Archive for September 9th, 2008

Club 55, “Cinquante Cinq” – St Tropez, France

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Plage de Pampelonne
Boulevard Patch
83350 RAMATUELLE – FRANCE
Tél.+33 (0)4 94 55 55 55
Fax.+33 (0)4 94 79 85 00

Club “Cinquante Cinq” is a lunchtime beach destination accessed by a narrow road, clogged bumper to bumper by high-ticket automobiles. The beach club is also one of the toughest tables to book for lunch in high season, which makes you wonder if it is all worth it—arriving by private yacht is far easier and certainly a more pleasant experience, but the booking problem remains the same. The beach club is divided between a main restaurant; while a white canopy-shaded beach bar is adjacent.
An overgrown bamboo forest is the backdrop to a Provençal beach bungalow with white canopies and lavish beach club jetting all the way down to the water’s edge where a wooden pier extends out a short distance. Huge yachts are anchored offshore and the occupants slowly arrive by launch.
It is interesting that Club 55 was once a ramshackle beach hut, where the Colmont family lived. By an accident of good fortune, they wound up catering for the cast and crew of the film starring Bridget BardotAnd God Created Woman” in 1956, and over the last three decades or so, became a sometimes destination for the more well-behaved and less boisterous element of the St Tropez crowd.

They have fresh wild salad and a menu that offers more interesting items, which is best accompanied by bottles of Provence rosé or rouge wine, at least this is what I experienced whenever dining there with a French friend of mine who never ordered from the menu. He usually finished the lunch by ordering a large pitcher of green apple sorbet with an entire bottle of Calvados mixed into it.

La Voile Rouge Beach Club – St Tropez, France (CLOSED BY POLICE)

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Route des Tamaris 83350 Ramatuelle France
Opening Hours: 11am-8pm, daily (Apr-Oct)

One of the most famous of the 30 odd beach restaurants along Pampelonne’s Beach, La Voile Rouge is a dining, drinking and must-be-seen expanse of sandy real estate about 60 meters in width. Yet, with such a worldwide reputation they failed to make their Miami branch work; it went bankrupt. A lounge, or mat rents for around $50 per and these prices are right in line with similar beach destinations on the Med. You should probably book a day ahead, for by midday during peak season Bastille Day to Sept 1 everything is taken tables, mats, everything!
The clientèle are more wild than chic and “bronzed nubile little things” carry irascible designer dogs and everyone drinks great quantities of Champagne that they take to spraying after time; what a terrible waste! I tend to have lunch late about 3:30pm as dinner is never before 11pm, to avoid the booking hassle.
Paul Tomaselli, owner of the club sometimes can be found playing backgammon, made famous in the west by Prince Alexis Obolensky, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in Palm Springs with Carlton Alsop, and later in other parts of the world. As an interesting bit of information, Carlton and his wife occasionally dined in one of the private rooms at Chasen’s Restaurant in Los Angeles accompanied by their two dogs (small) and in their bathrobes; they entered from their limousine from the rear of the restaurant. He used to consume a bottle of Champagne while having his hair cut at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and he did not spray one ounce of it!

RELATED LINK: Champagne Spraying Is Over At Voile Rouge, Closed By Authorities