Beaches and beach clubs in Cannes: my address book

Let me start with a truth I’m sometimes taken to task for: in Cannes, the sand isn’t the argument. The bay is superb, the light is unique, but the Cannes beach is an urban one, a run of concessions lined up along the Croisette, three minutes’ walk from your hotel. It isn’t Pampelonne, and it isn’t meant to be.

What makes the difference here is the service, the way the beach faces, the time you arrive and the row of loungers you get. In other words: precisely what I can act on. Here is my notebook, in the order I actually use it.

This is the register I recommend for a first day in Cannes: elegant, calm, very well served, and you walk back to the hotel in a swimsuit without anyone raising an eyebrow.

• Carlton Beach Club, the palace’s beach, on the Croisette. Careful Mediterranean cooking, immaculately aligned loungers, that quiet glamour that made the house’s name. My default when someone asks for “something safe”.
• L’Ecrin Plage: calmer than the festive clubs, very good fish, attentive service. This is where I send clients who want a real beach day without music in their ears.
• La Môme Plage, the sand version of La Môme. Chic, sunlit, and the mood climbs gently through the afternoon without ever tipping into a full party.
• Moka, La Perle, Volupté, the Croisette’s relaxed trio. Less spectacular, often easier to get last minute, and perfectly lovely. I use them more often than people imagine.

Here, lunch isn’t lunch. It’s an opening move. Around three o’clock the DJ climbs, the magnums come out, and there’s no going back. I love these places, but I always warn my clients before booking, because a family with young children seated in the middle of a Nammos afternoon rarely has a good time.

• Nammos, the label born in Mykonos, arrived in Cannes with its Greek glamour and sunlit partying. International crowd, tables that end up standing, magnums. Showy in the best sense.
• Lucia by Nikki Beach, the brand’s festive DNA, in crescendo all afternoon. The great classic of a lively Cannes day.
• Copal Beach, the compromise I often suggest: you eat well, the mood rises, but you can still hear yourself talk at the table.

If you were to do just one beach day in Cannes, I’d send you across the water. The Lérins islands are a quarter of an hour by boat from the quay, and you change worlds entirely: pines, clear water, protected nature, and silence.

On Sainte-Marguerite, La Guérite is one of those addresses you reach by boat and leave only reluctantly: tables under the pines at the water’s edge, generous Mediterranean cooking, and that festive energy that builds through the afternoon. You arrive for lunch, you stay for the mood. It’s open daytime through the season, and it books a long way ahead.

The real concierge move here is to coordinate the boat and the table together. You can take the shuttle from the quay, and that’s perfectly fine. But with a boat for the day, you have lunch, you head back out to anchor in a cove on the island, you swim, and you return to Cannes when the Croisette has already started honking again. That’s the day my clients still talk about.

To the west, the coast changes radically after ten minutes’ drive. Théoule-sur-Mer, the Pointe de l’Aiguille, then the coves of the Estérel: red rock plunging into the Mediterranean, transparent water, and far fewer people. This isn’t beach-club territory, these are coves, with the occasionally steep access and towel-on-the-rocks that implies. It’s also, to my mind, the finest shoreline in the region.

To the east, Cap d’Antibes and the Baie des Milliardaires offer the other end of the spectrum: very chic, very sheltered, and far nicer from the water than from land. I systematically suggest it as part of a day at sea, never as a beach destination in its own right.

• The row. Front row facing the water or third row behind the service walkway is not the same day, and it’s almost always negotiable beforehand, never on arrival.
• The time. At 12:30 you get the beach; at 2pm you get the party. I pick the slot according to what you’re after, not what’s left.
• The wind. The Croisette beaches don’t all react the same way to an easterly. When the weather turns, I switch you to the island or westwards rather than leaving you in the spray.
• The calendar. During the Festival, the Cannes Lions or the Yachting Festival, most of these beaches are taken over by brands. It’s written nowhere and you only find out on arrival.
• September. The sea is at its best temperature, the light is softer, and you get everything that was impossible in August. It’s my favourite month in Cannes, and I say so to every client who’ll listen.