Eating, drinking and dancing
We’ve hung out in, then hand-picked the cafes perfect for people-watching, the bars with the best cocktails, the finest restaurants – and the coolest nightlife in Saint Tropez. Take our word for it and add them to your to-do list…
Restaurants
Café Milano
For a simple lunchtime pizza, sit on the square, under cover, or inside. With dark red velvet chairs, wooden floorboards and music pumping from the next restaurant along, this place is a feast of tagliatelle and pizza specialities. Smith loved: the mushroom risotto – around €17
Place des Lices
(+33 (0)4 94 97 15 43)
Fuchs Bistro
This down-to-earth Provençal restaurant and cigar bar is welcome respite from the designer Dior and DVF stores down below. Downstairs is a bar with green chequered floor tiles, draught beer and a big fat box of cigars. Creep up the stairs at the back for supper. Warning: you’ll have to book. Grab a table at 21h30 to soak up the best atmosphere. Dinner is served (no lunch) at 20h30–22h30.
7 Rue des Commercants
(+33 (0)4 94 97 01 25)
Le Palm
For alfresco French cuisine, under swathes of multi-coloured fabric, with big square candles and moody uplighting, there's little better than this place, which serves lunch until 14h and dinner until 23h.
26 Rue des Charrons
(+33 (0)4 94 96 42 89)
Colors
Outside, there’s a cool, sexy, green-lit terrace serving barbecued food; inside, there’s a sushi master tucked away in a secret room. This restaurant isn’t open for lunch, but supper is served until midnight.
3, Rue du Temple
(+33 (0)4 94 97 00 15)
Caprice de Deux
For great wine – and busy, traditional French fare that locals approve of, Caprice de Deux is definitely a check-box to tick off.
40, Rue Portail Neuf
(+33 (0)4 94 97 76 78)
La Nouvelle Bohème
This dark, cosy hideaway is perfect for a lunchtime affair. Opposite is another similarly tiny restaurant called Le Petit Charron – also worth a look.
1–3 Rue de Charrons
(+33 (0)4 94 95 12 63)
La Rhumerie
For a pizza while you’re yacht-spotting, or simply a crème caramel and coffee, La Rhumerie restaurant has the perfect portside position – and serves cocktails throughout the day.
Quai Jean Jaures
(+33 (0)4 94 97 31 58)
Cafés
Le Café
On the market square, Place des Lices, this place is a treasure trove of local Tropezians, with an old-fashioned but lively atmosphere that really livens up at night. Wander through to the secret bar and DJ at the back – this is where the party’s really happening.
Place des Lices
+33 (0)4 94 97 44 69
Café Des Arts
Look for the green director chairs outside. With marble tables, well-worn old floorboards and men standing at the bar getting drunk on pastis, this is the French real deal at the back. Lunch is until 3pm, dinner until 12.30am.
Place des Lices
(+33 (0)4 94 97 02 25)
La Tarte Tropezienne
There’s a display chocka with pastries and breads that’s too tempting to pass by. Sip a coffee and nibble on a pastry while you decide which of the vast range of confitures you’re going to take home. (www.tarte-tropezienne.com)
Place des Lices
(+33 (0)4 94 97 04 69)
Café de Paris
The most famous café in St Tropez, this portside place is perfect for coffee, lunch or supper. The people-watching tables are at the front, the affair tables are at the back. In the evening, they pull their huge billowing white curtains tightly across the restaurant and give them a UV glow.
15, Quai Suffren
(+33 (0)4 94 97 00 65)
Le Senequier
The oldest café in St Tropez, this café has been overlooking the port since 1887. Watch harbour-life go by on red seats that all face outwards, like in a cinema.
Quai Jean Jaurès, Place aux Herbes
(+33 (0)4 94 97 00 90)
Bars and clubs
Club 55
Cavort with A-listers and Tropezian movers ‘n’ shakers at this legendary beach club on Pampelonne beach. Open daily for lunch on the terrace; booking is essential. As is the tiniest bikini/speedo combination and keen eye for P Diddy-spotting. (www.leclub55.com)
Plage de Pampelonne, Boulevard Patch, Ramatuelle
(+33 (0)4 94 55 55 55)
La Méditerranée
Off the beaten glamorous St Tropez track, La Méditerranée is a tiny bar with a tiled floor and shaky old tables – and a little garden with a strangely-parked old mini and Gaudi-esque trees. Whether you’re there for the carpaccio de boeuf and tartare frites maison, or just a beer at the bar, this hidden gem is a restaurant with French soul.
21 Boulevard Louis Blanc, Place de la Croix de Fer
(+33 (0)4 94 97 00 44)
Le Quai Joseph
With hugely successful sister restaurants Joseph L’Escale and Le Grand Joseph, this black and white cocktail bar is a dramatic waterfront medley of huge white lilies, a huge marble bar – and it’s famous black sand floor. (Le Grand Joseph’s floor is white sand).
Quai Jean Jaurès, Saint Tropez, France
(+33 (0)4 94 97 04)
Hotel Sube
With the best balcony seats in St Tropez, this bar above Café de Paris is perfect for yacht-watching and boob job-spotting on the promenade down below. Inside, with its dusty sailing boat models everywhere, you feel as if you’re in a big wooden boat yourself. Especially after trying the vast collection of single malts tucked behind the bar. The balcony seats can’t be booked, so turn up early.
15, Quai de Suffren
(+33 (0)4 94 97 30 04)
Le Pigeonnier
Drink and dance until dawn at Le Pigeonnier. With a mostly gay and lesbian crowd, it may only be small, but it’s open until 05h.
13, Rue de la Ponche
(+33 (0)4 94 97 36 85)
VIP Room
It’s not unusual to see stars on the dancefloor. Paris Hilton, Beyonce and Elton John have all partied at this legendary St Trop hotspot that's open from midnight until dawn.
Résidences du Nouveau Port
(+33 (0)4 94 97 14 70)