I've mentioned before that the best meals in France are usually found in its smaller villages, a theory that I've tested against the templates of Paris and San-Tropez. But one meal that I've returned to can be found just outside the latter, off the beach road that climbs toward Ramatuelle. Because a Club 55 is a place where the experience outweighs the food.
Plus it seemed the best place to enjoy a birthday lunch to celebrate LYL's 55th. The drive out was more of an adventure than we'd planned, as a missed turned led us higher and higher into the hills until the pavement fell away. Luckily we had chosen to take the Jeep Wrangler, which bounced and hopped over the rocks and deeper ruts. Light fell upon us between openings in the trees, and finally after one last hairpin, the shiny sea appeared and our tires once against kissed the tarmac somewhere above La Croix Valmer.
Arriving just inside the noon cutoff for a rented paillote at the beach, we were able to spread out our things and settle in beneath the shade of its fronds. Pamplona Beach was pleasantly quiet here in the back row, but there was a bit of action up beneath the umbrellas at the water's edge. It was still reasonably early in the season, a time when English remains the lingua franca, until the first of August when Paris empties out and heads south.
Our lunch booking came up quite quickly. LYL had made two reservations, one in her name and one in mine, unwilling to lose a table to a party of itinerant Russians as she had last year. We were led to a nice table beneath the spread of a low pine, a small forest of which helps to shade the beachfront terrace. (Cracks and fissures in the boughs also make for convenient cubbyholes for the waitstaff.) Neither of us were hungry so we chose a simple lunch of mussels, salade nicoise, and a platter of stuffed vegetables, and I had my token lunchtime glass of rosé. I'd had the mussels on a previous visit (as a starter for an under-cooked horse meat burger), and again found myself facing the familiar black mountain of astounding height, which I began then to scale, using as climbing equipment a single empty shell with which to extract the others. (For those more OCD, perhaps you could remove each new mussel with the shell of the previous.) As we ate, more and more diners came to fill the tables decorated with a simple beachside motif of white and pale blue. Our Parisian server was still in good spirits, though for how long remained to be seen, as he told us that Club 55 had 1000 reservations that day. Surely not all to celebrate the birthday of LYL?
We settled back under our paillote and read awhile, me refreshing myself with an espresso that the waiter brought. The beach was full now, revelers moving from bar to shade. It was funny to watch the younger people trying not to show the obvious pain from walking across hot sand, while others began to gradually pick up their pace the further on they went. I cheated a little by pouring water over my soles, then walking cool and slow like Lawrence of Arabia.
LYL had marveled at the deep blue of the Mediterranean as seen from the beach, but from within, the waters were a clear emerald green. I dove and bobbed then floated awhile, quite effortless due to the high salt content. Further out was the obligatory flotilla of pleasure boats, some as massive as naval vessels. Their owners would be shuttled by rubber dingy to the dock jutting just off shore in time for lunch. On their way back, a number of them would weave giggling, if they could stand at all after four too many glasses of Cristal.
We watched these, and eavesdropped discretely on others. Then three pm arrived, and we walked toward the jeep, moving back past the dining area now at the height of its frenzy. We had been wise to choose the early seating.
Wisdom too was with us in choosing the paved road home, though again we favored the high-road through Ramatuelle and Gassin. Top down, wind in the hair, we didn't need a birthday to appreciate another of the Riviera's long traditions: the siesta.
On the turntable: Bill Evans, "Undercurrent"
On the nighttable: Paul Webster, "Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Life and Death of the Little Prince"
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