Le Belrose – the chef who came home to the hill above Saint-Tropez

On a hilltop above Gassin, with the harbour of Saint-Tropez on one side and Sainte-Maxime on the other, Le Belrose is the gastronomic restaurant of the five-star Althoff Villa Belrose. The hotel is a neoclassical villa reached by a winding hill road, its architecture built on grand staircases and sweeping lawns. It is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, its cooking filed under Modern Cuisine, with the Guide's own marks for Great View and Terrace, and a price bracket the Guide itself labels 'Spare no expense'. The kitchen belongs to Jimmy Coutel, who began his career here as a sous-chef, went on to win a MICHELIN Star at La Palmeraie, Château de Valmer, in 2017, and returned to Villa Belrose as executive chef, overseeing its cuisine since 2022. Under his direction the restaurant was relaunched as Le Belrose, built on a menu of Provençal dishes drawn from the hills, coastal markets and small growers behind Saint-Tropez that the chef knows personally.

01The room and the setting

Villa Belrose has stood on its hill above Gassin since Robert van Straaten took charge of it in 2001, and he has run the property for twenty-five years since. The villa itself is reached by a twisting road up the hillside, a neoclassical building poised in grand architectural symmetry, its white marble lobby lit by slices of sea glinting through arched windows and orchids rising from footed urns. With only forty guest rooms spread over three floors, it stays intimately scaled even as its grounds and terraces sprawl across the hillside.

For the 2026 season the restaurant itself was reworked: a classic Riviera aesthetic in a beige and blush palette, refined marble shades and a gallery of portraits taking their cue from French haute couture. Outside, the terrace is set with white-umbrella tables that look straight down over a tranquil bay, the lighting and greenery turning the space inviting as the light fades toward evening.

02The chef

Jimmy Coutel was born in Saint-Raphaël and trained there under chef Philippe Troncy at L'Arbousier before spending six years as sous-chef at Villa Belrose alongside Thierry Thiercelin. In 2015 he took the top job at La Palmeraie, the restaurant of Château de Valmer in La Croix-Valmer, where Gault&Millau named him a 'Grand de Demain' in its 2016 edition and where he won a MICHELIN Star in 2017. He went on to run Bergamote in Cavalaire-sur-Mer before Villa Belrose called him back in 2022, this time as executive chef of the whole house.

Insider tip

Seasonal opening; reservations advised; private valet parking on site.

His cooking today is shaped by the same hills, coastal markets and growers he first came to know as a young cook on this terrace, and that intimacy with the terroir is what the relaunch of Le Belrose was built around.

03What to order

Le Belrose runs two signature menus. Farigoule, named for the wild Provençal thyme, is a four-course menu built around local tradition; Signature, a five-course tasting menu, is pitched as a run of surprises and bolder combinations. Alongside a full à la carte, the kitchen also offers an eight-course tasting format with wine pairing for those who want the complete arc of the evening.

The dish to know is Le Jardin de Sydney, a vegetarian plate built entirely on the seasonal harvest of one organic grower, Sydney, in nearby Grimaud. Coutel names his other suppliers just as precisely: olive oil from the Domaine Val de Bois, fish selected at Puget-sur-Argens, and cheeses aged in Collobrières by Loïc de Salneuve, who sells them himself at the Saint-Tropez market on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

04Wine and drinks

Every dish on the menu can be paired from a wine list built from the best regional producers, and the ingredients themselves are sourced almost entirely from local growers and fishermen — a list the hotel itself counts among the most extensive of its kind in the region.

05The neighbourhood

Gassin sits above the Massif des Maures, its hill giving Villa Belrose an unbroken view down over the whole Gulf of Saint-Tropez. The town itself, with its harbour, yacht quay and market streets, is around five minutes away by car — close enough for an evening down among the crowds, far enough that the terrace at Le Belrose stays quiet at dusk.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.