Belle Plage – the three palms at the quiet edge of Cannes

On the quiet seafront curve of Le Suquet, where Cannes trades red carpet for pastel rooftops and fishing-village stairways, Hôtel & Spa Belle Plage occupies a building that has watched the Croisette from a polite distance since the 1930s. Reopened after a thorough rebuild led by La Clé Group, the hotel collection founded by Samy Marciano, it now stands as a 55-room five-star address on Square Mistral, facing the Mediterranean and the Estérel massif. Designer Raphael Navot, working with FAAR Architects, stripped the old seaside hotel back almost to its shell and reassembled it in regional stone, white terrazzo, oak and woven leather. The MICHELIN Guide includes Belle Plage in its Cannes selection, describing the house in two words that suit it well: 'avant-gardiste' and 'animé'. It is a hotel built for a version of Cannes that has little to do with yachts or premieres, and three palm trees outside have become its unofficial emblem.

01The house

Before it was Belle Plage, this was an ordinary seaside hotel from the 1930s, one of the modest addresses that lined this stretch of coast before Cannes became synonymous with film premieres. La Clé Group, already running Hôtel Bachaumont and Hôtel National des Arts et Métiers in Paris, bought the building and handed its transformation to Raphael Navot, the designer behind Paris's Silencio club and Le 39V restaurant, working alongside the FAAR architecture studio.

The renovation kept little beyond the footprint. Navot worked almost exclusively in natural material: regional stone, white concrete floors set with marble chips as terrazzo, oak furniture with spare lines, and headboards woven from recycled leather that tilt back to double as rugs. Outside, landscape architect Gwenaëlle Grandjean of Les Ateliers Saint-Lazare planted a Mediterranean garden of palm and pine around the building, softening its sculpted, off-white façade.

02Rooms and suites

The 55 rooms and suites are arranged across several categories: a Chambre Classique at 18 m², a Chambre Supérieure of 18 to 25 m², a 35 m² Chambre Exécutive and a Chambre Deluxe of 25 to 30 m². Some open onto the palms of Square Mistral, others catch the sea on the horizon, while the 80 m² Suite Belle Plage has a panoramic view over the Mediterranean and the Estérel massif.

Insider tip

Ten minutes on foot from the Palais des Festivals; Forville market trades Tuesday and Saturday mornings.

For longer or larger stays, Belle Plage offers spacious apartments of around 70 m² a short walk from the beach, and the Maison Clemenceau, a 163 m² house spread over four floors with a lift, three bedrooms, three bathrooms, an equipped kitchen and a shared lounge, built to sleep up to six people barely 100 metres from the sand.

03Where to eat

On the eighth floor, Restaurant Bella was conceived with Israeli chef Eyal Shani and is now run by executive chef Carl Dutting, a Top Chef France contestant who trained in Tel Aviv to absorb Shani's style before taking over the kitchen. The rooftop terrace looks over the pastel roofs of Le Suquet on one side and the bay of Cannes and the Estérel rock on the other, and serves breakfast, lunch and dinner daily, with a seasonal, produce-led Mediterranean menu built around dishes meant for sharing.

In the gardens of the spa, Restaurant Shiso takes its cue from Japanese izakaya culture: sharing plates, seared tataki, crisp tempura and home-made gyoza, accompanied by a list of sakes, Japanese whiskies and signature cocktails, in a setting designed for quiet rather than spectacle.

04The bar

The Bella rooftop doubles as Belle Plage's bar, open from midday to midnight every day. Guests drift up after the beach or before dinner for cocktails made with fresh fruit, watching the light change over the bay as the Suquet's tiled roofs turn from ochre to pink at sunset — an easy, holiday mood that the hotel keeps up all year.

05Spa and wellbeing

Spa Villa Belle Plage extends across 1,000 m² a few steps from the hotel, with seven treatment rooms, three of them for couples, spread over two floors. Facial protocols use Cellcosmet, Susanne Kaufmann, Augustinus Bader, Mesoestetic and Hydrafacial, alongside the Japanese Kobido lifting massage, while body treatments range from lymphatic drainage to deep tissue and Ayurvedic work.

A sensory circuit brings together a eucalyptus-scented hammam, a Himalayan salt sauna, a multisensory shower, an ice fountain and a pool set aside for Watsu sessions, and a fitness room fitted with Nohrd equipment rounds out the offer for guests staying longer on the Riviera.

06The neighbourhood

Le Suquet is Cannes before the festival: a hill of narrow lanes above the Vieux Port, with the Tuesday and Saturday morning market at Forville still trading in the same produce it always has. Belle Plage sits at its foot, on Square Mistral facing the sea, roughly ten minutes on foot from the Palais des Festivals — close enough for the city's set pieces, far enough to avoid being swallowed by them. The beach of the Midi lies just across the road, and the old port, with its fishing boats and café terraces, is a short stroll away.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.