It took Nabil only 28 minutes to kill me.
It wasn’t what I expected from a simple visit to the gym. Especially on my last day at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, which, let’s remember, has “Eden” in the name.
But Nabil, the trainer on duty who sits in wait between seven and nine a.m. in a little glass box nestled in the Hôtel du Cap’s gardens, saw me coming. “For you, a fat-burning workout,” he said clinically. Before I knew what was happening, I was “warming up” on a treadmill. It was permanently inclined, positively mountainous, and after three minutes of suffering, I wanted to weep.
Things got worse. I’ve never done such rapid bicep curls in my life. I held a plank for eternity. I toggled between Technogym machines and movements—lat pulls, squats, things I don’t even dare to name—until my jellied quadriceps simply gave up.
This was not why I came here. The through line of the Hôtel du Cap’s 153-year history has been pleasure. It was a playground and watering hole for F. Scott Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Taylor, Ernest Hemingway, the Birkin-Gainsbourg clan, the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson—the bold, beautiful, and generally notorious. Any suffering that happened under its watch was purely psychological.
Until my tango with Nabil, I ate brioche instead of boiled egg. I drank Sancerre instead of Badoit. I became too friendly with the fromager, jubilantly commanding six different chèvres—but please, small pieces!—during my four-hour meal at Louroc, the Michelin-starred restaurant. At every opportunity, I scraped my plates and emptied my glasses. It was the only time I ever lifted a finger. For the first time in my adult life, I felt truly free.
The Hôtel du Cap—the grande dame of the French Riviera—is situated on 32 acres that occupy the most idyllic, pine-strewn corner on the coast of Cap d’Antibes. It has 111 rooms, three private villas, 540 staff members, and four restaurants (Eden-Roc Grill, Eden-Roc Restaurant, the Michelin-starred Louroc, and a new, casual Italian spot called Giovanni’s, named for an employee who has worked at the nearby cabanas for the past 47 years).
At every opportunity, I scraped my plates and emptied my glasses. It was the only time I ever lifted a finger.
As of this season, it has a straight-out-of-the-16ème Dior Spa, where one can enroll in a 14-day “hormonal balance bouquet” that will “regulate the organism” and “open the path to happiness” through a series of treatments. Those who prefer to pop in may enjoy a massage on a slab of marble that resembles a sacrificial altar. There is an Iyashi Dôme infrared sauna imported from Japan; it just might suck some heavy metals out of your skin. “Sometimes, the towel is black,” my therapist warned. (Mine, disappointingly, was not.)
But to call the Hôtel du Cap a “hotel,” or to call the Eden-Roc a “restaurant,” or the Dior Spa a “spa,” feels disrespectful and incorrect. The Hôtel du Cap is simply the Hôtel du Cap. It’s its own thing. Its own country, perhaps. Its benevolent leader is Philippe Perd, a convivial, cool gentleman in an exquisitely tailored suit that matches the sea. Instead of a constitution, it has Palace Attitude, Perd’s training protocol given annually to each employee. Among its tenets: never say no. Smile easily and often. Keep sunscreen and Ray-Bans within arm’s length. And sparkling water is never to be described as gazeuse. It is always pétillant.
I lived in this land for three days. I wasted away the afternoons on a lounge chair in Cabana 502, staring at the sea and gossiping with my girlfriends. Occasionally, we would summon a friendly young français in a striped Breton shirt and crisp white chinos to bring a bottle of something or other in a silver bucket. Occasionally, we would run off the platform and drop 20 feet into the Med. (Cabana 502 is home to one hell of a cold plunge.)
Everything is beautiful at the Hôtel du Cap, but that word, in this context, feels so common. Everything here was designed to inspire, from its serene interior design (recently refreshed by Patricia Anastassiadis) to its starched maids’ uniforms, to the way its chefs nestle an egg yolk in the center of artichoke leaves that are arranged to resemble a flower. Its resident goddess is the swimming pool, but her eternal rival is the Med. It invokes awe from every vantage point, especially during the cinematic walk (three minutes, more or less) down the Grande Allée.
The Hôtel du Cap love-bombed me. I stopped thinking about anything but my feelings for it. At some point, probably after yet another glass of sunset champagne, I realized that my interior monologue had devolved to, basically, Isn’t this spectacular?
The Hôtel du Cap love-bombed me. I stopped thinking about anything but my feelings for it.
I became delusional. I started believing that I looked very, very good in my ever shrinking bathing suit. As I finished an expertly mixed aviation at La Rotonde, a frescoed piano bar, a white-haired gentleman in tails and a tie played a deconstructed version of “Beyond the Sea” on the baby-grand. When he began to sing along, I almost sidled up to the bench and joined him.
At the Hôtel du Cap, life unfolds so easily, but to orchestrate this requires an exhausting amount of human effort. The hedges are manicured to the point of absurdity, but you’ll never spot a gardener. Palace Attitude is only the beginning of employee training. The Hôtel du Cap has its own proprietary software, called Glitch. When something unexpected happens—a guest finds his fish too salty—managers are notified immediately, at any hour of the day or night.
They toil so we can play. And we played and played and played. But as I went through the paces with Nabil, who suggested that he was going easy on me, I realized that the Hôtel du Cap is fundamentally a place of extremes. Everyone here, guests and staff alike, works hard and plays harder, without ever breaking a sweat. The Eres-clad marvels populating the pool may be eating french fries today, but tomorrow they’ll be back home on bone broth. Most of the time, they’re rescuing failing financial systems or puppeteering Hollywood or installing a shadow regime in a foreign power. They spend their pre-dawn hours with their very own Nabil. They will probably not taste another brioche until they return to the Hôtel du Cap. Same time, same suite, next year.
I’d like to say that the Hôtel du Cap is my kind of place, but let’s be real. It belongs to the bosses. (Mine, in fact, wrote the introduction to the book on its illustrious history.) On my flight home, to London, I was upgraded to first class, even though I have exactly zero status with British Airways. It wouldn’t surprise me if this happened because the Hôtel du Cap simply willed it to be so.
As I took my seat, 3A, everything was feeling a little tight. I did not eat the meal, even though the scent of gnocchi did its best to tempt me. Instead, I opened up my laptop and did what the Hôtel du Cap types would do. I got to work. But first, I ordered some sparkling water. Pétillant.
The writer visited the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc as a guest of the hotel
Ashley Baker is a Deputy Editor at Air Mail and a co-host of the Morning Meeting podcast
