French Restaurant Review: Marlow, Monte Carlo

Who knew Monte-Carlo could deliver a decent British Sunday roast?

“I’m taking you to the new English restaurant in Monte Carlo for a proper Sunday lunch,” my childhood friend, Christy, announced. “It’s a very pretty dining room, and every once in a while a good, wholesome, uncomplicated meal is a bit of a treat,” she insisted. The half-English, half-Norwegian daughter of a former London magazine editor and a Norwegian oil man who grew up in Hong Kong before being transferred to the US, she’s lived in Monaco since she was widowed for the same reason so many other widows live there. If you don’t know what I’m driving at, let’s just say that the principality offers a convenient fiscality for the world’s wealthy.

The idea of a British restaurant run by the Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer was rather intriguing, though, especially when the website promised “a menu where traditional Anglo-Saxon cuisine is reinvented with mischief”. A little naughtiness at Sunday lunch sounded just fine, so off I went to meet my friend in Mareterra, a new quarter of the principality that’s been built on land reclaimed from the sea.

I love carveries and Sunday roasts, but I did wonder how this would work in bright Mediterranean sunlight in a very soignée brasserie designed by Franco-Mexican interior designer Hugo Toro. Christy awaited me with a Bloody Mary, and so I joined her, taking a sweeping look around the room to see that many of the customers were from the Middle East, a large number were also speaking Russian, and then there was a quartet of Barbara Cartland lookalikes and, well, us.

Our Sunday roast was pleasant, with nice slices of rare prime rib escorted by roasted potatoes and vegetables, the latter more French in execution than English, and Yorkshire pudding, with English mustard and horseradish sauce being available. Eton mess and lemon curd cake were a treat. The wine list runs heavily to very expensive Bordeaux, but overall, a good address if you find yourself in Monaco and missing Bournemouth.

N.B. They serve breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner here, so if you find yourself desperate for a good fry-up in Monte Carlo, this address delivers.

Marlow, Place Princesse Gabriella, Monaco

+377 98 06 14 00. Average €75.

www.montecarlosbm.com/fr/restaurant/marlow

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