Restaurant Reviews: La Palme d’Or in Cannes

Ultimately, Ducasse’s cooking announced a fresh gastronomic era on the Côte d’Azur and paved the way for a new idiom of southern French luxury cooking based on an ethereal simplicity, one which sought to enhance rather than transform the natural tastes of the assiduously-sourced produce it was based on. My two favourite restaurants on the Côte d’Azur offer perfect examples of this style and philosophy: Mauro Colagreco’s Mirazur in Menton and Gérald Passedat’s Le Petit Nice in Marseille. For sure, there are some Côte d’Azur restaurants that still go for the magic-show drama of yore (La Vague d’Or in Saint-Tropez, which inexplicably has three Michelin stars, comes to mind), but most of the best tables now adhere to Ducasse’s format, either because their chefs were trained by him or because they know that this is how the world wants to eat these days. But what of La Palme d’Or?

Since Cannes has become a convention town where high-end meals often end up on expense accounts, would the town’s best restaurant veer towards theatrical optics, or adhere to a gastronomical humility guided by good taste? The wonderfully louche Martinez, my favourite hotel in Cannes, has been bought by the American hotel group Hyatt since I was last here, but it seems they’ve had the sense to leave this monument to French joie de vivre pretty much untouched. The table was, however, set with ceramics made by the chef and his wife (Sinicropi did a course at the École des Beaux-Arts in Vallauris, the nearby town with a vocation for pottery), and their fanciful forms and colours announced that the impending meal would be decidedly experiential.

That said, there are different ways of dining here, including an à la carte menu designed to appeal to people who want an excellent feed without extra bells and whistles, and then the chef’s more elaborate menus, including a slate of dishes where a single product – pigeon, oysters, prawns – is declined in three preparations. Favouring solid gastronomy over theatricality, we decided to dine à la carte.

Christian Sinicopi at La Palme d’Or in Cannes. Photo: Zoe Fidji Schmidmaier

Our seafood starters – spider crab with a gélee and bouillon, and king prawns with crispy rice, were beautifully prepared. They also displayed the Cannes-born chef’s deep technicity, and the years he spent at chef Antoine Westermann’s restaurant Buerehiesel in Strasbourg and Ducasse’s Le Louis XV in Monaco. This being Cannes, however, there was a certain gratuitous theatricality in the plating, something I found superfluous, but then I’m more interested in how something tastes than in being entertained at the table. I suspect, however, that many of the restaurant’s clients rather enjoy the more baroque side of Sinicropi’s creativity.

Main courses were magisterial too. Scallops with sweetbread sauce sounded peculiar, but the marriage of the sweet bivalves and the organ meat was intriguingly successful; while turbot cooked on the bone with spring vegetables was a dish that elegantly showcased the flavour of the fish. Desserts were similarly creative and also privileged the taste and texture of the produce with which they were prepared. They were served in two declensions. “The Strawberry” debuted with wild strawberries and then a composition of the fruit with orange blossom and marjoram. “The Apricot” came as a riff on an île flottante and then an exquisite soufflé.

Service was attentive but never invasive throughout a superb meal that brought to mind a well-known dictum of another famous son of the Riviera, Auguste Escoffier, who was born in nearby Villeneuve-Loubet and who said, “Faites simple (keep it simple). Things should taste of what they are”. For all of his theatricality, Christian Sinicropi abides by this gastronomic verity, and this is why a meal at La Palme d’Or is a spectacular experience. (N.B. Dinner only, except on Saturday.)

Hôtel Martinez, 73 boulevard de la Croisette, 06400 Cannes. Tel. +33 (0)4 93 90 12 34. Average à la carte €250.

From France Today magazine