COMO Le Beauvallon brings a restored Belle Époque palace back to the French Riviera, complete with a private boat to Saint-Tropez, a Yannick Alléno beach club and sweeping views across the gulf.
There are hotels that arrive loudly, and there are hotels that simply return to where they always belonged.
COMO Le Beauvallon is very much the second kind. Set on a private ten-acre estate above the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, the restored Belle Époque palace reopens as one of the French Riviera’s most compelling hotel stories of summer 2026: not a new-build fantasy of Côte d’Azur life, but a grand address with history in its walls, pines in its gardens and the sea always somewhere in view.
Originally opened in 1914, Le Beauvallon was once one of the Riviera’s most storied retreats, drawing names such as Winston Churchill, Colette and Audrey Hepburn. More than a century later, COMO Hotels and Resorts has brought it back with 42 individually designed rooms and suites, a serious culinary programme by Yannick Alléno, a beach club on the bay and a private speedboat that turns the journey to Saint-Tropez into an eight-minute ritual.
A Riviera address with real history
The setting does much of the seducing. COMO Le Beauvallon sits hillside, wrapped in palms, pines and rolling lawns, with views over the Gulf of Saint-Tropez and direct access down to Beauvallon Sur Mer, the hotel’s beach club.
This is the kind of Riviera geography that changes the mood of a stay. Close enough to Saint-Tropez to reach it by boat almost casually, but removed enough to feel like a private world. Guests can take a complimentary COMO speedboat across the gulf, while a second boat connects them to Pampelonne’s famous beaches. For a destination often associated with traffic, scene and spectacle, that detail alone feels like a small luxury revolution.
Yannick Alléno goes beachside
The most interesting new chapter may be culinary. Chef Yannick Alléno leads the hotel’s dining vision, with concepts running from breakfast to late evening. The headline is Beauvallon Sur Mer by Yannick Alléno, his first beach club restaurant, where Southeast Asian precision meets Mediterranean ease.
Expect a menu that does not play the expected Riviera card too safely: yellowtail tartare with peanuts and Thai basil ice cream, sea bass crudo with baijiu and green papaya, seared tuna with Kampot pepper sauce. It sounds polished, sunlit and just adventurous enough to make another salade niçoise feel unnecessary.
The beach club is the social centre
Beauvallon Sur Mer has been reimagined by French designer Dorothée Delaye, whose interiors bridge Belle Époque refinement with the relaxed glamour of the 1950s Côte d’Azur. Think wrought-iron curves, yacht-like marquetry, Riviera colours and a rhythm that moves from long lunch to late-evening rendezvous.
The beach club is open to both hotel guests and outside visitors, with two sea-facing dining areas, Le Rotonde lounge, a rooftop terrace and a DJ-led atmosphere as the day stretches into night. The 25-metre mosaic pool, however, is reserved for hotel guests, set beside a sandy sunlounging area with direct beach access.
And then there is the architectural surprise: the 2002 Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Toyo Ito, set in the bayside gardens. Against the sea, it gives the hotel an unexpected cultural edge, somewhere between Riviera fantasy and architectural pilgrimage.
Inside the hotel: art, light and private-house energy
Back in the main hotel, the Winter Garden offers all-day dining beneath a luminous glass ceiling, while the Riviera Terrace, designed by Paola Navone of Milan’s Otto Studio, turns cocktails and refined snacks into a viewpoint over the gulf.
The rooms and suites lean into the feeling of a private house rather than a conventional hotel. There are 42 in total, all individually designed, with many featuring works from the hotel’s contemporary art collection of more than 300 pieces. All 28 suites, including the signature COMO Suite, look towards the bay, while the Hillview rooms face the Provençal countryside.
COMO’s quieter kind of wellness
As expected from COMO, wellbeing is present but not overproduced. The hotel includes an intimate COMO Shambhala retreat with two treatment rooms, a fully equipped gym and daily yoga classes. It is the sort of wellness that fits the setting: restorative, expert-led and calm, rather than performative.
COMO Le Beauvallon starts from €840 per night and is accessible by land, sea or sky, with yacht moorings offshore and on-site helicopter landings.
TheHotelTrotter.com is curated by greek journalist and fanatic hotel lover Eleni Stasinopoulou. With the eye of a fashion and lifestyle editor, Eleni hopes to inspire all connoisseurs of traveling, focusing on stylish hotel moments around the globe.
