Those famously demanding Michelin restaurant and hotel reviewers, responsible for doling out their precious awards to Europe’s finest chefs, have now trained their spot-light on affordable local food and hospitality, through their Bib awards.

The Bib Gourmand has been around for a few years, honouring “moderately priced menus that offer good value for money and serve carefully prepared meals”. But the Bib Hôtel prize is new — conferred upon small hotels deemed to offer “a good level of service at a reasonable price”. And if Michelin is now as committed to tracking down Europe’s best simple brasseries and decent B&Bs as it has always been to analysing Gordon Ramsay’s raspberry coulis, those famous Red Guides may be about to get a new lease of life — as the playbook for touring Europe via cheap, characterful accommodation and dining.

But what does it take to win a Bib? And is it worth plotting your next cross-continental drive or UK weekend break by joining up the smiling blue and red Michelin men on the map? We sent two writers across France and Britain to visit some of the proud winners and investigate what is needed to become part of the new breed of Michelin star attractions.

Page 2: Anthony Peregrine in the Basque country
Page 3: Brian Schofield in the south Pennines

()Anthony Peregrine in the Basque country

MY THREE-DAY tour in the French Basque country was bedevilled by all sorts of trouble. Sinuous mountain roads did their best to hurl me thousands of feet into the void below. Tackling the abundant use of “x” and “k” in the Basque language fractured my jaw. And ill-advised discussions about Basque nationalism (“You people live in paradise: what are you complaining about?”) tested local tolerance to its limits.

But the Michelin Bib hotels were no trouble at all. They were, in fact, just right — homely refuges to repair to at the end of a danger-packed day.

Most of the Michelin-anointed hotels are converted farmhouses — like all Basque buildings, they are an imma- culate white, trimmed with red or green woodwork, and tend to have been in the same families for generations. Basques don’t muck about with hearth and home. Indeed, they don’t really muck about at all.

I started off at the bright-eyed Pikassaria (00 33-5 59 54 21 51; doubles from £31, half-board from £33pp), just outside Sare, an absurdly pretty village folded into the Pyrenees, about 30 minutes from Biarritz airport. After watching a game of pelota, I sat on my balcony and got drunk on a dramatic view of rocky ridges calmed down by sheep, cows and farmers.

In such glorious surroundings, a slice of dry bread and a plank would have sufficed. As it happened, I had the half-board meal — fish soup, wild mushroom omelette with Bayonne ham, ewes’ milk cheese and Basque cake — and a particularly comfy bed.

Next morning, I wanted to get in among the views, so I tackled the nearby Rhune mountain via rack-and-pinion railway, my preferred method of mountaineering. The mountain is 3,000ft straight up, passing wild Basque ponies to reach a summit crossed by the Franco-Spanish frontier. Behind you, the Pyrenees roll in waves into Spain; in front, French Basque valleys run with villages and farms to the sea. Civilisation and landscape merge into one seamless, settled entity.

And that’s enough about mountain views. They are constantly stunning. Please take them as read from now on. Down from the top, I passed through further shining villages of substance — Ainhoa, Espelette — to Bidarray, scattered liberally over a hillside in the Nive valley. The village centre sits on a ridge, and so does the Bib Gourmand Auberge Iparla (05 59 37 77 21), which offers a lovely terrace, a surprisingly sophisticated welcome and a £14 menu. I opted, though, for a gargantuan serving of charcuterie followed by local lamprey in red wine, paid £19, and was jolly happy to do so.

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