by All eyes are on this corner of Le Sud, and it helps that one of the year’s flashiest hotels — one that focuses on history, design and, of course, exquisite hospitality — is right in the middle.
Hotel du Couvent is sure to be the most expansive and carefully curated hotel launch of 2024, since the cool kids at the Perseus Group – formerly known as Les Roches Rouge in Saint-Raphaël and Le Pigalle in Paris – built 10 year to restore the 400 abandoned people. A year-old convent, surrounded by orange trees and terraced gardens, into a smart 88-room city stay.
But this is an opportunity for high-flyers and travelers with taste to stop and stay put in Nice, in a wild and beautiful property, rather than scuttle along the rest of the Riviera. It helps that the site has so much charm you won’t want to leave.
Where?
In the Old Town of this coastal city – between the ancient ruins on Castle Hill and the yolk-yellow mansions of the kingdom of Savoy – and about a 20-minute taxi ride from the airport (an easy hop-on, hop-off destination). -an hour and a half long flight from London). Due to the narrow streets and crowded sidewalks, there is no access to cars, so a quick shuttle on a sophisticated, bump-protected golf cart is necessary to get you and your bags to the hotel entrance . Or it’s a five minute walk if you’ve packed light.
Style
If a modern monastery had the look and feel, this would be it. Inside, Parisian design duo (and husband and wife team) Festen Architecture, worked carefully with owner Valéry Grégo and his brother Louis-Antoine within the walls of the upper convent to keep the design spiritually simple but with a lot going on for functionality and detail. storytelling. Among the original terracotta floors, caricature drawings and busts fill the corridors of the original U-shaped structure. Here, Festen added hearty woods and wide-brushed beds covered in earthen linens, while more sophisticated bathrooms feature steel-framed shower doors that pair well with chisel-cut Carrara marble basins covered in mustard-yellow tubs of lotus. created by La Bottega. . Downstairs, glass vases are filled with flower arrangements exploding from Muse (the Montmartre anthophile) and wrought iron chairs take over the restaurant terraces and the bar features thick-cut velvet boots and cheeky banquettes.
Facilities
Deep down in the belly of the property are the Roman-inspired baths: a spa replete with tepidarium, frigidarium and caldarium under articulated arches and natural light flooding in through open circular holes in the ceiling.
As it used to be for the nuns in the Order of Saint Clare in the 17th century, the hotel has kept the original bakery (you’ll find it by following the smell of fresh eggs) and the herb shop in the cloisters. The latter is worth a bit of mosey about: led by local herbalist Gregory Unrein from Nice, it’s there to wade through the smells and tastes, making wonderful tinctures and teas to take home. The gardens are also in their own category, and every stone and seed counts. You might find owner Grégo dancing across the fennel and jasmine-lined garden, originally designed by Tom Stuart-Smith, up to the 20-metre lap pool and shifting sunbeds around or checking out the trees fig.
Food & drink
The menu pays as much attention to the hotel’s roots as the decor. And when Grégo decided to bring a chef into his kitchen, he got his man on the 36th interview. His name will soon be known in the world of French food but for now, Thomas Vetele knows exactly how to whip up plates made with ingredients produced almost exclusively from the convent farm an hour away in Touët- sur-Var.
Herby’s omelettes are a thing of beauty in the morning but at lunch, the more casual La Guinguette might bring a golden crispy fritto misto with spoon-thick lemon aioli while dining at Le in the courtyard, the menu sees a green pea tart . , saucy piles of gnocchi with preserved lemon and the creamiest of rice puddings. Of course to match with such a good wine list, it is 3,500 bottles long.
Which room?
The interior obsessed will want to find rooms in the former convent: all with sparse decoration but some with shuttered views, vine stitched terraces and so much space for dining, entertaining, or sprawling sofa and flicking through a book about Cézanne. I liked the smaller rooms, the nuns’ cells. Beds reach from wall to wall but there is real soul and spirit.
He prefers…
Couples, solo travelers, workers from home, and families with children in tow. It is a hotel that is welcoming, open, accommodating and spacious enough for everyone. Some rooms have their own kitchens if you are here for the week. Note that it is also a conference hotel, with events, and lively events often take place. So if you’re here for peace and quiet (which is totally possible) it might be better to take a room out in the newer wing, which only has busy and bustling views of the courtyard.
Rooms from £340; hotelducouvent.com
