Top Ten Jet-Set Hotspots by Devanshi Mody
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1. La Reserve de Beaulieu
For 130 years, La Reserve de Beaulieu has been the privilege of the world’s who’s who. This lieu de magie ever spellbinds with its unique brand of luxury, which is an integral part of the service. This is where you find the best service in the entire universe - staff delightfully combine attention lavished on royalty with the familiarity of an old friend, which ensures guests keep coming back.
The hotel that started off as a glamorous sea food restaurant, then the adresse incontournable of the international elite, has expanded to what is now amongst the most exclusive hotels on the French Coast. But then, this is where Mistanguette, the most chi-chi French starlet of the 50s, “lived.” In her honour today is the glorious villa Mistanguette - with a marvellous terrace including a Jacuzzi et al - overlooking the brutally blue waters of the Mediterranean.
No less ravishing are the recently refurbished and eminently charming new suites, which fuse an antiquated air with modern amenities. The peaches-and-cream interiors exude warmth, and valuable tapestries and objets d’art hold the gaze whilst the forsaken Mediterranean broods in the backdrop.
Never forgetting its origins as a restaurant, the hotel remains once of the most celebrated 2-Michelin-starred gastronomic must-dos on the Riviera. The restaurant is embellished with Venetian glass chandeliers and the most opulent of upholstery, which recapture the magnificence of a bygone era. A tableau, dating from the time the establishment first opened, takes pride of place in the splendid principal dining room.
Chef Olivier’s preparations are presented with a panache that compliments the magnificent setting, whilst the sommelier keeps you entertained with a fabulous beverage list and quirky utterings. When coffee arrives with a trolley full of mignardies, you won’t realise that you’ve spent 4 hours here.
Time passes swiftly in good compagnie; which is why the regulars return, regularly. This mightn’t be the party spot but its discreet and distinguished air is just right for Jack Nicholson, Liam Neeson and Alex Ferguson. You might spot them luxuriating at the Riviera’s best spa, where Audrey does personalised massages and fabulous facials with chic Maria Galland products.
2. Grand Hotel du Cap Ferrat
The Grand Hotel du St Jean Cap Ferrat, arguably the most romantic hotel on the Riviera, teeters temptingly on the tip of the eponymous peninsula, the most expensive land on the French coast. For exactly a century this monumental legend, once the Riviera residence of the King of Belgium, has played host to royals (Sarah Ferguson, the Romanovs, the Emir of Bahrain), tycoons, celebs and artists, including Aristotle Onasis, Jean Cocteau, Sommerset Maugham, the Clintons, George W. Bush, Elton John and Prince.
It’s also where the likes of Top Shop big boss Sir Philip Green hosts outrageously lavish parties. Wrapped in acres of landscaped gardens that descend gently into brilliant blue waters, this oasis of delicious serenity is the ideal retreat. Check into ultra sexy, recently refurbished contemporised suites whose sprawling terraces offer heartbreakingly beautiful views over an infinity of azure.
Charlie Chaplin’s swimming coach still instructs the children of the jet set at the cliff-edge pool. The hotel’s enchanting gastronomic restaurant Le Cap awaits its second Michelin star, while the world awaits the hotel’s spectacular Chanel spa opening. The hotel is also investing 50 million for 25 more suites, so they can have private plunge pools and everything imaginable to pamper the most spoilt of lovelies.
3. Cap Estel
The French Rivera'’s best-kept secret is the hush-hush water’s-edge Cap Estel. If you aren’t looking for it, you won’t find it, and you need to ring to be allowed to enter. Go down verdant sloping paths and you arrive at this ultra elegant hotel, a fantasy of cutting-edge cool and sumptuous splendour, abounding with outrageously elegant paraphernalia: everything from the art on the walls to coffee tables, lamps, leather-bound books, stylish artwork and rugs to swish glass lifts. It’s the jazziest stuff you can imagine.
Check out the individually decorated, uber-smart suites with exotic flashes - no wonder the place is a jet-set hot spot that lures Bono and Beyonce. The new spa with unique treatments is, unusually, bathed in the water and offers impossibly fantastic views from everywhere. But then, the hotel itself brings the Mediterranean into the interiors in the sublimely serene, aquamarine-dominated décor. If you don’t own a villa, this is the next best thing.
4. Le Byblos
There was a time when St Tropez was simply a sleepy fishing village. Then the Byblos happened, making St Tropez the holiday haunt of celebs, stars, aristocrats, artists, the jet set and party people galore. 41 years on, the hotel that “made” St Tropez is looking younger and sexier than the VIPs who’ve been addicted to it since Brigitte Bardot inaugurated it in 1967. Mick Jagger even hosted a wedding here.
Synonymous with St Tropez itself, the Byblos is one of the most glamorous addresses on earth. It isn’t an architectural or interior design marvel, but its confluence of intimacy and luxury, rusticity and raciness somehow works. It can be an oasis of tranquillity - but during the “St Tropez Season”, rampant revellers turn it into the most hip and happening place in town. After all, this is home to the world’s most famous night club, Les Caves du Roy - Bruce Willis loves the sensational décor and Price Albert, Paris Hilton, the Beckhams and all come to party year after year after year. The legend lives on!
