Reopening of the La Ponche Hotel and the Cap d’Antibes Beach Hotel
Every spring, it’s the same moment. The light returns to caress the ochre facades, the scent of the sea fills the alleys, and the Riviera remembers what it knows how to do.
In Saint-Tropez, La Ponche returns to its neighborhood on March 26: its cobblestone streets where shadow and light have been playing for centuries, its secret beach, its bar that has seen nights no one has quite forgotten.
At Cap d’Antibes, between the umbrella pines and the bay of the Lérins Islands, the Beach Hotel reopens on April 2: its private beach, its pink umbrellas, its tables where lunches turn into afternoons and then evenings without anyone worrying about it.
The season can finally begin.
Hôtel La Ponche Saint-Tropez Reopening on March 26th
La Ponche is unlike any palace. No monumental lobby, no doorman in formal attire. You arrive through a narrow alley, push open a door, and the hotel is there, nestled in the old village, as if it has always been there. Which is true, in a way.
There has never been a guestbook at La Ponche. It was the philosophy of the place since its beginnings in 1938. An active, almost militant discretion, which perhaps explains why everyone kept coming back. Simone Duckstein, who grew up within these walls, remembers the stars deboarding sleepily from the Train Bleu in Saint-Raphaël, heading to Saint-Tropez because it was a «little paradise.»
They were greeted with hot coffee and slices of toasted bread. She also remembers Françoise Sagan arriving in her Jaguar, the Bardot-Vadim romance unraveling under Trintignant’s gaze during the filming of And God Created Woman, and Boris Vian who loved to pass behind the bar between two trumpet notes to serve his friends: Daniel Gélin, Michel Piccoli, Jean-Paul Sartre. From room 19, Sagan wrote these words that remain in the house’s file: «I opened the shutters, and the sea and the sky threw the same blue, the same pink, the same happiness at my face.»
A House of Legend
The rooms still bear their names. Each dark walnut door is an address within the address. You can invite yourself into room 8 of Romy Schneider and Daniel Biasini, on the top floor, a terrace as large as the room, suspended over the rooftops of Saint-Tropez, the bell tower, and the sea. In room 1, that of Brigitte Bardot and Gunter Sachs. In room 20, that of Bernard Buffet and Annabel. Each occupant, loyal to their room number rather than to a single season.
It is in this spirit that Fabrizio Casiraghi approached the renovation in 2021. His starting point was not a hotel but a story: «A man in his forties inherits his grandmother’s house.» He is going to turn it into a vacation home. He scours for objects, armchairs, and lighting fixtures. Just think of the South, the idleness. A bit of Capri. But above all, Saint-Tropez. The terracotta tiles, the Persian rugs in the hallways, the Picasso lithographs at the reception, the round walnut mirrors resembling a ship’s wheel…nothing tries to impress.
Its 21 rooms, its apartments, and its new House stretch out in this preserved heart of the village. The House, which joins the hotel’s offerings this year, is a world apart: 240 m², a rooftop open to the bell tower and the Mediterranean, a large table around which everyone gathers. You arrive, you take possession of the place. Saint-Tropez starts here.
A Spirit of Art and Celebration
For a long time, Saint-Tropez was an annex of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Not really all of Saint-Tropez, but rather the La Ponche neighborhood, and more precisely its bar. Boris Vian would pass behind the counter between two trumpet notes. There was in this place the conviction that the night can be intellectual, that celebration and thought do not oppose each other. This spirit has never really left the place.
Every Thursday at 8 PM, starting May 14, Martin Brucker and Nino Martinez will revive the carefree spirit of the Roaring Twenties with vinyl records: the SAINT-GERMAIN evenings kick off the season in style.
On May 29, the fifth edition of the Literary Prize La Ponche will bring together literature enthusiasts, journalists, and artists around a simple conviction: there are French novels that one might miss because they arrive too early for the major literary seasons. La Ponche makes room for them. The jury (Lisa Vignoli (president), David Foenkinos, Nathalie Azoulai, Sophie Fontanel, Inès de la Motte Saint-Pierre, Chrystele Gozlan, François Samuelson, Arthur Larrue, François Langlade, Élodie Garamond, and Vanessa Trigano) will meet in the hotel before the winner signs their book. A spring prize.
A Table Facing the Sea
Facing the fishing port, La Ponche also rediscovers its table rituals. Chef Simon Pinault, trained notably at Galanga de Monsieur George, where he contributed to earning the first Michelin star in 2023, takes the helm of the kitchens. His cuisine is sunny, generous, and driven by local products: red tuna and centrolophus caught in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, regional vegetables, the vibes of the market. Faithful to the house’s tradition, La Ponche’s bouillabaisse also returns, simmered for two, like a secret to share.
In the morning, breakfast is served on the terrace facing the dock in the light of the early hours. At noon, a new brunch menu takes over from 12 PM to 3 PM. At 3 PM, orange blossom waffles, chocolate fondant, ice cream sticks, red fruits… The afternoon snack at La Ponche, little pleasures of the South, to be savored on the terrace or by the water. In the evening, the tables are set, the candles are lit, and the flavors become deeper.
