Elsa Marcel Ravin – the marine garden that won its star back

On the rocky point at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, where Monte-Carlo Beach floats between pine trees and turquoise sea at the edge of the Principality, Elsa Marcel Ravin occupies the dining room of the hotel's original restaurant, named after the American columnist, writer and organiser of high-society events Elsa Maxwell, who set the social tone here in the 1930s. Born in Martinique and based in Monaco for more than twenty years, Marcel Ravin also runs the two-Michelin-starred Blue Bay a short walk away, while Domenico D'Antonio was entrusted with leading Elsa's kitchen. Together the two chefs built a concept they call the Jardin Marin, a Mediterranean menu written around the sea rather than merely flavoured by it. Elsa, the gastronomic restaurant at Monte-Carlo Beach, picked up a star one year after the arrival of Chef Marcel Ravin and Chef Domenico D'Antonio at the restaurant's helm. It holds One MICHELIN Star.

01The room and the setting

The dining room is India Mahdavi's work: an elegant ambiance inspired by 1930s chic that offers a Mediterranean art de vivre escape, where the room evokes an underwater world and azure tones subtly mirror the curves of the coastline. Outside, the expansive terrace has the sea as its only horizon, inviting guests to a captivating sensory experience, gently lulled by the sound of the waves and the caress of the sea breeze. The hotel itself sits on a headland of pine forest classified as a bird sanctuary by the LPO, the French league for the protection of birds, and the restaurant can also be reached by the hotel's own boat shuttle from Monaco.

02The chefs

Since April 2024 Marcel Ravin has run Elsa's kitchen alongside Blue Bay Marcel Ravin, his two-starred address a few hundred metres away at the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort. The sea-minded conviction was not new to the address: back in 2014, under Venetian-born chef Paolo Sari, Elsa was basking in the limelight of being the first 100 percent organic restaurant in France to receive a Michelin star. Ravin and D'Antonio rebuilt that ethos around a bolder idea. Having won a Michelin star for Elsa, the gastronomic restaurant he took over a little more than a year earlier, Ravin followed it with First Prize in the Chef category at the Hotel & Lodge Awards 2025. He had in fact been given two years by the group's Chairman and CEO Stéphane Valeri and Managing Director Albert Manzone to retrieve the star Elsa had lost in 2022 — and the team did it in six months.

Insider tip

Seasonal restaurant, open Tuesday–Saturday from mid-April to late September; reopens spring 2027.

03The cooking

The Jardin Marin reads the sea as a pantry rather than a garnish. A dish is steamed in seawater here, finished with a seafood and vegetable jus there — every flavour from the sea and the fishing industry is used to enhance the produce of the land. On the written menu, that translates into pairings such as a tuna rossini and an iodized celery seasoned with plankton. The fish follows the Mr Goodfish charter for sustainable species and seasonality, re-signed by the restaurant for a second consecutive year, while the vegetables are grown at the Domaine d'Agerbol, bathed in sunlight and located on the heights of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. The commitment has been recognised beyond the kitchen: in 2023 Elsa received the ethical and environmental responsibility prize from La Liste, and in 2025 the chef was crowned Top Chef at the Hotel and Lodge Awards.

04What to order

Expect the tuna rossini and the iodized celery with plankton that the chefs cite as emblems of their marine garden, alongside dishes built on seawater-steamed fish and marine-and-vegetable jus rather than classic butter-based sauces. The vegetables change with what comes down from Domaine d'Agerbol on the hillside above the restaurant, so the printed detail of the menu shifts through the season even as the Jardin Marin idea stays constant.

05When to go and booking

Elsa Marcel Ravin is open Tuesday to Saturday, from 12.15pm to 1.30pm and from 7.15pm to 9.30pm for most of the season, with dinner service only in July and August. The restaurant operates seasonally — it was closed at the time of writing in October 2026, with reopening scheduled for spring 2027. Reservations are taken on +377 98 06 50 05. In July 2026 the room also hosted a one-off four-hands dinner pairing Ravin and D'Antonio with chef Christopher Coutanceau, priced separately from the regular carte, as part of the group's Festival des Etoilés Monte-Carlo — a reminder of how often this kitchen is used as a stage.

06The neighbourhood

Monte-Carlo Beach sits just across the French border from the Principality, close enough to reach Monaco by the hotel's own boat shuttle or a short drive along avenue Princesse Grace. The club atmosphere that has defined the hotel since the 1920s is still visible on the jetty and around the Olympic seawater pool, both given a striped, sun-bleached makeover through a 2026 collaboration with the fashion house Jacquemus — a reminder that this stretch of coast has always mixed grand hotel formality with beach-club ease.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.