La Passagère in Juan-les-Pins – fish and Art Deco at Belles Rives

At the Hôtel Belles Rives, where Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald's romance played out in the 1920s, Aurélien Véquaud's one-star La Passagère cooks fish and shellfish on a terrace facing the Lérins Islands.

Belles Rives sits right on the water at Juan-les-Pins, on the western side of Cap d'Antibes, and has been run by the Estène-Chauvin family since 1929. The building is pure Art Deco, and its story begins with the Fitzgeralds, who spent part of the 1920s here. La Passagère is the hotel's gastronomic restaurant, and the MICHELIN Guide confirmed its star in the 2026 selection, describing the cooking as creative.

This is what to expect: the room and the terrace, the cooking, the menus of the 2026 season and what to know before booking for next year.

01Chandeliers, frescoes and the sea

The dining room was renovated by the designer Olivier Antoine, who kept what makes it a period piece: restored chrome chandeliers, frescoes, bow windows and a mosaic floor, brought up to date with ceramics and a great deal of light from mirrors and large bay windows. In summer most guests want the terrace, which looks straight out over the Mediterranean to the Îles de Lérins and the red Esterel mountains beyond.

Both the indoor dining room and the terrace are accessible to guests with reduced mobility, and the restaurant is open to non-residents as well as hotel guests.

02Aurélien Véquaud's Mediterranean

Aurélien Véquaud cooks fish, crustaceans and shellfish above all, and on the menu he writes that cooking is first of all about love, sharing and emotion. The produce is local and named: fish from a handful of fishermen and the fishmonger in Puget-sur-Argens, vegetables from growers in the hinterland, saffron from the Jas des Rochers and even roses bred by Matthias Meilland for the hotel, the Roses Belles Rives.

Insider tip

Seasonal: dinner Wednesday to Sunday, reopening in spring 2027.

Desserts are the work of the pastry chef Johann Kleiber, who describes his style as instinctive and guided by the seasons, with a balance between precision and spontaneity. The cheese course is regional too: Brousse du Rove from Laurence Chaullier, or a trolley of farmhouse cheeses from the affineurs Metin and Mons.

03Three menus

The last menu of the 2026 season, dated September, was built around three tasting menus. Mer en Héritage, at €195, is the sea menu: young mackerel with sweet onions, mustard seeds and bay leaf; a large prawn with Haut-Var plum and a coral velouté; blue crab with wild fennel, moray eel and verbena; and John Dory with girolles, Cazette hazelnuts and calamansi, before apple with Bresse cream and Madagascar vanilla and a 70 per cent Mexican chocolate with immortelle.

Green Light, at €175, is the vegetable menu, from a mushroom grown by Christian Boselli with hazelnut and Barolo vinegar to aubergine with black sesame and blackberries, a market dish in the Antibes style with saffron butter, and pine morels with barley miso and lovage. Invitation au Voyage, at €250, is the chef's journey across the Mediterranean in eight courses, served to the whole table.

The head sommelier pairs the shorter menus in five glasses, from €80 alcohol-free to €130 and €190 for the Prestige pairing; with the eight-course menu it is seven glasses at €190 or €260, or €105 without alcohol.

04When to go

La Passagère is a summer restaurant. During the season it serves dinner from Wednesday to Sunday, 19.30 to 22.00; it has now closed for the winter, and the restaurant says it will reopen for a new season in spring 2027. Book through the restaurant's website or by telephone, and ask for the terrace if the evening is warm: the sun sets behind the Esterel, straight ahead.

Belles Rives also has the Bar Fitzgerald for a drink before dinner and its own beach and jetty below the terrace.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.