Le Restaurant des Rois – a fisherman's basin turned royal table in Beaulieu

Le Restaurant des Rois occupies the gastronomic dining room of La Réserve de Beaulieu, a hotel that began, in 1880, as nothing more than a fish restaurant on the Beaulieu shore. The Niçois restaurateur Pierre Lottier dug a wide basin there so that local fishermen could land their catch straight into his kitchen, and named the place La Réserve for it. The dining room earned its grander title, Restaurant des Rois, early in the twentieth century, when a gastronomic critic coined the phrase in tribute to the crowned regulars who dined there, Léopold II of Belgium among them, alongside Empress Sissi. It holds one MICHELIN Star, and since September 2019 the kitchen has belonged to Julien Roucheteau, Meilleur Ouvrier de France, who left Paris and two MICHELIN stars at La Table du Lancaster for a room that looks straight across the water to the Mediterranean.

01The room and the setting

The hotel that grew from that first fish restaurant was extended with a wing of luxury bedrooms in 1905, and it kept a slightly British grandeur from the start. Among its early devotees was journalist and motorsports patron Gordon Bennett, who would be a constant source of praise for La Réserve through his newspaper, the New York Herald, and had the first private telephone installed in the establishment, which is why the hotel's number is composed only of noughts and ones, 04 93 01 00 01. The bar next to the dining room still carries his name.

The dining room itself was refreshed when Roucheteau took over the stoves, the room having recently undergone a renovation, as if to mark the chef's arrival. It opens onto a terrace facing the Baie des Fourmis, and behind it the Gordon Bennett Bar gives in summer onto a landscaped patio — the natural spot for a drink either side of the meal.

02The chef

Julien Roucheteau, a French chef born in Le Mans, trained at Ferrandi and under Philippe Legendre at the George V, and led La Table du Lancaster in Paris for more than a decade, where he won two MICHELIN stars in 2014–2015 and the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France. He appeared as a guest chef on Top Chef France in 2016 before, named Meilleur Ouvrier de France in 2019, he brought his cuisine south to balance creativity, precision and respect for seasonal produce at La Réserve de Beaulieu.

Insider tip

Open seasonally March–October; dinner nightly, weekend and holiday lunch.

In pastry, Benoît Jabouille perpetuates the old house tradition of the mignardises trolley, while the dining room today is run by maître d'hôtel Damien Madon and head sommelier Wilfried Goutorbe.

03The cooking

Dinner opens with vegetables worked hard for texture: a trio of amuse-bouches, light at first, building to a bold anchovy bite that jolts the senses awake, followed by heavily-seasoned bread and butter and the chef's signature amuse-bouche, a delicate celeriac ravioli.

The table runs three menus of four, five and seven courses, the longest a carte blanche that lets Roucheteau roam his register freely. In the lighter key, crispy gavottes come topped with shredded crab and tarragon hummus, followed by claws in a ginger emulsion, while the richer one builds Niçois ravioli into a garden of greenery topped with basil foam, enhanced by a lemon-infused fish fumet and a touch of caviar. A fish course might arrive as pearly aiguillettes of saint-pierre entwined with sea lettuce and drizzled with a leek decoction enlivened with rosemary vinegar from the chef's own garden, and meat in the old rotisserie style: a perfectly cooked fillet of beef from Maine-et-Loire, finished Russian style in a long-handled pan, escorted by artichoke cannelloni, wild strawberries and a reduced juice scented with lemon balm and a touch of anchovy.

04What to order

The à la carte card has carried crab in a fine crispy gavotte with tarragon hummus and ginger, Niçoise ravioli scented with tagète and dressed with a velvet of caviar, confit hake with bergamot and elderflower, a medallion of royal langouste with maceron pepper, and a steak of beef steeped in fig leaves with mollusc sea freshness, capers and yellow peach.

Dessert can close on a sorbet of black fig, crisped into a polyhedral shell and dressed in a deep violet vinaigrette, before a dessert trolley rolls out with homemade marshmallows, nougatines and caramels.

05Wine and drinks

The cellar is overseen by head sommelier Wilfried Goutorbe, and regulars rate it among the most complete wine lists they have encountered across many Michelin-starred restaurants. For something shorter, the Gordon Bennett Bar next door pours cocktails and spirits on the patio before or after the table.

06When to go and booking

Le Restaurant des Rois is open seasonally from March to October, with dinner served daily from 7.30pm to 9.30pm and lunch available on weekends and public holidays from 12.30pm to 2pm.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.