La Pinède Plage – three generations on Gigaro beach

On the pine-shaded curve of Gigaro beach, between La Croix-Valmer and the open Mediterranean, La Pinède Plage has kept the unhurried rhythm of a family holiday house since 1952, when two modest bungalows went up on the sand as an annexe to the family's guesthouse next door. Three generations on, the same Montloin-Rocchietta family still owns both addresses, and the bungalows have grown into a 32-room, four-star hotel with its restaurant almost in the water and the Îles d'Or lying offshore. The MICHELIN Guide has selected La Pinède Plage among its recommended French Riviera addresses, a quiet distinction for a house that has never chased the glamour of Saint-Tropez, sixteen kilometres up the coast, preferring umbrella pines, a teak-decked beach restaurant and a sense of scale no boulevard of superyachts allows.

01The house

The hotel's own history traces the start to 1952, when the family raised a pair of plain bungalows on Gigaro beach as an extension of the guesthouse they had bought three years earlier a few hundred metres inland. That guesthouse, Château de Valmer, later became a five-star, Relais & Châteaux address set in five hectares of parkland, while La Pinède Plage took a saltier, slower path. By the 1970s the beach annexe had grown into a hotel in its own right, with twenty-three rooms earning a two-star ranking, and a full renovation in 1986 set much of the tone for the contemporary, understated interiors guests find today.

Nothing about the two addresses feels corporate: they remain, in the family's own description, a genuine holiday home rather than a resort, and the connection between them is kept alive by a free shuttle, a shared organic vegetable garden and, for hotel guests, access to the Château's spa and pools.

02Rooms and suites

The 32 rooms and suites are arranged across low, garden-level and first-floor buildings shaded by umbrella pines, decorated in Mediterranean colours with a chic, contemporary feel.

Insider tip

Seasonal opening; free shuttle to sister hotel Château de Valmer and its spa.

Families are well catered for, with 33 and 44-square-metre sea-view rooms sleeping four between a king bed and bunk beds or twin singles, and a single Sea View Suite of 38 square metres with a separate living room, sofa bed and dressing room, suited equally to a family stay or a romantic one.

03Where to eat

Restaurant La Pinède sits on a teak terrace with its feet almost in the sand, serving Mediterranean cuisine built around grilled fish and, in season, produce from Château de Valmer's own organic vegetable garden. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all taken here facing the Îles d'Or, the mood shifting from a brisk seaside buffet in the morning to a slower, candlelit sitting as the sun drops behind the islands.

For a more formal evening, the family's other address, Château de Valmer, is a short shuttle ride away and is home to La Palmeraie, a Michelin-starred restaurant set among century-old palms; several of La Pinède's own kitchen team have trained there, which explains why the beach menu, for all its simplicity, is handled with real precision.

04The bar

The outdoor bar sits beside the restaurant, open to the sea on one side and shaded by pines on the other. It is a daytime fixture as much as an evening one: guests drift between sun loungers and bar stools for a cold drink at midday, and the same tables fill again at dusk for cocktails as the light over the Îles d'Or turns copper.

05Spa, pool and wellbeing

La Pinède Plage's own heated outdoor pool faces the sea and is ringed by deckchairs, with the beach bar a few steps away for anyone unwilling to leave the water's edge. For more structured treatments, guests are shuttled free of charge to the Château de Valmer Spa by Clarins, four hundred metres inland, which has a heated indoor pool, jacuzzi, sauna-hammam and fitness room, with the spa team on hand daily from nine in the morning until eight at night.

On Sunday mornings a Pilates class runs on the beach from nine to ten o'clock, led by instructor Yann and open to hotel guests and outside visitors alike for 40 euros a session, mats and equipment provided, as advertised on the hotel's own site in October 2026.

06The beach and the neighbourhood

Gigaro is one of the quieter stretches of the Golfe de Saint-Tropez, and La Pinède Plage holds a private concession on it, with direct access to the water for swimming, kayaking, paddle-boarding and pedal-boating, plus a sailing and diving school nearby for those who want to go further out. Saint-Tropez itself is sixteen kilometres and about twenty-five minutes by car, close enough for an evening on the port without ever needing to stay there.

Toulon-Hyères airport is the nearest, at 54 kilometres; Nice-Côte d'Azur is 110 kilometres away and Marseille Provence 149 kilometres, distances the hotel publishes for guests planning their own transfers.

07Making the most of a stay

La Pinède Plage keeps seasonal hours, closing for the winter and reopening each spring, so it is worth checking dates before booking outside the summer months. Reception runs around the clock, with check-in from 4pm and check-out by 11am.

Package stays bundle the private beach, the Château de Valmer spa and the shuttle between the two hotels: in October 2026 a day pass started from 110 euros, a one-night romantic escape with dinner from 741 euros for two, and a week's stay with daily three-course dinners from 748 euros per day for two.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.