All eyes are on this corner of Le Sud, and it helps that one of the splashiest hotel openings of the year — one that focuses on history, design and, of course, exquisite hospitality — is right there in the centre.
Hotel du Couvent is certainly the most extensive and painstakingly pretty hotel launch of 2024, given that the cool kids at the Perseus Group — formerly of Les Roches Rouge in Saint-Raphaël and Le Pigalle in Paris — took 10 years to restore the abandoned 400-year-old convent, surrounded by orange trees and terraced gardens, into a smart 88-room city stay.
But this is a chance for high-flyers and seasoned travellers to stop and stay put in Nice, in a wildly beautiful property, rather than scuttle along the rest of the Riviera. It helps that there’s so much magic on site you won’t want to leave.
Where?
In the Old Town of this coastal city — sandwiched between the ancient ruins on Castle Hill and towering yolk-yellow homes of the Savoy kingdom — and about a 20-minute taxi ride from the airport (a destination that’s an easy hop-on, hop-off hour and a half-long flight from London). Because of the narrow streets and people-filled alleys, there is no car access, so it does require a quick shuttle on a sophisticated bump-protected golf cart to get you and your bags to the hotel entrance. Or it’s a five-minute walk if you’ve packed light.
Style
If modern monastic had a look and feel, this would be it. Inside, Paris design-duo (and husband-and-wife team) Festen Architecture, worked carefully with owner Valéry Grégo and his brother Louis-Antoine within the creamy convent walls to keep the design spiritually simple but with enough going on for functionality and detailed storytelling. Amidst the original terracotta floors, caricature drawings and busts fill the corridors of the original U-shaped structure. With this, Festen added hearty woods and wide-sweeping beds draped in earthy linens, while bathrooms are more advanced with steel-framed shower doors that pair well with chunky-cut Carrara marble basins covered in mustard-yellow tubes of lotions created by La Bottega. Downstairs, glass vases are filled with exploding flower arrangements by Muse (the Montmartre anthophile) while breezy wrought chairs take over the restaurant terraces and thick-cut velvet boots and banquettes are bold in the bar.
Facilities
Deep down in the belly of the property are the Roman-inspired baths: a spa filled with a tepidarium, frigidarium and caldarium beneath articulated arches and natural light that floods in through open circular holes in the ceiling.
As it used to be for the nuns in the Order of St Claire in the 17th century, the hotel has kept the original bakery (you’ll find it by following the smell of fresh bakes) and herbalist shop in the cloisters. It’s worth a little mosey about the latter: led by local herbalist Gregory Unrein from Nice, he’s there to run through the scents and flavours, conjuring up wonderful tinctures and teas to bring home. The gardens are in their own category too, with every stone and seed considered. 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 sun beds around or checking on the fig trees.
Food & drink
The menu puts as much of its attention on the hotel’s roots as the decoration does. And when Grégo set out to bring in a chef for his kitchen, he found his guy on the 36th interview. His name will soon become known around the French food scene but for now, Thomas Vetele knows exactly how to whip up plates made with ingredients and produce almost exclusively from the convent’s farm an hour away in Touët-sur-Var.
Herby omelettes in the morning are a thing of beauty but at lunch, golden-crisp fritto misto at the more casual La Guinguette might come with spoon-thick lemon aioli while at dinner in the courtyard’s Le Restaurant, the menu spotlights a bring green pea tart, saucy piles of gnocchi with preserved lemon and the creamiest of rice puddings. All of course matched with a wine list so good, it’s 3,500 bottles long.
Which room?
Interiors obsessed will want to scoop up suites in the former convent: each with sparse decor but some with shutter sea views, vine-sewn terraces and so much space for dining, entertaining, or sofa sprawling while flicking through a book about Cézanne. I loved the tiniest rooms of the lot, the nuns’ cells. Beds reach from wall to wall but there’s real soul and spirit.
Best for…
Couples, solo travellers, workers from home, and families with tots in tow. It’s a hotel that is accepting, open, accommodating and spacious enough for everyone. Some rooms have their own kitchens if you’re here for the week. Do take note it’s also a collaboratively congregated hotel, with happenings, and lively events on the go often. So if you’re here for peace and quiet (which is entirely possible) it might be best to stake out a room in the newer wing, which is just out of reach of busy and buzzy courtyard scenes.
Rooms from £340; hotelducouvent.com
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