Hotel La Ponche

The good news: Quiet luxury still exists. The bad news: sometimes it's not easy to find. This also applies to La Ponche, located in the old fishing district of St. Tropez, whose tiny entrance is easily passed by once (or, as in our case, several times). Which is hardly surprising, because before it became one of the city's top addresses, it was nothing more than a simple corner pub with a few chambres. But then came the 1950s - and with them the stars. La Ponche became a trendy hotspot for (life) artists such as Romy Schneider, Jean-Paul Sartre and Gunter Sachs. If they met for dinner on the Boulevard Saint Germain in Paris during the week, they toasted with an Anisé in the La Ponche bar at the weekend. It is thanks to Fabrizio Casiraghi that the esprit of yesteryear still wafts through the winding stairwells and small salons today. It took the young interior designer eight months last year to renovate the iconic hotel from top to bottom and still make it look like it used to. If Bardot were to strut across the black and white marble floors today or Charles Aznavour were to perform a chanson in the still legendary bar, it would come as no surprise ...

Modern - and at the same time traditionally Provencal - is at best the first-class cuisine of head chef Thomas Danigo, who serves ceviche of sea bream with basil sorbet, followed by pea gazpacho and wild asparagus with yuzu hollandaise on a flower-fringed terrace. The many small details that make La Ponche a magical place are hardly less of a treat: the jug of homemade lemonade in the room in the afternoon, the heavy brass keys that are always polished to a high shine before being handed over - or the heavenly hotel room fragrance whose name you have asked for and which is then handed to you with a smile by the concierge on departure.