5. La Villa Marie
La Villa Marie is quite the discreetly fashionable place to be these days. Liz Hurley’s favourite little retreat is ensconced in gardens and overlooks the Bay of St Tropez. Wonderful rooms are a mishmash of countrified and contemporary chic, jazzed up with ornate flashes.
The sole suite at present is an imaginatively converted attic. The ceiling comes down dramatically, so if you’re very tall this might be inconvenient; unless you intend to be predominantly supine - then again, if you’re taking along a copy of the Kama Sutra, the more acrobatic poses might suffer. Until the new suites are available, go for one of the lovely terraced one-piece rooms with bathrooms, including stand-alone bathtubs.
6. Le Chateau de la Messardiere
This is the flashiest place to be in St Tropez, and is especially sought-after by those with big entourages. Their new Six Senses spa opening is something to look forward to.
7. Splendido
The rage of the 50s, ever associated with La Dolce Vita, Portofino is always in fashion with the jet set who descend upon Hotel Splendido. Prettily posed like a four-tiered cake upon cedar-soaked slopes, Portofino’s legendary hotel - whose first guests included the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson - continues to host George Clooney, Madonna, Robert de Nero, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola, among others.
Ensconced amidst an explosion of flagrantly fabulous flora, with abundant gardens spilling copiously over the cliff, the setting is a veritable onslaught to the senses. Deliciously light and airy Italian-villa suites overlook boats adrift on languid waters, while the serenity of the surrounds is interrupted but by the vrrm vrrm of Ferraris, Porches and Lambos. Party people roll up in July/August, on boats bigger than the bay.
Views from the fabled terrace are as disarmingly dramatic as views from the cliff-edge, and an outdoor spa is cocooned in canopies of kaleidoscopic blossoms and cactuses. The sheer splendour of the setting is unrivalled. Book a massage with Katia, who is perhaps the only therapist capable of doing a “real” massage between St Tropez and Portofino. Denzel Washington agrees.
The spa overlooks the D&G villa and Roberto Cavalli’s colour-changing yacht, so if you fancy some entertainment, take along a pair of binoculars. Of course, if you’re undressing in the open, remember that the villa occupants might be glued to a telescope too...
8. Cala di Volpe
Costa Smeralda sizzles with the hottest people during the July/August summer season. For those who come to see and be seen, there’s only one place to be: Cala di Volpe. Think the setting is very James Bond? The makers of the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me thought so too. The hotel where you’d spot Naomi Campbell, Flavio Briatore and Bill Gates recreates a typical Sardinian village (albeit with swank boats lining its waters), yet buzzes with the bling bling set. High powered businessmen close earth-shattering deals in this hip and happening setting.
The star of show is Peppino, the charismatic Maitre D who has been around for 40 years but, when referring to the Bond film, says “that’s before I was born.” With all the charm of Bond himself, Mr Peppino will cover you in warm towels if you look chilly - that’s, if you’re a lady. Gents are told that they must suffer in silence!
9. The Pitrizza
Harrison Ford prefers the more private and infinitely prettier The Pitrizza. The hotel, whose delightfully summery villas are scattered around landscaped gardens courting a beguiling beach, is Porto Cervo’s most exclusive address. Climb atop the thatched terraces of any villa and be blown away by the views.
Especially spectacular is the infinity pool, seemingly flowing into vistas of water and extraordinarily constructed around a naturally rocky setting, with stones emerging from the water as if they were deliberately set there for show. On show now is the new chef Andy’s traditional Sardinian cuisine, with a Frenchified twist. The restaurant has always been a rarefied space, but go now to try the chef’s Sardinian deserts. He is proudest of his adventurous brown bread ice cream, a regal recipe.
10. Villa Armonia
This is Costa Smeralda’'s best-kept secret. Secluded, select, sublime, it’s a mesmerising miracle of interior décor and luxurious intimacy. The attention to detail in the wondrously imaginative Indonesian-style villa will have you exploding in raptures.
Zen seems to be the order of the day at this breathtaking beauty farm, which specialises in hardcore, clinically advanced spa and beauty treatments. This is no ordinary spa - it’s something else. You wouldn’t believe that this intimate retreat is from the same people behind the throbbing Sotto Vento night club - but the discreet holiday haven is for those in the know.
The elite hideaway is in a paradisiacal setting, enveloped in a swirl of exotica that includes Balinese-style thatched treatment cabins. It'’s perched atop sea-facing cliffs, down which carved, colossal crocodiles slither. Benches in the form of lizards greet you at the entrance.
Inside, exquisite Asian antiques flirt with Mediterranean motifs and coral. The sensuality of the romantic dining area and courtyards, as well as the to-die-for individually decorated suites, beguile beautifully. From the privacy of your terraced pool, enjoy Costa Smeralda at your feet. If there’s heaven on earth, this must be it. No parties here: don’'t disturb the slumbering angels...
Inspired? Check out TI's selection of the best luxury hotels in Riviera Cote d'Azur.