The story
Sandikala, at 9 rue de la Barsogue, Galan, 65330, France, serves a modern Asian kitchen in the Lannemezan area, led by Australian chef Luke MacLeod. The restaurant received a Michelin Recommended distinction in 2026.
MacLeod is originally from Brisbane. At 22 he moved to France on a working holiday visa, and later cooked in Bali, which shapes his approach. He works with chilli, shiso, Thai basil and horseradish, layered over French technique. Fruit and vegetables are organic, and most come from producers within a 30 km radius.
The menu changes at least twelve times a year, and dishes are cooked to order. Recent menus have included wok-fried cuttlefish with fermented peas and miso and mirin grilled pollock. Vegetarian and pescatarian adaptations are available on request, and a children's menu is offered for under-tens. Le Fooding listed the restaurant in 2026.
Recognition
Ambience
Details
History
Summer 2019: Australian chef Luke MacLeod (who used to work at the now-defunct La Palombe Gourmande in Lascazères) heeded the siren’s call of this old sharecropping farm’s beautiful stones and wooden rafters. Named Sandikala (“the meeting of day and night” in Balinese, a nod to his time at Legian Bali), the French-Asian plates that he dreams up with Sadayuki Yamanaka (ex- SaQuaNa in Honfleur) catch the eye. The day we went for lunch: superb line-caught meagre over an almond cream with zucchini and redcurrant, electrified by an onion-kaffir lime-ginger-chili mixture; very tender suckling veal cooked medium rare and lit up by green chili and heather honey sambal, with haricots verts, smoked eggplant and a full-bodied jus ; cheeses from the Vallée d’Ossau served with a grape-nectarine-red onion chutney; before a delightful strawberry and raspberry macaron sprinkled with ral el-hanout, a yogurt and orange blossom cream and lemon and mint sorbet. And the cherry on top : the restaurant now offers a fully equipped private guesthouse with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a garden with a BBQ, direct access to the lake, and… breakfast included ! // P.L.
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