Rivea at the Hotel Byblos in Saint Tropez

Alain Ducasse’s talent for reinterpreting Mediterranean cooking – specifically those dishes found along the coastline from Genoa to Marseille – launched his career as one of the world’s greatest gastronomic tsars. Though Ducasse was born in the southwest of France, his remarkable culinary talent first blossomed when he was working at a hotel restaurant in Juan-les-Pins on the Riviera. But instead of serving up such dishes as bouillabaisse or pasta in their most classic versions, he reimagined them to appeal to the sophisticated and aesthetically alert tastes of an affluent international clientele. If the apotheosis of this New Med cooking style is to be found at the three-star Louis XV at the Hôtel de Paris in Monaco, his newest table, Rivea, at the legendary Byblos hotel in Saint Tropez, has given France’s most glamorous seaside resort a terrific new address to sample Ducasse- style Mediterranean comfort food in a beautiful setting. The handsome, gently retro look of this new restaurant, with its inviting terrace under big plane trees, French doors with wrought-iron frames, appetizing Provençal colours, and an open kitchen, is by Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel, and it puts a stylish modern spin on the southern French decorative idiom without falling into pastiche.