Best Restaurant of 2008 contender

Telephone: 081 6770711

Open: 8am-11pm

Address: ''No. 6 Restaurant on the Beach'' was probably the only address you needed to know once. Maybe the mail still reaches there safely.

Style: Idiocyncratic, Gallic.

Price range: Not bad at all for Patong. American breakfast (150 baht) T-bone (250 baht) chicken curry (90 baht) crab (mostly at 100 baht a dish) squid (mostly at 100 baht a dish) noodle dishes (70-80 baht) bbq beef with french fries (150 baht) Singha beer (60/110 baht).

Specialty: Anything with French in it. All the sandwiches here come with french fries. French bread (baguette) with butter and jam (80 baht) And there's french toast with ground pork (80 baht). We especially like the french accent that comes with ''spring rool'' (60 baht).

What Phuketwan says: Chez Bernard is worth visiting as much for the setting as the food. It's basically one big piece of driftwood, leaning around a large tree trunk. The tables and chairs spill out onto the sand, under umbrellas. Bernard can sometimes be seen here, eating an extremely late breakfast, all long blond hair and a classic brown eagle profile. Breakfast will be followed by a smoke and a coffee. Expats who have clearly seen better days and wish there were more of them ahead come here to fill the air with French. While Patong is fast becoming international franchises for a generation of travellers who can't tell the difference between the taste of one country and the other, at least at Chez Bernard there's still a chance you will find some sand in your sandwich.

How to find it: On the beach between Impiana Cabana and the Loma Seafood Centre at Loma Park.

Parking: You'll be lucky. This is Beach Road, Patong, remember.