French Restaurant Review: La Palme d’Or, Cannes

 
French Restaurant Review: La Palme d’Or, Cannes

A restaurant for special occasions, La Palme d’Or at the Hotel Martinez in Cannes has been taken over by the intrepid chef Jean Imbert who has delivered a superb experience for dinners.

The swashbuckling chef Jean Imbert, who in 2022 displaced Alain Ducasse from his long reign over the dining rooms of the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris, is on a roll. Every couple of months it seems like he’s named chef of yet another restaurant, yesterday one in Saint Barthélemy, today at new hotel The Lana in Dubai. One of most interesting recent new perches that Imbert occupies is La Palme d’Or at the Hôtel Martinez in Cannes. There is no doubt that this place needed a shake-up, since a dinner I had by former Martinez chef Christian Sinicropi was one of the most pretentious and least satisfying meals I had in 2022. So I met a childhood friend who lives in Monte Carlo for dinner at the restaurant with great curiosity.

Unlike most of the Martinez, which has been extensively remodelled since it became part of Hyatt’s Unbound Collection, the dining room looked pretty much the same, with the possible exception that the crowd wasn’t as chic as I’d remembered it. Unfortunately, Imbert continues Sinicropi’s irritating habit of writing a menu as though it were a film script, i.e. Opening Scene, etc., which strikes me as trying too hard to appropriate some of Cannes’s film festival glamour. What really mattered was the food, of course, and the reason we were there is because my friend had heard good things in the circle of eye-wateringly wealthy women she frequents as one herself in Monaco.

© ALDEHYDE, BOBY; REMI TESSLER DESIGN

Frankly, this didn’t make me very optimistic, since most of these women live in terror of gaining weight and are much more interested in new shoes than inventive cooking. Suffice it to say that my wariness was dead wrong. We had a superb dinner of beautifully executed contemporary French Mediterranean dishes, beginning with starters of local prawns in a fine gelée (aspic) of clarified seafood stock, sliced mango and marigold petals (as impressive to look at as it was to eat) and lightly grilled baby squid in a flirtatiously polite – i.e. the garlic had been turned down – persillade. Next, barbecued John Dory with a riquette (the local name for wild rocket) pesto and a casserole of shellfish and vegetables, and tuna belly with an intriguing sweet-and-sour sauce, preserved lemon, courgette flowers and mint-and-coriander tabbouleh. Both were elegant and exciting dishes absolutely appropriate for a big night out on the Riviera… The apricot soufflé with pine nuts that we shared at the end of the meal was sublime, and we had a good laugh when the waiter commented on the fact that it was very romantic for us to be sharing it, because we’ve known each other since we were five years old with nary a flash of erotic tinder between us. One way or another, the service was outstanding, and the wine list is one of the best in the South of France.This restaurant is expensive, but it’s also an ideal place to splash out on a special occasion meal, because Jean Imbert delivers an original and very impressive performance here.

Hotel Martinez, 73 boulevard de la Croisette, Cannes. Tel. (33) 04 93 90 12 34

From France Today Magazine

© ALDEHYDE, BOBY; REMI TESSLER DESIGN

Lead photo credit : © ALDEHYDE, BOBY; REMI TESSLER DESIGN

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Alexander Lobrano grew up in Connecticut, and lived in Boston, New York and London before moving to Paris, his home today, in 1986. He was European Correspondent for Gourmet magazine from 1999 until its closing, and has written about food and travel for Saveur, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, Travel & Leisure, Departures, Conde Nast Traveler, and many other publications in the United States and the United Kingdom. He is the author of HUNGRY FOR PARIS, 2nd Edition (Random House, 4/2014), HUNGRY FOR FRANCE (Rizzoli, 4/2014), and MY PLACE AT THE TABLE, newly published in June 2021.

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