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Monaco – The secrets of a true luxury stay – LUXE.TV

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Monte-Carlo doesn’t do subtle, and LUXE.TV spends a day proving it.

The August 2019 feature from luxury lifestyle network LUXE.TV drops viewers straight into Monaco’s Belle Époque core, tracing a single day through the Société des Bains de Mer’s flagship properties, the Place du Casino, and the boutiques and dining rooms that fill the gaps between them. It’s less a highlight reel than a walking itinerary — one that starts with unpacking luggage at a palace hotel and ends at the roulette tables under Charles Garnier’s 1863 ceilings.

• The Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo holds 278 rooms, 76 suites and junior suites, and 12 exclusive Monte-Carlo Diamond Suites, with its signature table, Le Vistamar, run by executive chef Jean-Philippe Borro under culinary director Benoît Witz since late 2018.
• The Place du Casino is anchored by three landmark institutions — the Casino de Monte-Carlo, the Café de Paris, and the recently renovated Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo.
• The tour includes the Monte-Carlo Pavilions in the Boulingrins Gardens, the waterfront Champions Promenade, and Loona, an independent ready-to-wear boutique whose clientele has included Victoria Silvstedt.

The Hermitage and Le Vistamar

The Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo is billed as one of the more intimate palaces on the Rock, and the numbers back that framing up against Monaco’s larger SBM properties: 278 guest rooms alongside 76 suites and junior suites, topped by 12 Monte-Carlo Diamond Suites reserved for the hotel’s highest tier of guest. Its culinary flagship, Le Vistamar, carries a Michelin star and looks out over Port Hercule and the Rock of Monaco from a panoramic terrace built for exactly that view. Jean-Philippe Borro took over as executive chef there in late 2018, working under culinary director Benoît Witz on a Mediterranean-driven seafood menu that has become the hotel’s calling card.

From the Hermitage’s lobby, it’s a short walk to the district’s showcase of Haute Horlogerie and haute couture — proof that in Monaco, the distance between a hotel suite and a jewelry maison’s window display is measured in minutes, not miles.

From the Pavilions to the Place du Casino

Just steps from the Hermitage sit the Monte-Carlo Pavilions in the Boulingrins Gardens — futuristic, temporary structures built to house luxury fashion, timepiece, and high-jewelry houses while the district transitioned toward the adjacent One Monte-Carlo development, which had opened in early 2019. The pavilions function as a placeholder showcase, but the brands inside are anything but temporary.

The walk ends at the Place du Casino, the nerve center of the Principality, ringed by three buildings that define Monaco’s public image: the Casino de Monte-Carlo, the Café de Paris, and the newly renovated Hôtel de Paris. The casino itself dates to 1863 and carries architect Charles Garnier’s signature through rooms like the Salle Europe and the Salle Médecin, the emblematic private gaming room built in 1910 by Monegasque businessman François Médecin. That room still houses its original cast-iron elevator cage, which once led directly to the Cabaret and now opens onto the Buddha Bar, an institution in Monaco’s nightlife since it opened in 2010.

Sea, Promenade and the Boutiques

Away from the SBM crown jewels, the feature slows down for Monaco’s other draws: exploring the sea depths off the coast, and walking the Champions Promenade, the waterfront path that honors international football legends. Shopping gets its own stop at Loona, described in the segment as a very young, independent ready-to-wear boutique trying to carve out its own identity against Monaco’s bigger houses — a boutique whose VIP client list has included model, actress and TV personality Victoria Silvstedt, who shopped there before a photo shoot at the Sporting Monte-Carlo.

The concept is simple: rediscover the real taste of seasonal products.

That line comes from Jean-Pierre Escande, owner of Sensais on rue de Portier, where the day’s gourmet detour lands — a square sesame bread and Italian cuttlefish salad with local citrus to start, followed by Piedmontese potato gnocchi with comté, roasted porcini in Madeira, and a Catalan picada.

Real Estate and Recovery

Monaco’s property market doesn’t take a season off, and the segment makes that case from the 42nd floor of the Odeon Tower — the Principality’s tallest and most luxurious high-rise — where Angela Kleiber of the Lorenza von Stein Agency argues real estate in Monaco still has plenty of room to run. Across the border in Menton, the itinerary catches Marie-Olga Charriol mid-shoot for a new campaign around her Les Débutantes bracelet collection, before the day winds down at the Thermes Marins de Monte-Carlo — nearly 6,600 square meters across four levels, with a 30-degree saltwater pool, a hammam, an outdoor jacuzzi, a cryotherapy unit, a restaurant, and a fitness center serving as the Hôtel de Paris and Hôtel Hermitage’s shared spa and wellness facility.

Readers hunting for more of what money buys on the water side of the Riviera can find it in a walkthrough of the 13.2M Super Yacht Tour: Sunseeker 116 Yacht, or a look at nine-figure real estate stateside in Inside a $65,000,000 Beverly Hills Ultra Modern MEGA MANSION — different coastlines, same appetite for square footage and a view.

By the time the cameras cut back to the Hermitage for the night, the day’s math is simple: one Michelin star, three landmark buildings on one square, 12 Diamond Suites, and a spa built across four floors just to help guests recover from all of it before doing it again tomorrow.