A Refuge for the Body
Before the village awakens, there is a suspended hour at La Ponche. You receive your detox infusion in the calm of the still-sleeping house. We descend the hotel steps, cross the small pier, and unroll our mat facing the sea. The first sun salutation, eyes on the horizon, the sound of water as the only measure, this is where the day begins, starting at 7:30 AM, with gentle yoga, dynamic yoga, or Pilates.
At the spa, this season marks a first: La Ponche inaugurates the very first PERS wellness space, and the first collaboration of the French brand with a hotel. PERS was born in the office of an esthetic doctor, after three years of research and development, with a clear ambition: to reconcile scientific rigor and the pleasure of care. Their protocol is based on four actions: Protect, Beautify, Repair, Stimulate,condensed into a necessary and sufficient routine, formulated with the best dermo-cosmetic active ingredients, clinically tested, Made in France. A medical language, an immediate sensorial experience: this is exactly the spirit of La Ponche.
In November, when Saint-Tropez regains its gentle light and silence, the house will host a wellness retreat conceived by Magoma and Élodie Garamond, from November 7 to 11: daily yoga, body enhancement practices, and moments of silence.
Cap D’Antibes Beach Hotel Reopening on April 2nd
At the end of the cape, the Mediterranean
The natural beauty of Cap d’Antibes has often inspired cinema: Hitchcock filmed To Catch a Thief there, and Deray set the scene for The Swimming Pool. Before the region captivated the entire world, the restaurant La Maison des Pêcheurs had already been an institution on this tip of the peninsula since 1954. Eddy Barclay, Brigitte Bardot, Johnny Hallyday would come here to recharge. Picasso returned to Antibes to rediscover the creative energy of the Mediterranean. Nicolas de Staël painted there the concert of colors of a sun merging into the sea. Le Cap does not have the fanfare of Cannes nor the fever of Saint-Tropez. It has something else: a quiet wildness, a light that falls differently on the coves, a way of containing the Mediterranean without displaying it.
It is in this in-between space, between the forest and the sea, that Bernard Dubois envisioned the Beach Hotel as one would think of a Palm Springs house perched on the Mediterranean: simple geometry, clean lines, minerals everyplace, open to the outside. Raw and charming. We’re coming. The sea takes care of the rest.
35 rooms and suites, all facing outward. Below, private gardens where the sea emerges between the palm trees. At the top, the Bay of Antibes and the Lérins Islands as far as the eye can see. And the rest The Cap, 66 m² suspended above the water.
Two Tables, One View
On the sand, BABA. A Levantine cuisine by Assaf Granit, Shabour, Tekes, Shana, driven by carefreeness and generosity: mezze that circulate, grilled dishes on the mangal, large, noisy, and joyful tables. BABA, Ba in Hebrew means to come, is a place of sharing and movement. We come as much to eat as to be together. From noon to midnight.
Les Pêcheurs, it’s the other table, and another world. You ascend a mahogany staircase in dim light, and the dining room reveals itself like the interior of a ship: bay windows overlooking the sea, chrome columns, red travertine. Chef Nicolas Rondelli, a native of Nice, trained at Negresco and Chibois, composes his menu each morning based on what the fisherman from the adjacent port has brought in. «I see cooking with humility, composing according to the sea. Like a navigator. » The Michelin Guide renewed its star on March 16, for the tenth consecutive time.
The Art of Recharging
This season, the spa at the Beach Hotel is enriched by a new partnership: the protocols are signed by Lymfea, and the treatments are carried out with Monastery products, a botanical brand founded in San Francisco by Athena Hewett, who formulates and tests each product by hand in her Californian laboratory. A philosophy: working with the skin rather than against it, drawing on the healing properties of plants. Sage, Damask rose, reishi, jasmine… Without alcohol, without chemical preservatives, without superfluous ingredients. A brand still confidential in France, which will be exclusively discovered this season in the massage huts nestled in the heart of the exotic garden.
The hotel also has its feet in the water. Private beach, sun loungers, swimming. Higher up, the pool overlooks the Mediterranean. In the garden, yoga classes punctuate the season. From April 19 to 22, the retreat «The Breath of Spring,» led by Élodie Garamond and Alice Dugast, invites you to explore different forms of yoga, sing, dance, walk, swim… and celebrate the spring within yourself.
Escape to the Cape
Spring invites you to move. By bike along the coast, on a pedal boat out to the Crouton port, barefoot on the private beach. This season, the American brand Hartford is taking over the hotel shop with all the essentials for a vacation wardrobe.
From Cape to Cape
Two houses, two memories.
La Ponche carries the memory of bright nights and secret winters of a Saint-Tropez before the large crowds.
The Beach Hotel embodies another idea of the Riviera, that of the outdoors, the wild light that inspired Hitchcock and Picasso, the generous table facing the sea. Both converge in this same rejection of ostentation, this same way of making luxury something that resembles life rather than its decor.
From a pier to a private beach, from a Michelin-starred table to a terrace brunch, the season begins.
