L'Agapè – unconditional love on the Cros-de-Cagnes seafront

On the beachfront promenade of Cros-de-Cagnes, a few steps from where the local day boats still come in, L'Agapè opened in November 2023 as the shared project of chef Guillaume Winterstein and his partner Morgane David, who runs the dining room. The name borrows from the Greek agapè, an unconditional love that gives without expecting anything back, and the couple have built the place in that spirit: a former seafront pizzeria turned into a twenty-cover room of calm, white-and-green restraint, with a handful of tables set outside facing the water. Winterstein arrived here after training under three-Michelin-starred and hatted kitchens on two continents, and after four years running the stoves of a starred Antibes address. The restaurant is listed as Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, and it holds a score of 13/20 from Gault&Millau, recognition for a cuisine that favours precision and product over spectacle.

01The room and the setting

L'Agapè seats twenty inside and twenty-eight once the terrace tables along the Promenade de la Plage are in use, a deliberately small scale that lets Morgane David give every table her full attention. The dining room occupies what was once a pizzeria on this stretch of Cros-de-Cagnes seafront; Winterstein and David stripped it back and rebuilt it as a room where white and green dominate, calm and understated rather than showy, with the sea visible across the coast road through the glazing.

The restaurant's own site describes the experience as facing the sea, a simple but accurate claim: the dining room and its terrace look directly onto the Baie des Anges, with the fishing harbour of Cros-de-Cagnes and its working boats only a short walk away.

02The chef

Guillaume Winterstein trained at the Lycée Hôtelier Paul Augier in Nice before working his way through some of the Riviera's most demanding kitchens: a posting with Jacques Chibois in Grasse, service in Scotland, then a stage in Sydney at Guillaume at Bennelong inside the Sydney Opera House, rated three hats, under Guillaume Brahimi, a former lieutenant of Joël Robuchon. Back on the Côte d'Azur he returned to Alain Llorca, first at the Moulin de Mougins and later at his eponymous restaurant in La Colle-sur-Loup, then moved through Château Eza in Èze, the Hôtel Belles Rives, and the Negresco's La Rotonde alongside Meilleur Ouvrier de France Jean-Denis Rieubland.

Insider tip

Lunch menu served Thursdays and Fridays only; tasting menus for the whole table.

His last post before going independent was four years as head chef of the Michelin-starred Figuier de Saint-Esprit in Antibes, under Christian Morisset, who taught him that a dish must seduce the eye before it conquers the palate. Winterstein opened L'Agapè with Morgane David, who grew up in Nîmes, trained across five years in hospitality including a spell at the Cheval Blanc in Saint-Barthélemy and postings in New York, Shanghai and Ireland, and who now runs the floor with the same quiet exactness he brings to the pass.

03The cooking

Winterstein's cooking stays close to French tradition while allowing in occasional Asian notes: Gault&Millau's 2026 review singles out his version of hare à la royale, built on homemade gnocchi finished with fresh truffle and a pan-fried foie gras escalope, alongside touches such as wasabi on lightly seared scallops and a vegetable curry served with the catch of the day, dressed with olive oil from Trans-en-Provence. Olive oil is, by his own account, the ingredient he reaches for most, even folding it into desserts as a quiet tribute to his Mediterranean roots.

Bread comes from the well-regarded baker Jean-Paul Veziano, a detail that signals the same attention to sourcing that runs through the rest of the menu, which changes with the seasons and the morning's market.

04What to order

The lunch menu, served only on Thursdays and Fridays outside weekends and public holidays, runs to three courses built entirely around the day's market: recent versions have paired trout gravlax from the Cians on a savoury waffle with avocado and courgette condiment against a catch-of-the-day socca taco with piquillos vinaigrette, finishing with a 70% 'Fleur de Cao' soft chocolate and dulce de leche.

The tasting menus climb from the Discovery Menu through the Epicurean and Signature menus, each opening with a tasting of the house olive oil and a signature broth before moving through dishes such as a perfect organic egg with roasted ceps and homemade ceps ice cream, 100% Bellota Iberian presa with piglet variations and a zucchini flower stuffed with basil and roasted peach, and, on the Signature menu, a foie gras terrine with fig and beef fillet with nori seaweed and modern roasted gnocchi. A 10g caviar supplement and a cheese plate from the dairy of M. Metin can be added to several courses, and a wine pairing is offered for the whole table.

05Wine and drinks

The wine list runs from Champagne through to sweet wines, weighted toward Burgundy and the Rhône alongside Provençal rosés: a Meursault 'Les Tillets' from Domaine Patrick Javillier, a Puligny-Montrachet from Domaine Bernard Millot, a Condrieu from Graeme & Julie Bott and, among the reds, a Gevrey-Chambertin from Domaine Marchand-Grillot and a Bandol from Domaine Ray-Jane sit alongside Côtes de Provence rosés from Domaine Gavoty and Château Léoube. Cocktails, a rotating 'cocktail éphémère', fine rums and whiskies round out the aperitif list, alongside a natural wine infused with flowers from a Grasse producer.

06The neighbourhood

Cros-de-Cagnes is the fishing quarter of Cagnes-sur-Mer, a lower-key stretch of the Côte d'Azur between Nice and Antibes, still built around its working harbour and a long sand-and-shingle beach along the Promenade de la Plage. It is a quieter, more local counterpoint to the grander resorts nearby, and L'Agapè's intimate scale and seafront table suit that character: a short walk from the beach, a short drive from the Renoir museum and the hilltop village of Haut-de-Cagnes.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.