The best luxury hotels on the Côte d'Azur
An expert guide to the best luxury hotels on the Côte d'Azur, including the top places to stay for lavish suites, glorious ocean views, Michelin-starred dining, peaceful spas and delightful swimming pools, in locations including St Tropez, Nice and the Cap d'Antibes.
The Grand-Hôtel is a real jewel in the south of France's crown and since a Four Seasons takeover, benefits from the group's exceptional service standards. It's famous for Club Dauphin, with an infinity ocean pool and celebrity swimming instructor, and has a Michelin-starred restaurant. A fresh and contemporary aesthetic combines with enough wonderful Art Deco touches to ensure the whole place still oozes proper old south of France glamour. Large windows at the front of the hotel allow light to flood the lobby and lounge areas, where white marble is set off by gold detailing. Upon descending to the basement spa, you’ll pass a wall adorned with signed pictures of celebrity guests past and present – and almost feel the lingering presence of Elizabeth Taylor et al, who stayed at the hotel in its 1950s heyday.
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No-holds-barred elegance since the 12th century. Elegantly marooned above the Riviera’s thronging masses, the hotel nevertheless sits within striking distance of Nice, Antibes and Cannes. The twinkling Med is a 30-minute motor downhill. Coastal day-trippers drive up for refined lunches, which are best slept off alongside the chateau’s mirror-calm infinity pool. If Louis XIV lived in the present day, and demanded Wi-Fi and a Bose stereo, even one of the hotel's 16 timelessly cool classic rooms would suffice. All guestrooms are big, and every bathroom is pannelled with more marble than a Florentine chapel. For balconies and seaviews upgrade to one of the 35 suites.
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The sole hotel in St Tropez with a rooftop pool – and the only large establishment to open year round – is a haven of contemporary cool. The vast ground floor sums up the scene: it’s an art-filled, glass-lined showroom of chic, built to attract the hippest (and richest) hedonists from across the globe. The service and facilities are quite brilliant: free transfers to the sandy Elysium of Plage Pampelonne? Tick. Wine tastings arranged at partner vineyard Domaine de la Madrague? Tick. Guests may even purchase the lobby sculptures from city art spot Galeries des Lices, a mere stroll away. All are trumped by the Clarins spa, a basement bolthole from where you’ll emerge looking 10 years younger.
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No other luxury hotel in France delivers a similar cultural charge. The wealth of authentic antique furniture, of art and artefacts, and the eclectic taste with which they are disposed, lends the place a sort of grace. Even bad boys try to behave well in what is the last independent palace hotel on the Riviera. Almost impossible not to, in the Royal Salon with a vast portrait of Louis XIV looking on. Or in the exceptional, glass-ceilinged rotunda. Yet the Negresco is no museum. Standards in all departments are 21st-century. Michelin-starred dining, sea views and a wealth of antique furniture make this a popular choice among European royalty and holidaying celebrities: everyone from Khrushchev to Richard Burton has enjoyed a drink in its Le Relais bar.
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A throwback to the F. Scott Fitzgerald era, this grand 19th-century mansion on the Cote d’Azur is set among nine hectares of landscaped gardens with a guest list that reads like the credits of a Hollywood movie. It is without a doubt one of the world’s most splendid hotels with its classic architectural lines, sumptuous Louis XV and XVI furnishings, gilded mirrors and chandeliers. Service is flawless with a no-holds-barred concierge. There is a heated infinity pool, five clay tennis courts, 33 cabanas and a boutique. The Sisley spa has four treatment rooms, as well a sauna, steam room, gym and beauty salon.
• The best luxury Cap d'Antibes hotels
No, it is not a hallucination. This medieval chateau, revamped in the 1920s, does teeter on a cliff edge, making it a glorious address for escaping the tourist hordes. The coastal panorama from the heated outdoor pool is other-worldly and the terraced grounds cocoon hidden terraces and sundecks for guests to lap up the extraordinary luminosity and colours of the French Riviera in total Adam and Eve privacy. The fragrant gardens, scented with jasmine, roses and a wealth of Provencal herbs, are a lesson in Mediterranean flora. Meanwhile, the opulent interior works hard to evoke the grandeur and elegance of yesteryears. there are four restaurants climaxing with — drum roll — the mythical, Michelin twin-starred La Chèvre d’Or.
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Expect flawless service, stylish rooms, outstanding Michelin-starred cuisine and sea views at this 400-year-old chateau, which crowns a picturesque hilltop village on the Riviera coast. Huge fireplaces, four-poster beds and other period furnishings keep up the historic castle theme. The rooms are actually dotted in different buildings around the original chateau — most are accessed by their own stone staircase, creating a wonderful sense of intimacy and superstar privacy. Each of the 12 cosy rooms is different. Half have real fireplaces, making off-season a particularly charming time to stay — ring for wood to be brought up from reception. The deluxe room with roaring fire in the bathroom and round spa tub for two is possibly the most romantic. Guests staying in one of six rooms with sea-facing balconies risk never leaving.
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Think of it as an exceptional private villa in a billion-dollar location that just happens to welcome paying guests. Contemporary art decks the rooms; the entire works of Churchill (in first edition) graces the shelves. Such extravagant displays of taste are splashed by sunshine and a heated saltwater swimming pool, allowing guests to feel as at home in a pair of Oxfords as a pair of Havaianas. The establishment doesn’t do watersports or yoga classes; rather there’s tennis, a literature-stocked library and sub-tropical gardens. Most importantly, an aura of absolutely privacy and nature-bound tranquillity pervades every corner.
