Le Relais des Maures – 150 years on the Golfe de Saint-Tropez

Le Relais des Maures has stood on this stretch of the Golfe de Saint-Tropez since 1876, when it opened beside the now-vanished railway halt at Canadel as a modest boarding house selling, as the old sign had it, "Boissons et Comestibles". In 2026 the house marks its 150th year, and Catherine and Didier Carlier begin their 22nd season at the helm, having nursed the old pension back to life without stripping away the sense that it has simply always been there. It is selected in the MICHELIN Guide, a nod to cooking that stays close to the market and to the Provençal table rather than to spectacle. Above the dining room, the hotel carries France's three-star tourism classification and ten guest rooms, but for most visitors the real draw remains lunch or dinner on the terrace, a few minutes' walk from the fine sand of Canadel beach, where fish soup and daurade royale still taste unmistakably of the Mediterranean just beyond the pines.

01The room and the setting

Catherine and Didier greet their guests in a light-filled dining room with an elegant, family atmosphere; the walls carry old kitchen utensils, photographs and engravings, lending the room a faintly old-fashioned charm, as though the place had simply always existed.

On fine days, diners choose between the shaded terrace and the "winter garden" room, both given over to cooking with a distinctly Mediterranean flavour. Between the two settings, the address seats forty at tables indoors and a further seventy on the terrace — a scale that still feels like a village inn rather than a restaurant built for spectacle.

02The history

The oldest surviving photograph of the house dates from 1923, when the Relais was still a simple pension de famille trading as "Boissons et Comestibles" beside the Canadel railway station, a halt that has long since disappeared from the map.

Insider tip

Open 5 May–31 Oct 2026; closed Sun eve & Mon off-season, Mon & lunch in Jul/Aug.

In the 1960s, Madame Godet turned the pension into a proper tourist hotel, and families began arriving for their summer holidays, drawn by its position just steps from the beach. Since then the big house has changed little; the stays may be shorter today, but the atmosphere still makes it feel like a small jewel set in greenery, a few paces from the Mediterranean.

03The cooking and what to order

The kitchen runs on a market-driven Menu de Saison (53€ for a starter, main and dessert), which has included a Mediterranean rockfish soup with rouille and croutons, a thick carpaccio of beef faux-filet, a soft-cooked organic egg with grated summer truffle, or a house terrine of scorpion fish and red mullet with a light aïoli.

À la carte, look for fillet of royal gilthead bream studded with anchovies and bagna cauda sauce, Mediterranean octopus a la plancha with Camargue red rice and bouillabaisse juice, or a local apricot and bourbon vanilla vacherin with raw fennel and absinthe syrup. A seared Duroc pork "Coronita" and a Sud-Ouest duck magret roasted with Solliès figs round out the main courses, while a whole lobster in cocotte, a côte de veau for two and a fisherman's marmite — ordered 48 hours ahead — reward those who plan their table in advance. The kitchen leans on named local growers: figs and olive oil from Denis Allione at Solliès, goat's cheese from "Les Cabrettes des Maures" at La Londe, truffles from Rougiers, and Aubrac beef and market fish brought in from Toulon and La Farlède.

04Wine and drinks

The wine list is built almost entirely around the region: Bandol, Bellet, Cassis, Palette and Côtes de Provence fill the pages, with organic bottles from Domaine Ray Jane in Bandol and Clos Saint Vincent in Bellet sitting alongside Château de Fontcreuse's Cassis and Château Henri Bonnaud's Palette, plus the house's own Côtes de Provence from Domaine des Peircèdes.

The restaurant is listed by Lonely Planet and Le Petit Futé, and was awarded a Toque by Gault & Millau in 2025 — recognition, like the MICHELIN Guide selection, for a kitchen that keeps faith with its region rather than chasing trends.

05The neighbourhood

Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer sits between Le Lavandou and Saint-Tropez on the Golfe de Saint-Tropez, and the hotel's rooms and terrace look out just a few steps from the beaches of Canadel.

A short drive away, the Domaine du Rayol was first laid out in 1910 by the Parisian businessman Alfred Theodore Courmes as the grounds of his retirement home above the Baie du Figuier. The landscape architect Gilles Clément later composed its mosaic of Mediterranean-climate landscapes from California to the Canary Islands, and the garden has been managed ecologically since 1989 — a fitting counterpoint to a dining room built on the same patient, seasonal logic.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.