pontoons, day beds, rosé
The beach clubs worth arriving at by sea.
The Riviera beach club is its own art form — linen on sand, grilled fish at scandalous prices, an afternoon that dissolves — and every one of the great ones keeps a pontoon, because arriving by boat is the intended entrance. These are the ones our charters actually use, with the honest word on each.
the club, from the water
Anjuna, Èze-sur-Mer
The house favourite of our home water, fifteen minutes from our quay. Barefoot-boho on the sand under the Èze cliffs — day beds, DJs at a civilised volume, a menu that travels from sushi to the grill, and a kitchen doing real cooking behind the club glamour. Five minutes’ tender from a beautiful anchorage; book the table when you book the boat and the day arranges itself around it.
The Mala cove, Cap d’Ail
A green-water cove ringed by cliffs, with a pair of beach restaurants on the shingle and a staircase of 150-odd steps keeping everyone else honest. Arriving by sea is the whole joke: five minutes off the Monaco run, anchor down, swim ashore or take the tender, and lunch with the best view of the day. Come for the setting first and the cooking second.
shall we put a date in?
We reply within the day
La Guérite, Île Sainte-Marguerite
On its own island off Cannes since 1935, reachable only by water, and by mid-afternoon the loudest party in this list — Greek-leaning feast plates, then dancing between the tables. Go for the full production number; go elsewhere for quiet. As the Lérins day’s lunch it is unbeatable theatre.
Pampelonne: the legendary mile
Saint-Tropez’s beach deserves its own chapter — five kilometres of sand holding the most famous club roll-call on earth. Club 55 is the original, feeding the beach since Vadim filmed Bardot in 1955: crudités basket, grilled fish, cold Domaines Ott, zero music, and that refusal is the luxury. Nikki Beach brings the champagne-spray spectacle, Bagatelle and Verde turn lunch into dancing, La Réserve à la Plage and Casa Amor hold the chic quiet end, and Shellona’s Greek afternoons wait around the corner in the Canoubiers. The full mile, club by club, lives on our Pampelonne page — whichever table is yours, it is booked when the charter is.
The short answers
We anchor off the club, the crew calls the pontoon, and their tender — or ours — runs you to the dock dry-shod. After lunch, the reverse. No wading, no wet hems; it is the whole civilised point.
In July and August, absolutely — the famous ones sell out days to weeks ahead, and Club 55 further. Tell us the club when you book the charter and we make the reservation part of the day’s architecture.
further down the chart
Your next summer story begins here.
One boat, one crew, up to 10 guests, and a coast that is entirely yours for the day. Tell us how you want to spend it and the rest is ours to arrange. The day is yours and it is our pleasure to be part of it.