When July rolls around in the South of France, there is one place on everyone’s mind: Saint-Tropez. The jetsetters and glitterati flock to the small seaside town known for mega yachts, luxurious hotels, A-List parties and celebrity chef restaurants.
Rivea at Byblos courtesy of Rivea
While we spent a week last month in this glamorous locale, we had the opportunity to check out Alain Ducasse’s new restaurant at the Lebanese-style Byblos hotel, Rivea, which opened its doors last April replacing the former Ducasse spot Spoon.
Known for restaurants like Le Louis XV in Monaco, Ducasse crafted a menu based around the Riviera’s mix of French and Italian cuisine with land-and-sea inspired dishes drawing from regions like Tuscany, Aix-en-Provence and Nice.
After a glass of rosé on the Place des Lices, we walked over to the nearby Byblos hotel and sat on the terrace at Rivea, amongst the trees and soft lighting coming from the lanterns. The indoor-outdoor restaurant with an open kitchen looks like a fairy tale version of the town, tucked away next to the center square, Place des Lices. Everything from the fishing nets laced with Swarovsky crystals—an Ingo Maurer piece—hanging above the bar to the low hedges and garden adds to the restaurant’s whimsical, yet sophisticated style. It felt like we were dining at a friend’s villa in Provence, rather than in glitzy Saint-Tropez.
While an acoustic musician was singing and serenading the crowd with a guitar, we started our culinary feast of flavors with the “Pan Bagnat” blue lobster salad, Ducasse’s version of a pan bagnat with lobster instead of the traditional tuna in the Niçoise sandwich. The deconstructed pan bagnat was served as a salad sitting on top of the bread, filled with egg, anchovy, radish and lobster, and drizzled with a tomato sauce at the table. While my friends back in Nice were shocked that their regional dish looked nothing like they’re used to, we loved this fresh take, especially with the lobster.
We then moved on to main dishes but couldn’t decide between meat or fish—so we went with both, starting with the roasted wild bass with fennel and black olives. Our next dish was the veal grenadine, filet of veal served with courgette flowers and rolled up courgette. Dinner was topped off with a Saint-Tropez specialty for dessert, the Tarte Tropézienne, made famous by Brigitte Bardot, just like everything else in the town. Ducasse adds his own spin, once again, to the three-layered regional pastry flavoring the tarte with orange flower and zest juice.
Chef Vincent Maillard and his team did a superb job of bringing the Riviera’s flavors to life with every dish we tried, adding a modern touch to these regional classics. If you plan on dining at Rivea, the restaurant will remain open for the season until October 25 and reopen in April 2015.
Read our editorial recommendation of Rivea
By Lane Nieset
Lane is a travel writer and editor from Miami who first made her home in Nice, France in 2011. She splits her time between Miami and Nice covering food, fashion and travel for a variety of magazines, newspapers and websites including AFAR (Miami Local Expert), Frommer’s, Ocean Drive, MyRecipes.com, E! Entertainment and Recommend Magazine. In 2014 she made her way back to Nice and started The Nice Life blog sharing her favorite parts about the French Riviera. She can be found on twitter @LaneNieset
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