42 DEPARTURES TRAVEL
42 DEPARTURES TRAVEL RIVIERA REVELS What’s New in Monaco? The effervescent restaurant scene in Monaco kicks off this season with the creation of MAONA MONTE-CARLO, the principality’s new open-air summer restaurant cabaret and bar on a hilltop terrace a stroll away from Monte Carlo Beach, serving up refined local specialities and featuring live music until 2am. And steps away from the humming Casino Square, HÔTEL MÉTROPOLE MONTE-CARLO’s long-awaited opening – the gastronomic restaurant, Les Ambassadeurs by Christophe Cussac – will showcase superb Mediterranean dishes in an elegant new space designed by Jacques Garcia. montecarlosbm.com cobblestone streets of Vieux Nice, wine aficionados also flock to Maison Péllégrino (maison-pellegrino.com), a grocery with the finest cheeses, foie gras and other French products plus a select wine cellar and a small “secret” restaurant. Owners Jean-Michel Chapuis (former sommelier of Riviera palaces) and Jean-Eloi Nénert will also serve up family-style dishes from their backroom kitchen – pâte en brioche, ratatouille, creamy pike dumplings – to showcase their exceptional products. Best of all, you can buy a superb bottle of wine and then open it to accompany your meal. Steps away is Lavomatique (lavomatique-restaurant.business. site), a former laundromat with a tasty market-driven menu (don’t miss the chickpea panisse French fries) and a convivial bar counter. If you’re shopping in the upscale Clockwise from left: the bright interior of Les Agitateurs; an inviting common area at La Pérouse hotel; spelt risotto with aubergine, parmesan, summer leek and hazelnuts at 21 Paysans “Golden Triangle” downtown, head to L’Alchimie (lalchimie-restaurant. com) for a refined, affordable threecourse lunch whipped up by talented young chef Arnaud Collin, formerly at Monaco’s Blue Bay. At 21 Paysans (21paysans.com), a grocery and organic farm-to-table restaurant with an everevolving chalkboard menu, is about as deliciously native as it gets. “We work directly with a group of farmers in the Riviera backcountry and stop by ourselves to pick up all our produce,” says co-founder Eliott Mercier. Peasant-style cooking aside, you don’t have to rough it when it comes to deeply comfortable rooms with a sweeping vista of the shimmering Mediterranean. A much-awaited luxe contemporary urban oasis, the 151- room Anantara Plaza Nice (anantara. com) – the group’s first French property – is unique, set back from CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: THOMAS AUDIFFREN, © LA PEROUSE, STUDIO500GRAM
© CARLTON CANNES Come sunset, Anantara guests drift to the rooftop bar for foamy whisky socca sour and other craft cocktails the seafront on the designer boutique row. The rooftop restaurant, SEEN by Olivier, headed by executive chef Denis Gamard, is a cornucopia of elegant Asian-meets-revisited-Niçois fusion, with everything from elaborate sushi and grilled fish to stuffed vegetable (petits farcis) and beef ravioli (ask for the Château de Crémat, awardwinning organic red wine, grown in the city’s western hills). Re-energise at the spa with a magnesium-packed facial and massage, one of many signature treatments with organic seaweed and essential oils from a small homegrown company, Thalion. Come sunset, everyone drifts to the rooftop bar for foamy whisky socca sour and other craft cocktails. The concierge will organise your heart’s desire, from master cooking classes and wine tasting to Dine-by-Design, featuring private dinners in the splendiferous Presidential suite. Nice’s glam-hotel renaissance continues with the October 2023 arrival of the 132-room uber-luxe Le Victoria (maison-albar-hotels.com) next door; there’s also a five-star rehabilitated convent-turned-hotel in the works, but in the meantime, book The regal gardens at the new Carlton Cannes a top-floor suite with unbeatable sweeping coastal views of the Bay of Angels in the newly reopened 56-room historic seafront hotel, La Pérouse (hotel-la-perouse.com), steps away the beach and the sun-drenched market square, Cours Saleya. After a top-totoe facelift, this beloved multilevel landmark retains its holiday-home air, with vintage sea-themed prints, rattan and curvy wood furniture, a stone pool and solarium, plus a new restaurant, Le Patio, specialising in Mediterranean fare, set back in a lemon-tree-lined courtyard. And in this city awash with quirky legends, don’t run for cover when the reverberating cannon goes off at midday, which it has for the past 163 years (it’s only gunpowder now). Why? A wealthy English army colonel who moved to Nice, Sir Thomas Coventry, wanted to make sure his dawdling wife was home to make his meal and set off a cannon exactly at noon so that the entire city could hear it. Keep your ears open. Every day at twelve sharp, pigeons flap excitedly and shopkeepers promptly lock up for Nice’s sacred two-hour ritual: lunch. A tradition worth keeping. Checking in on Cannes Cannes is aglow with transformations, starting with the conversion of the former Grand Hôtel to the 75-room MONDRIAN CANNES (all.accor.com) – its first French property – and the highest hotel on the Croisette, with spectacular contemporarystyle 11th-floor suites with terraces and a sweeping view of the coast, plus a new Japaneseinspired restaurant/bar Mr Nakamoto. Meanwhile, two legendary grande dame Croisette palaces are finally ready for their close-up after extensive makeovers. At CARLTON CANNES, A REGENT HOTEL ( carlton cannes.com), expect an elegant renovation of the 332 rooms and suites – including an uberluxe rooftop penthouse with a Jacuzzi– as well as an interior garden and pool; next door, HÔTEL MARTINEZ ( hyatt.com) has reinvented its dazzle with everything from the 16 new spacious “Oasis” suites surrounded by greenery and designed by Pierre-Yves Rochon, and the all-day dining restaurant and bar, Le Sud, in the lobby. Cap d’Antibes Update The legendary HÔTEL DU CAP- EDEN-ROC, CAP D’ANTIBES ( oetkercollection.com) unveiled its latest pride and joy – a massive spruce-up of the rooms, with a new luminous Eden-Roc suite with a jacuzzi and sweeping view of the Lérins Islands. The wave of refurbishments continues at the CAP D’ANTIBES BEACH HOTEL (ca-beachhotel.com) with 35 new seafront rooms and suites; hidden away on a quiet street behind the Gould pine forest, the new 64-room Art Deco gem, THE 1932 HOTEL & SPA CAP D’ANTIBES (all. accor.com) is a beguiling small boutique hotel with a Codage spa and a panoramic rooftop restaurant featuring superb Mediterranean fare. And for hardcore aquanauts, the innovative 1,700sq m CANUA ISLAND (canuaisland.com), off the shore of Mandelieu, is a “nomad” floating beach club with electric water sports, a restaurant, lounge, swimming pool and an on-board VIP suite. 43 DEPARTURES
