Il Giardino – Byblos' Italian garden table in Saint-Tropez

Beside the most photographed swimming pool on the Côte d'Azur, under a pergola thick with climbing greenery, Il Giardino is the newest table inside Hôtel Byblos, the five-star palace that has anchored Saint-Tropez glamour since 1967. The restaurant opened in 2025, taking over the poolside pavilion that had previously housed Arcadia, and became the hotel's Italian address, placed in the hands of Executive Chef Nicola Canuti, whose dishes draw on traditional recipes gathered from across Italy's regions and quietly revisited. A 300-square-metre vegetable garden a stone's throw from the hotel, designed with naturopath Bodo Fath, feeds the kitchen directly, growing more than seventy varieties of fruit, vegetables and aromatic herbs. It is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, filed among the Saint-Tropez addresses where guests are told simply to spare no expense. Marine Ugo designed the dining room, with ceramics by Agnès Sandahl, turning the poolside pergola into something closer to an Italian garden than a hotel terrace.

01The room and the setting

Il Giardino occupies the pavilion that once housed Arcadia, right on the edge of the Byblos pool, beneath a pergola the hotel describes as inspired by Italian gardens. The redesign leans into terracotta red and beige, with colourful accents that nod to Italy without tipping into pastiche. Marine Ugo handled the interiors, working with ceramicist Agnès Sandahl on the tableware, so that the tables under the vines feel closer to a private garden than a conventional hotel dining room. Service runs on the terrace and in the surrounding outdoor areas, with air conditioning, valet parking and wheelchair access among the practical comforts of a palace address.

02The chef

Nicola Canuti serves as Executive Chef across several of Byblos' restaurants, and at Il Giardino his reference point is Italy itself: dishes built on traditional recipes from different regions of the country, quietly revisited rather than reinvented. His other ingredient is closer to home. A stone's throw from the hotel, a 300-square-metre vegetable garden, designed in collaboration with naturopath Bodo Fath, grows more than seventy varieties of fruit, vegetables and aromatic flowers that reach the kitchen the same day they are picked - a field-to-fork arrangement the hotel considers unusual among Saint-Tropez's luxury addresses.

Insider tip

Open evenings only, closed in winter; reservations recommended, non-residents welcome.

03The cooking and what to order

The antipasti run to octopus bruschetta with caponata, before the primi move into paccheri with beef cheek confit and a langoustine risotto finished with herbs cut from the garden, the rice balanced against the sweetness of the shellfish. Pasta is made in-house, worked from durum wheat flour sourced from small Italian producers. Among the classics, linguine alle vongole and a paccheri alla carbonara built on aged pecorino and crisp guanciale sit alongside Roman-style pizza and transalpine staples such as cotoletta alla milanese. More elaborate plates include a saltimbocca of red mullet, the kitchen's own take on a dish traditionally made with veal. Dessert falls to pastry chef Geoffrey Turpin, whose dolci run to ice cream, meringue and fruit.

04Wine and drinks

The list leans on local bottles, pairing Provençal rosé with Italian labels chosen to sit alongside the kitchen's register of pasta, pizza and grilled fish - the kind of wine list that rewards guests who ask the sommelier to steer them toward the lesser-known names on the page.

05When to go and booking

Il Giardino keeps restaurant hours rather than hotel hours: dinner runs from 7.30pm to 10.30pm, stretching to 11.30pm in July and August. Non-resident guests are welcome, and booking is recommended, especially once the pergola tables fill for the summer season. Like the rest of Hôtel Byblos, the restaurant follows the Riviera calendar: in October 2026 the hotel's own site listed Il Giardino as closed for the winter, with reopening planned for spring 2027, timed to the sixtieth anniversary of Byblos and its nightclub, Les Caves du Roy.

06The neighbourhood

Hôtel Byblos sits in the centre of Saint-Tropez, close enough to the Place des Lices and the old port for guests to walk to dinner. The hotel opened on 27 May 1967 with three days of festivities for more than 700 guests and two godmothers, Mireille Darc and Brigitte Bardot, and has drawn a steady roll-call of film stars and musicians ever since. Il Giardino now shares the grounds with Les Caves du Roy, the nightclub that opened on the same site that same summer and still runs the Riviera's most talked-about dance floor.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.