Cannes

Meynadier / Marché Forville · Rue Meynadier 92

Chez Vincent et Nicolas sits at the foot of Le Suquet, the old town, and at night it is absurdly handsome. The tables are packed close together outside, with red-and-white tablecloths, bottles of wine, big glasses catching the light and the narrow streets of old Cannes all around you. It is pure French Riviera in the most satisfying, lived-in way.

The cooking here is seriously good. The menu is full of French classics, executed beautifully and with real generosity. Escargots, onion soup, lamb cooked for six hours, enormous profiteroles. There are two things I would absolutely order. The Noix de Saint-Jacques en robe de lard fumé, tartare de tomates à la vinaigrette de pruneaux confits is amazing: the scallops wrapped in smoked bacon with tomato and prune vinaigrette are rich, smoky, sweet and sharp all at once. Then the “fameuse” côte de veau du Limousin with homemade gratin dauphinois: a huge roasted veal chop, properly browned, with the gratin soaking up everything around it.

The wine list goes deep through Provence, Burgundy, Rhône and Bordeaux. Get a good bottle of red with the côte de veau. Sitting outside in Le Suquet with that on the table is about as good as Cannes gets.

Île Sainte-Marguerite · Cove below Fort Royal

You arrive by boat to Île Sainte-Marguerite and the first impression is almost stupidly beautiful. Pine trees, terracotta roofs, water so blue it barely looks real, and an absurd armada of yachts sitting just offshore, with tenders constantly ferrying more people onto the island. Everyone looks fantastic. Linen, silk, tiny dresses, jewelry, sunglasses, ridiculous tans. It is this preposterously glamorous Riviera fantasy where, before anything has even happened, you are looking around thinking, what the fuck is this place?

Then you sit under the canopy, the rosé appears, the food starts coming and it is genuinely excellent. Beautiful Mediterranean cooking, big plates for the table, the sea a few metres away. For a while La Guérite is simply breathtaking: gorgeous people, enormous boats, excellent food, one of the most spectacular settings imaginable.

Then you hear “Welcome to La Guérite.”

And the island goes completely fucking feral.

The music becomes enormous. Disco, gigantic singalong records, shamelessly euphoric songs that every person in the restaurant knows. Within minutes everyone who arrived looking immaculate is standing on chairs, then tables, screaming choruses at each other. Country flags are flying over the crowd. Napkins are everywhere. The DJ is absolutely hammering the room. Champagne comes charging through under showers of sparks, carried by shirtless gladiators, Mario in a rainbow wig, FBI agents and whatever other magnificently stupid costume you can think of. The whole restaurant turns into this delirious, sun-drenched, wildly overdressed bacchanal in broad daylight.

It is obscene, magnificent, outrageously hedonistic, gloriously stupid, completely deranged and unbelievably fun. La Guérite is one of the most extravagant places on earth.

Palm Beach · Place Franklin Roosevelt

La Petite Maison is at Palm Beach, the historic casino complex at the very end of Pointe Croisette, with the terrace looking across the water from Cap d’Antibes to the Lérins Islands. The room is polished and glamorous in a very Cannes way: white tablecloths, wicker chairs, deep red awnings, planting everywhere and the Mediterranean completely open behind it.

The food is overseen by Yiannis Kioroglou, who has been behind La Guérite’s kitchen since 2013 and now leads the cooking across several of the same group’s Cannes restaurants, including La Petite Maison. His Greek roots are still very present: food for the middle of the table, fish and vegetables, fire, lemon, olive oil and generosity. He has said that give him a beautiful tomato and very good olive oil and he already has most of what he needs. Then you sit down at LPM and there they are: tomatoes, lemons, olive oil, bread, salt and pepper already on the table. Cut the tomato, squeeze over the lemon, pour on the oil, salt it and eat it with the bread. The menu takes that same Mediterranean way of eating and makes it much more refined, without losing the freshness or abundance. Order widely.

If you want to continue the night after your meal, ask the waiters to book you a spot at Medusa downstairs. It is Palm Beach’s restaurant-cabaret-club, with singers, dancers, acrobats and aerialists, and it keeps going until 5 a.m.

Carré d’Or · Rue Florian 6

La Môme and Midô sit directly opposite each other on Rue Florian, a narrow alley in Cannes, and because they are part of the same group the two restaurants work almost like one larger place. La Môme fills one side with white tablecloths and huge woven lamps, Midô faces it from the other terrace, and the tables, music and people occupy the space between them. It is elegant, very glamorous and unmistakably Riviera, but it is also genuinely fun.

The advantage of having both is that you are really choosing what you want to eat, not what kind of night you want. La Môme is Mediterranean, with fish, pasta and grilled meat; Midô does sushi, crudo, tempura and robata. Both are very good, and whichever side you pick you are still having dinner in the same scene on Rue Florian.

La Croisette · 73 Boulevard de la Croisette, 06400 Cannes

The Martinez is one of Cannes’s iconic hotels. It has been on the Croisette since 1929, with that huge white façade, MARTINEZ across the roof and almost a century of Film Festival history behind it. The nice thing is that none of that feels like the only reason to stay there. It is also just a very good hotel.

You come downstairs for a proper breakfast, the concierge sorts whatever needs sorting, and when you walk outside you are already in the middle of Cannes. Then you cross the Croisette to La Plage, get a lounger out on the pontoon, order a very cold bottle of Côtes de Provence rosé and spend the afternoon swimming in clear Mediterranean water, having lunch and watching the boats go past. Later you walk back across the road, shower, get dressed in a beautiful bright room and head out for dinner with most of Cannes already around you.

That is why the Martinez works so well. You use the whole hotel all day, and every part of it holds up: the rooms, breakfast, concierge, beach, service, design and location. None of those things alone is the reason to stay here. It is how well the Martinez does all of them at once.