posters of jazz musicians, long wooden tables, live music, a wooden wine press and the terrace shaded by bougainvillea and palm trees. The sea is five minutes away across a few rocky sand dunes.

Thirty-five years later the food and wine is exactly what you would expect: meat and fish chucked on the grill with rosemary branches, brilliant tomato salad, rustic soups and fruits de mer.

I last went with my family in the summer of 2005. After a long day on the beach we ate oysters, sardines, grilled tuna with fresh haricots blancs, moules marinières, steak with pommes frites, a Charentaise goat’s milk camembert and a carafe of house white.

Le Pressoir is not a gastronomic experience: you can get this kind of food anywhere in France. I love it because it’s been there for ever, the food is good, and the warm Atlantic is just there on its doorstep. Le Pressoir, Le Bois Joly, l’île d’Aix, Charente Maritime (00 33 5 46 84 09 37).

Angela Hartnett of The Connaught, Mayfair, London

I keep going back to Italy for my holidays because I won’t go anywhere that has bad food. Last year I went to Puglia and loved it. All the best restaurants are tiny and family-run, as always. We stayed near Martina Franca, the city of wine, and ate brilliant food at a little place called La Cantina in Alberobello. La Cantina, Vico Lippolis 9, Alberobello, Bari (00 39 080 432 3473).

Mark Edwards, Executive chef, Nobu restaurants

Barcelona is always top of my list. It’s one of the most vibrant cities in Europe. I usually go for three or four days, staying in a different hotel each time — eating is the main focus. I’ll always spend one evening wondering from tapas bar to tapas bar. The standard of the food is incredible, from the traditional tapas place to the more cutting-edge bars in the Born district of the city. And I always have at least one meal at Cal Pep - it’s an institution, everyone should go.

But mostly I hang out at the market. I always bring an extra suitcase and fill it up before I fly back. I buy Jabugo ham, chorizo, anchovies in vinegar, even fresh fish. I love goose barnacles - which the Spanish call percebes, I love to eat those in the tapas bars here and I always take some back with me to eat at home. And almonds - I love Spanish almonds, they’re so fresh, the flavour is unbelievable.

Once a year I go to El Bulli - about a two-hour drive north from Barcelona on the coast near Rosaes. The first time you go it blows your mind, and every time I go back I understand it a little bit more.

The dishes that stood out for me on my last visit include a duck consommé served with frozen shaved foie gras and a treacle-thick balsamic reduction. You drag your fork through all three ingredients getting all these different temperatures and textures - incredible. The chocolate soil is pretty amazing, too - lots of different types of chocolate blasted frozen on to your plate. Every time you put your spoon in you taste something different. Cal Pep, Plaça de les Olles 8, 08003 Barcelona, Spain, (00 +34 9 33 10 79 61, www.calpep.com); El Bulli, Cala Montjoi, Ap. 30, 17480 Roses, Girona, Spain, +(00 34 9 72 15 04 57, www.elbulli.com).

Jean-Christophe Novelli, The White Horse, Harpenden

There’s a special place in Corsica that does it for me. I first went there after I finished the army to get a job in a kitchen just so I would have something on my CV before going to work in Paris, but ended up having the time of my life — and became the head chef!.

It was a small restaurant — the only restaurant, right on the dockside in a tiny fishing village a couple of miles from Moriani-Plage on the east coast of Corsica called St Nicholas de Moriani.

Everyone brought me something from the sea to cook. This is where I went fishing for the first time — at midnight, in the moonlight, when we cooked up langouste on board, and I’d make a proper mayonnaise and eat them with boiled potatoes.

The sheer variety of fish in Corsica is unique — I’ve never seen anything like it. In fact, the island has incredible produce and it’s pretty self-sufficient;. What they grow, they eat — it’s very healthy.

It also has the best saucisson I’ve ever tasted and the wild boar is something else. I don’t go much now - I have a dream house in Austria to escape to, but I guess that’s not on the Med, but it’s 900m above sea level and we can see for 10 milesmore than 15km.! The produce is great there, too - I discovered this amazing radish soup the other day, which I’ve put in my new book, out this autumn. And the Chardonnay is the best I’ve ever tasted. Where is it exactly? Now that would be telling. In a valley near Salzburg, that’s all I’m saying."

Michael Caines, Gidleigh Park, Devon, and ABode Hotels

Nice is a great eating destination, especially if you live near Bristol, so we can fly direct. You’re right there on the Med, with the Bay of Nice stretching out in front of you, with fantastic weather, great street entertainers and this fabulous old city-centre market.

I love it best in June best, the weather is more tolerable, and the produce is amazing — fat cheies, ripe strawbeies and peaches, fantastic tomatoes, beautiful peppers. We stay in a hotel usually so I don’t cook but it’s great just looking at this stuff - and eating it in the restaurants.

It’s a proper working city, so the restaurants here aren’t just for tourists. And there are so many reasonable places to eat, all at good prices. I never plan where we’re going, we just pick somewhere that looks like it has plenty of locals eating there — you can generally tell the good places.

Some are better than others, but the standard is pretty good. You could be a millionaire, who cares? I’m usually there with my family and friends so I’m not looking for Michelin-staed food, just good simple stuff — a big plate of salad, some cured meats, a platter of fruits de mer, moules marinières, stuff that’s easy to digest. And we always finish with a fruit tart — they’re wonderful there.